Economic Realities (or, Why Republicans Should Be Voting For Kerry Too)

Today, as I was filling out a job application at a local restaraunt out here in East Texas, I noticed an older man walk in to apply. The rugged man look to be in his 40's; your average conservative blue-collar man wearing a baseball cap with lyrics from a country song on it, blue jeans, and a T-shirt. He quickly started up a conversation with a another, younger man like myself about how his company layed him off two years ago and hasn't been able to find work since. His story was not atypical: He had put a lot of years into the job, but it was all for-not, and he was told to he had 2 days to "get his shit out of there." As I was listening to this, two thoughts occured. The first was that while liberals and conservatives often talk a lot about the economy it terms of statistics, it is nice (or in this case, not) to see the reality of it all.  The second, was that this guy is probably a Republican, or at least, votes for them and unfortunately, probably still will in these upcoming elections. I have no doubts about why, it's for the same reasons people have been voting against their own economic interests for awhile - Republican talk of values, less government, and as Toby Keith (who's actually a Democrat) would put it, putting a boot in our enemy's ass. Of course, what it really means is that this man doesn't have a job anymore, in large part due to Republican's disastrous economic policies (it didn't used to be this way, but the Pat Buchanan wing of the party is all but dead). This particular thought continues to sadden me, because this is the kind of guy who should be on our side. But I have no idea if Kerry's economic message is getting through to people like this man, at least down here. Though I don't know if his particular job was lost due to outsourcing, the same basic principle remains:
 
Big companies have too much damn power in America and it is time we did something about it.
 
Republicans surely won't, but Democrats, with progressives at the grass-roots level like us edging them on, will. So I again think of what I said earlier, we should support the Texas Democratic Party's and Glenn Smith's DriveDemocracy Organization, and get pro-worker Democrats in and pro-corporate Republicans out. It will hard to turn back the tide after a decade of Republican control in Texas and on the national level, but we have to start somewhere. And we will start with guys like the one I met today.