Saying Something Nice About the Opposition Gives You a Nice Feeling

Posted by admin on 2008 October 30

When this election year started, I looked at the candidates and thought hardly any of them were all that bad. But as an election progresses and the rhetoric gets harsher and harsher, the mind locks up and hardens to match  accusation for accusation, put down for put down, defamation for defamation, scandal for scandal.

It gets to where you can hardly recall what on Earth made you think that other guy was even a decent human being, much less capable of running the US government.

So here’s an article where Bob Greene of CNN goes around asking people to say something good about the other candidate. He asks an Obama supporter to say something good about McCain:

“Seriously?”

Yes– something genuine that you like about him.

“He seems like a nice guy,” Michel said. “And his war record, of course. The heroic aspect of him.”

Anything else?

“He seems like his own man, not so much a part of the Beltway,” Michel said. “And I think he really wants to get rid of those nefarious lobbyists.”

And he asks a McCain supporter to say something good about Obama:

She hesitated.

“Well. . . .” she said.

She paused for a few more seconds, and then said:

“He’s a dreamer. I think he probably wants to make life easier for people.”

There. Easy as that.

Greene writes:

We were noticing something as we did this: The people, whether they supported McCain or Obama, seemed to be in a little better mood– in an observably more pleasant frame of mind– after they were urged to say something nice about the other guy. During a campaign year that has consisted of so many raised voices and ugly charges, they seemed to like this.

It’s a nice, uplifting article, and notice that none of the things people said are qualified - they didn’t cheat and say “but…”. You can read the rest of it here.