So last night, Mom and I are gathered around my kitchen table, while I get whomped on in Scrabble (Mom is an Olympic-level Scrabbler, and I always lose, even with a fricking Master’s In English Literature and Creative Writing!!!! Sorry, Scrabble rage), and I return the whomping somewhat at checkers. I happened to check my Talking Points Memo “Poll Tracker” app, and mentioned “Oh, it looks like Trump’s 10 points down from Hillary...” and what she said next made me literally drop my phone!

“Good! I hope Hillary beats him!”

This was the same woman who practically raised me on Hillary Hate (well, that was more Uncle Bob with the Hillary Hate meter pegged to 11, but Mom was never a fan of “the liberals” either). She’s never said a kind word about Hillary Rodham Clinton to me in my entire life.

“Wow, Mom! That’s a surprise! I thought for sure Trump would be your kind of guy!”

Mom frowned at that and said “I was interested in him and watched some of his speeches. It was all hate all the time. And he’s got zero experience at running any kind of government. Why would anyone think a reality TV star would make a good President?”

She then asked me “How did the Republicans elect him?” (She voted for Ted Cruz, by the way.)

I explained about the 16 other candidates having the same positions as Donald, but just not as bat-crap crazy about it as him. They also split the vote against the 35% of Donald, who was basically the last guy standing. And she got full well that racists and bigots gravitate to the man, and are attracted to the message of hate.

I then asked her if she knew that Hillary was a Christian (Methodist! That’s ALMOST Baptist!) and had also been part of a Bible study group in the Senate and that she used to have the respect and admiration of MANY GOoPers in the Senate before she started running for President.

Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer." Clinton's faith is grounded in the Methodist beliefs she grew up with in Park Ridge, Illinois, a conservative Chicago suburb where she was active in her church's altar guild, Sunday school, and youth group. It was there, in 1961, that she met the Reverend Don Jones, a 30-year-old youth pastor; Jones, a friend of Clinton's to this day, told us he knows "more about Hillary Clinton's faith than anybody outside her family."

www.motherjones.com/…

And then that Tim Kaine was a devout Catholic who spent a year as a missionary to Honduras. Mom is Baptist or Pentecostal but of course appreciates a man or woman of faith, and especially, missionary service.

But the Hillary Senate prayer group info and Tim Kaine’s missionary work were just the icing on a cake that Mom had already sat down to eat. She was voting more anti-Trump than pro-Hillary, but she made a point to say: “Hillary will make a fine President. At worse, she’ll be bad but Trump would be something this country has never seen before.”

Mom dismissed a 3rd-party candidate vote as a wasted vote: “We have two parties. You can’t get out of it by cheating.”

I asked her about the liberal Supreme Court Justices Hillary would appoint (as if that were a bad thing):

“We already got Obamacare and abortion! And your sister had one back when… [long sordid tale that is its own diary about a 15-year old girl abused and pregnant, forced to make a choice or be disowned by the preacher/missionary dad...] Mom is as fervently pro-life as is possible for a human that I personally know can be, yet still drove my sister to that clinic, and would prefer to never mention it again. Yet she mentioned it last night to indicate that that battle (abortion) had already been fought and mostly won by the liberals and she didn’t mind---at all--Hillary appointing 2 or 4 more Justices. This time, my jaw dropped, instead of my phone.

I asked Mom about her friends as well. “Not a one is gonna vote Trump. They’ll stay home Election Day.”

The plural of anecdote is not data. But if Mom is any sort of barometer at all, President Hillary Rodham Clinton will win by a landslide! (Having said that, probably NOT in “What’s a Matter with Kansas?” Kansas. Last time Kansas voted D for Prez was 1964 and then 1936 before that.) Regardless, Mom and at least a couple of her friends that will vote, will be voting for Hillary.

Last quotable from Mom: “I think people would have had a problem electing a woman just a few years ago. But not now, and especially not Hillary. Do you think that people will give her a hard time for being a woman?”

Love you Mom, and thanks for the strict Republican and Christian upbringing that I mostly have thrown off, but yes, unfortunately they will give her a hard time for being a woman. And she’ll give it right back!

Give’em hell, Hillary! (Sorry for the swear word, Mom!)

SciFiGuy

Steve Sink, Paigan Productions

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