Unstoppable force meets immovable object

My second day canvassing I ran into Dave, a retired Teamster, who angrily told me: “I’m from Missouri. I can’t vote for that guy.” I thought about exploring the racial overtones of that remark, but instead mentioned that my grandmother was from Lake of the Ozarks. Dave warmed up quite a bit. “We used to vacation there.”
The more we talked the more it turned out that Dave’s big problem with the Democrats in general and Obama in particular is that they won’t drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge while Americans are suffering. He told about a young woman (I don’t know if she was someone he knew or someone he’d heard about) who couldn’t take her kids to the doctor because she couldn’t afford the gas.
His wife, who barely acknowledged my presence, came outside and gave him a jacket as we started to talk. Dave offered me a seat on his porch swing. I mentioned the environment, but Dave didn’t care about it. Why worry about the environment when people are hurting?
I pointed out that Obama and other smart Democrats know that, as long as we use more oil than we can produce, we are in trouble, and we can’t drill our way out of the mess we’re in.
But Dave would have none of it. The longer we talked, the more I felt he didn’t really want to learn anything, he’d never change his mind or agree with me about anything. He just wanted to talk with someone besides his wife.
Canvassing has nothing in common with a scientific survey, but my unscientific observations suggest that more than a few Cleveland doors have lonely people behind them.
I promised Dave I‘d call him with more information. He gave me his phone number.