A Visit to the OC Fair — a Tale of Bitter Republicans

With my daughter in Florida and my wife working late, I took my son to the Orange County Fair last night.  He had a clear destination in mind — to the DPOC booth to get information on starting a Democratic Club at Northwood High next year and getting his friends registered to vote (yes, I’m weepy just thinking about this). Plus Art Pedroza is boycotting the Fair for some perceived slight to Latino families who were out in force Thursday night.  So much for following Art’s lead I guess.

Once we found it, there was a guy hasseling the two volunteers there, railing on the president.  So, we got into it.

“Obama is a socialist,” he said.

“I’d be happy if he were simply a liberal,” I counterd.

This degenerated into a discussion about the economy and how it was all Bill Clinton’s fault for passing NAFTA and “that’s why all the Mexicans want to cross the border.”  I reminded him NAFTA was initiated under President George H. W. Bush and that Mexicans have been crossing the border long before NAFTA, getting amnesty from President Reagan in 1986.  More railing from this guy on Bill Clinton.  “Oh, to be trapped in Clinton’s economy,” I retorted.

Then the exchange got nasty.

more after the jump…

“You want everyone to be equal?” he asked.  Sensing a trick question, I responded, “I want everyone to have equal opportunity.” He then informed me that wasn’t what I wanted.  Really?  I think I know my own opinion.

“We need to take our country back,” he said.  “From what?” was my answer.  

“If we keep following this guy…,” he said pointed to the cut out of President Obama, ” He’s nothing more that a Communist!”  Nice to know Red Baiting is never far from OC.  At that point, the discussion had descended into a “yes he is” “No he’s not” argument where the man and his wife left, leaving these two volunteers alone. 

I decided at that point it was time to go hassle the folks at the Republican Party of OC’s booth. They had lots of “Ed Royce” fans and photos of all the GOP congressmen from OC districts in the booth. Turnabout is fair play.

A sign at the booth, “say No to Socialism” is what got me started.  We had a brief exchange on the need for healthcare, Ronald Reagan’s record, and earmarks, which of course they didn’t see things my way.  My goal frankly was to inflict the experience upon them that the first gentleman did to the volunteers at the DPOC booth.  It worked.  They got mad. At me, which is what I wanted.

In short, I to asked to leave, but before I did, a gentleman at the booth said to me that everything President Obama was doing was similar to what Hitler did in Germany before the rise of the Nazis.  Really?  Really!  Obama is rounding up Jews and burning books?  I had no idea. And this from a volunteer in the GOP booth?  How many other OC Republicans feel this way?

So to review, the president is a Communist and is mirroring Hitler.  And we hadn’t made our way to the livestock pens yet to see the sheep or the swine.  But we have a prettygood idea where the jackass booth is.