Sean C. Morgan
They have little common ground when it comes to politics, and they’re ribbing and jibing even reaches to such matters as the existence of bigfoot.
One will make his decision easily this year to vote for President Bush. The other has a more difficult time figuring out whom she will support. For her, she has no use for President Bush, but she doesn’t like the alternative any better.
Bob and Cathy Baird don’t talk politics much. He watches Hannity and Colmes. They even both enjoy Bill O’Reilly not that Cathy agrees with him, but they mostly steer clear of the presidential campaign and politics. They both laugh at http://www.jibjab.com’s “This Land,” with its liberal wieners and right-wing nut jobs.
They made an exception and talked politics on Friday afternoon.
Bob is a registered Republican and considers himself conservative. Cathy is registered independent and much more liberal.
“I question everything,” Cathy said. “He thinks Republicans are just right.”
Bob does not like liberals, and “I can say with 100-percent certainty, I do not like Kerry,” Bob said.
Neither does Cathy. She doesn’t like President Bush much, but she also doesn’t care for Bush’s opponent, Sen. John Kerry; and that’s the sticking point in making her decision for the Nov. 2 election.
Bob is a Vietnam veteran, and that is part of his distaste for Sen. Kerry, based on Sen. Kerry’s actions following the war.
The two met a couple years after Bob returned from Vietnam. They quit seeing each other for several years before getting together again in 1983 in Virginia.
Neither of them were particularly interested in politics at the time, and Cathy remains somewhat uninterested.
“Come to think of it, you’re the one that got me interested in politics when you got me to start listening to Rush Limbaugh,” Bob said to Cathy.
Cathy figures she’s changed quite a bit since then, when they lived in Redmond.
They had lived on the East Coast for years, and Bob wanted a better-paying job.
“He hated Virginia and its taxes,” Cathy said.
“I do hate taxes,” Bob said. “That’s why I’m a Republican.”
The couple moved to Redmond for a couple of years before returning to Virginia. They moved back to Oregon three years later and settled in Sweet Home. That was eight years ago.
Bob was born in South Dakota and reared in Colorado. Cathy grew up in Virginia. They have two children, Matthew, 10, and Sarah, 17, a junior at Sweet Home High School.
Of the three, Bob caught the second presidential debate.
“During the debate, his brother came over,” Cathy said. “I had to leave.”
“She was going somewhere anyway,” Bob said. “I keep tabs on things. I keep up on current events or political events more as far as the political events.”
“I don’t get involved in it as much,” Cathy said. “I have to walk out. He is steadfast, and he won’t listen (except) sometimes if I approach him right. But then I am too, but I feel like you should have choices.”
“We try not to (talk about it) because we always argue,” Bob said.
They both mentioned the gay marriage issue as an example, although Cathy said they had agreed not to even talk about that at all.
“I just have this real strong feeling that liberals are here to destroy the United States,” Bob said. Laws, rights and freedoms are slowly being disintegrated by organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union and its attacks on things like the 10 commandments in courthouses.
“I don’t know enough,” Cathy said, but her own interests really lie at the local level. She wants to know more about local government, such as the school board.
When it comes down to it, “I really don’t like Kerry.”
But she doesn’t like what President Bush has done in Iraq.
“Is it our right to go into another country and tell them how they’re supposed to (live)?” she asked.
Bob argued, “We didn’t go there to bomb the Iraqi people.”
“When I’ve seen him (Kerry) in the debates, I didn’t like the way he talks,” Cathy said. “He talks like a lawyer. They (Kerry and running mate John Edwards) don’t seem very straight-forward with their answers.”
The second debate, Bush was the better speaker, but being a good speaker doesn’t mean the person will be a good president, she said.
Bob talked about a coworker he has argued with for a couple of years.
“I asked him today, what is the reason you’re voting for carry,” Bob said. “He’s not Bush.”
Cathy doesn’t know if she wants to vote for Kerry just to knock out Bush, she said. When it comes down to it, though, she’ll probably end up just canceling her husband’s vote out with hers.
All is not lost in disagreement for these two. On at least on ballot measure, they will vote the same way. They both intend to vote yes on Measure 35, which will limit non-economic damages in malpractice suits.
“The suing is outrageous,” Cathy said.
“Probably, if we ever sat down and talked about it, we’d be more on the same page,” Bob said.
Or maybe not.
“He’s turning into his father,” Cathy said.