No Runny Eggs

Be Careful, be careful, be caaaaareful!

Those are the words you hear sung in “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” as Mr. Limpet is looking longingly off the dock at Coney Island wishing to become a fish.   If you haven’t seen the movie, do so.   It’s a Don Knotts classic and he does become a fish.

The same words keep singing in my mind as I hear the gleeful banter from Republicans and Team McCain as they court and prod the PUMAs.

Perhaps the most recognizable PUMA, at least in the upper Midwest, is Debra Bartoshevich.   Debra is from Wisconsin, and is a life long Democrat. She was elected to be a delegate to the Democrat Convention. She expected to be there to support Hillary. Once she found that Barack Obama would be the presumptuous nominee and she would not be able to support Hillary, Debra changed her allegiance and became a McCain supporter. Debra is the lady who made this ad for Team McCain:

Here is Debra explaining why she decided to support McCain.   It’s a long video but you need to watch it to understand my concern:

Debra explains her switch by saying that she believed Hillary to be the best leader and agreed with her positions. However, when the choice became Barack, she didn’t think he had answers for the problems. I remember watching numerous Democrat debates tossing live blogging quips back and forth with Mr. Eggs, trying to figure out what the policy differences were between Hillary and Barack. The only one we could see was that one wanted an absolute mandate for all people to be in their health program and the other was going to “Make you an offer you couldn’t refuse!” Somehow, Debra has gone down the policy checklist that she had for Hillary and is not able to see that Barack had almost exactly the same. Somehow, she now sees John McCain’s checklist as matching hers. Debra strikes me as a nice lady but there seems to be some logical dishonesty in her thinking. Which brings me to my other observation and my real concern.

As I watched the nearly 9 minute clip of Debra’s interview, it was clear that she was very passionate about politics. I don’t mean this deragatorially but she was emotional about her experience with the Wisconsin Democrat party and her subsequent choice to support McCain; and that’s the problem with the PUMAs.

If the PUMAs are intellectually honest they will say that Obama’s policies are the same as Hillary’s. But they’re not intellectually honest. You heard Debra say that she thought McCain’s military record was impressive. Did I miss Hillary’s impressive military record?

The fact is, the PUMAs are making their decision emotionally. That emotion is going to peak this week as Barack Obama moves from the presumptuous nominee to the presumptuous Presidential candidate. From Friday morning until election day, unless, and it could happen, Barack or his team dis Hillary along the way, the emotion of the PUMAs will ebb. How much, I don’t know.

Let me say that I view beating Barack Obama as an imperative. The damage done to this country if he served for only four years could haunt us for generations. To that end, I welcome and embrace every PUMA or anyone else that will vote for McCain. My concern is that I see some Republicans getting giddy over the thought of corralling the PUMAs.

If Team McCain builds an election strategy that depends on the PUMAs, including moving to the center on issues or choosing a pro-choice candidate, he runs the risk of losing an election that I believe is now his to lose.

The PUMAs are at their peak now. It’s possible that they stay mad right through the election. My bet though is that on election day, the PUMAs will be as reliable in voting for McCain as the under  25 crowd will be voting for Barack.