The Encounter

It's been happening more and more.
I wear a McCain button or a McCain tee shirt and total strangers come up to me to commend me and tell me they're voting for McCain.
I can't count the number of times this has happened. And it happens to others I know as well.
Today in the supermarket line a man with a foreign accent tells me that he's a proud American citizen and he's voting for McCain because "if you want communism, you can vote for the other guy." He calls Democrats "communists" because he says they want to deprive good, honest, productive people of their hard earned money -- they want to "take money from people who work and give it to people who don't want to work."
Of course, the view sounds extreme and maybe just a tad simplistic.
But then the guy tells me he's from Russia and he's so proud to be an American citizen. He says he lived under communism once and he doesn't want to live under it again. He admits that people in other countries may not like us "but they respect us." And then adds: "If they don't like the U.S., how come they all want to come here?"
He tells me he doesn't want everything turned over to the government because the constitution says "'We the people' not 'We the government.'"
"If I have to leave here, where would I go?" he asks. "Mexico? Canada? I don't want to live in those countries."
But he says he's not worried - not worried at all. And he predicts an easy victory for McCain.