Poker Player Politics

[Content Disclosure: 35% Poker; 83% Politics, 19% Second-hand Worldly Observations]

I was playing a few evenings ago when the far end of the table began a political discussion. Down at our end there was general cynicism regarding all things political, so we were not going to lower ourselves to engage in the national political debate that was going on down there. Besides those turkeys had been winning all the big pots with straight flushes and full houses no less (it was an Omaha8 game).

So I basically got to eavesdrop on this discussion without having to offer my own six cents worth. The topic, of course, was the economic crisis, those banking bastards and those lazy politicians and absent regulators who didn't do their jobs. Right away I was ready to tune it out, I mean can't you recreate this same conversational rant from CNN, FOX, the watercooler, the unemployment line, the corner bar and your own dinner table. Yep, me too; but this one surprised me.

These guys were all 65+ and clearly retired locals, yet check out what I heard:

"No sense in being a Republican or a Democrat anymore, you gotta vote for the guy who is going to make the hard choices."

"I can't believe those news commentators going after Obama, what he has been in office for six weeks and all of this is his fault? I didn't vote for him but if I had known what he was going to do about the economy, I would have."

"...and how come the Republicans can vote like 80% for Bush givimg the banks $750 billion but 0% of them could vote for the Obama package?"

"What annoys me the most is that no one is going to go to jail for this, but a couple of hundred thousand people will lose their houses. Yeah, I know they overbought but the prices went way up when the financing got cheap... Hell, it wasn't cheap it was free!"

What finally wrapped the whole conversation was the admission by all four of the players that they had voted for McCain but three of them would go for Obama, if the election were held today. Interesting what you pick up at a poker table, if you just listen.