"No-bama!"

Last week we watched a documentary in class called “Right America: Feeling Wronged – Some Voices from the Campaign Trial”. The documentary is made by filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi. During the Presidental election she took a road trip to meet some of the 58 million people who voted for John McCain. In the documentary you can hear the voices of some Republicans who talk about why they so strongly believe that John McCain is the only right person for the job as their President.

“No-bama!”, “No-bama!”, “No-bama!”.
The message is clear: Obama is not the right man to rule America.
This is if you are to believe the people in this documentary. They have a lot of different opinions on why John McCain is the only one who's qualified for the job. Many people in the documentary are very extreme, and some of them have offensive comments about race and gay people. It is therefore important to remember that they're not representing all Republicans.

Many of the republicans in the documentary are very religious, and they are therefore very active in the abortion- and gay marriage- discussions. I was surprised to see that a priest in Georgia encouraged the people in his church not to vote for Obama. He use the issue of abortion to argue why he doesn't want the people to vote for the Democrats, and I think that it is a bit disturbing that a priest, who is a role-model and adviser for a lot of people, bring politics into the church. I felt like he was saying that if you didn't vote for Obama, you would go against the church and God's will.


A campaign volunteer for the Republican Party, Elaine Tornero, walked around in her neighborhood during the election campaign trying to get voters for the Republican Party. She is very religious and in the documentary she says «I hope there is enough christians in the world to save us». When she finds out that her neighbors are lesbians, she says that she doesn't want to go over there because she's «too afraid to get into a fight with her neighbor». This obviously mean that she think that because of their different opinions, her going over there will end up in a fight. It seems like she have huge difficulty accepting other people disagreeing with her. I think that religion is her most important reason for voting for McCain because he is for example against abortion and gay-marriage. She even says that «we need a pro-life president who is for the unborn». But what is really “pro-life”? Is it just giving a unborn the opportunity of life, or can it be to give two men who love each other the right to marry and make their life easier and happier?

Another reason some of the Republicans gives for not voting for Obama is the terror attacks and the fear of foreign attacks. Some of them believe that Obama will not manage to defend the country, and one man even go as far as claiming that if Obama is elected President it will not only be more terrorist attacks, but there will also be war in Europe. Others think that because of Obama's life (living in Chicago and going to Harvard) he doesn't have the knowledge to represent the “average American” - the “real American". They don't think that Obama has experienced the “other side” of America outside of the cities, and they think that an American President should be one of the people – one of the “real Americans”.

I think the documentary was very interesting. I have not read that much about the Republican Party, and especially not in this way where we see their side of the story during the election campaign. I think it is a bit funny to watch how everybody express their feelings and argue for their case. It is also funny to see how it seems like they all feel that they are the only one who understand what need to be done in America and that everybody else just don't get it. Being active in politics, and especially during a Presidential elections gives a feeling of belonging because you joine a community in a way, and I think this is showed in the documentary. It is great to be active and to care about something like politics when you are joined by so many others, and I think that some of the people in the documentary don't really know what the party they are voting for stands for. One funny example is the boy who supported McCain and said that Obama was for “socilism”.

You can watch the entire documentary here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5