We are free to pick our politics and vote for whomever, but folks should be prepared to defend their vote. For me, it’s much harder to defend a vote for McCain than it is for Obama. Ultimately, that’s why I’m voting for Obama.

Recently I watched “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist campaign for McCain in the Upper West Side neighborhood of New York City. The “Morning Joe” folks were shocked by the reaction towards Geist. However, those residents of the Upper West Side have weighed the evidence and facts and made a clear determination that is easily defendable. After eight years of a George W. Bush presidency, and witnessing the McCain/Palin circus, people are disgusted. As a result, I thought it was silly for the “Morning Joe” folks to confuse dissent with closed-minded partisan politics. Just because people strongly disapprove of maverick politics (especially since maverick politics have ruined this country), it doesn’t make them closed-minded partisans, elitists, or tying to be intellectually superior. Ultimately, it was a poor political experiment, and Willie Geist, I’m putting my country first by voting for Obama (actually I cast my vote early). From MWC News, Canada:

The thing is, if this was supposed to show how nasty people were toward poor Willie, it simply didn’t rate. The harshest comment I saw was someone who told Geist to “change his politics”.

Geist should join me in Virginia, where I have been for the past two weeks. I encounter a mix of Obama and McCain supporters when I make phone calls and put up Obama signs, but I can tell you that the McCain people are a bit less polite than Geist’s craven New Yorkers. Here are a few examples. When I was putting up an Obama-Biden sign in McLean, one driver going by screamed “socialist”. Another driver gave me and my companions the finger. One of the guys I was putting up signs with told me a number of them had been defaced with racial epithets. When I made my first voter identification phone call last week, I spoke to a woman who said abortion was like the holocaust and Jesus would be deciding her vote for her. A fellow phone banker reached a voter who cheerfully said “fuck you”.

(This is not to say that I am not reaching Obama supporters–there are plenty, and I am cautiously optimistic about Obama. But the McCain people are often something less than polite).

It may be fun for the Morning Joe crew to bring the hype on elitist New Yorkers, but, in my experience, McCain supporters can be pretty “pissy”.

This YouTube video interestingly compares folks from the Upper West Side in Willie Geist’s microdocumentary with McCain/Palin supporters in Pennsylvania: