so i saw this story yesterday and brought it up at the salon but wanted to work my way through my speed dial and then on through my friends and family plan. the story is about john kerry defending teresa heinz kerry.
could teresa have hurt his chances? at the salon nearly every 1 agreed she was a deciding factor in voting for him. there was 1 woman there who voted for bush. after she got her hair feathered, we kind of understood why. feathered?
so i'm working my way through my calls and it hits me: some 1, a smart ass no doubt, will say 'oh rebecca you are just 1 of those blue state northerners. you don't know anything 'bout the south.'
so i call my aunt and get the number of my third cousin melinda. i know many people in the south. all good, strong liberals - don't believe the stereotypes. but i chose melinda because she is the southern stereotype. her husband has a gun rack on his pick up. their last big event was a toby keith concert. they do not live in a trailer park. they live on a relatives 'back forty' in a trailer. as janeane garofalo says in romy & michelle, there's a difference.
so get melin on the phone and she's watching her 'stories' so i call back after all my children goes off. after 20 minutes of hearing the latest about the goings on in pine valley, i ask her about teresa heinz kerry. now understand melin and terry voted bully boy.
'you know, i liked her, i really did. she had spunk and we don't go for the shrinking violents around here. laura's nice enough but she's so white bread. she's got that uppity streak to her too, you know what i'm saying? you can just tell. like she's never going to let george forget that he married up the brain chain. now those girls, they humanize her because you can just tell that she's waiting for the cameras to turn off so she can scream at jenna and the other 1 about putting on a bra or shoes. but you just get the feel that she's got all these issues and stuff that not even good dr. phil could straighten out cause she's always got to dim her own light to avoid outshining george. but teresa, that girl's a pistol. every time i heard about something she said or did, like when she told that jerky reporter to 'shove it' i'd be thinking 'you go, girl!' she was real. now you know i couldn't stand that husband of her's but teresa was real. even terry liked her and you know he's pretty much hated every wife of a democrat since lady bird and lyndon moved on back to texas.'
well what about her friends, did they hate teresa?
'well becky, she hated teresa. now see, ever since her abortion, becky has been doing the pro-life thing overtime cause jimmy don't know about it and i swear it's a ticking time bomb and just a matter of time before somebody opens their trap and let's it slip. not me of course. i mean, bless her heart, she's got enough problems what with jimmy's drinking and her drinking and that affair she just ended with travis. but other than her, all the gals i hang out with liked her. some of them would say like about how she used to be a republican and probably just changed parties to help her husband. so they'd use that as an excuse to justify talking nice about her. but i didn't come across any 1 outside them church freaks that just hated her. now our preacher was preaching against her and the church freaks were just doing double time to march behind him.
but you're talking about the ones who still claim dick nixon had the mark on the beast on him and was the bastard child of fdr so nobody takes them seriously.'
so why did you vote for the bully boy?
'well you know terry's step-son is off over there in iraq. and i just didn't buy what kerry was saying. i mean i don't know that the war is right or wrong but i'd love to see our boys and girls back home. but if kerry's going to do the same thing. i mean they're over there or they aren't. it's not that difficult. if he would have said 'vote for me and i will bring them home' i would have voted for him. but if he's just going to continue george's war that just says to me that we got 2 georges and i might as well stick with the 1 i know, you know? terry said the same thing, said they were 2 of kind so let's just stick with george.'
general hospital was about to come on so melinda had to get off the phone.
now melinda's just 1 person but she lives in a small town that's the stereotype of the south. the other people i know from the south live in big cities and it was not a red-state-blue-state split. if you lived in a urban area you were more likely to go for kerry. if you lived in a rural area, you were more likely to go for bush. and melinda and terry fit the stereotype most people have of the bush voter.
i was glad to hear what melinda said and i was glad to hear john kerry sticking up for his wife.
