Respect can bridge the gap between GOP, Democrats

Our older daughter called one recent Sunday evening immediately after seeing Michael Moore’s film, “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

“You’ve got to get Dad to see it,” she breathed into the phone.

It’s been an ongoing campaign for our two daughters to persuade their father to vote against President Bush in the next election. As their dad goes, so goes the country, their reasoning seems to be.

I’m beginning to understand what those Civil War families must have gone through, the ones with one son fighting for the North and the other for the South. If everyone else’s relatives are like ours this summer, American families won’t need to remember to stir the cayenne into the deviled eggs. The reunion itself will pack plenty of heat.

My parents, for example, regularly cancel each other out in the voting booth.

My father grew up listening to the Republican and Democratic national conventions on the radio with his father. There’s nothing wrong with this country, Grandpa Tobias always thought, that the American Legion and voting a straight Republican ticket can’t solve. As an adult, the more my dad thought about Republican platforms, the more they made sense to him.

My mother’s vote hinges on her level of outrage at the incumbent (she hated Bill Clinton’s philandering, but abhors President Bush’s having misled Americans into war in Iraq) and her stance on issues such as “women’s rights, freedom to choose abortion when absolutely necessary, the needs of the poor and care of the environment.” They’ll vote differently again this fall.

But not before they celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this summer.

Like this country, with its colorful, feisty and widely varying opinions, theirs is a union that has lasted.

Last week, the Democrats and the Republicans roared into Iowa to paint their alternating red-white-and-blue versions of reality. Both campaigns forge on through an election year that seems to have more rancor, more partisan attacks and more intensely negative energy than most of us can remember since the Vietnam War.

This can’t be good for the republic. Or the democracy. Whatever you choose to call our imperfect union.

It’s time for a bit of marital advice for this sniping, battling and backstabbing country of ours. Surely we can take a few cues on relationship building from the arena where unbridled warfare does the most damage.

Dr. John Gottman, the University of Washington’s famous marriage researcher, has discovered four warning signs that a marriage is in trouble. He calls them “The Four Horsemen of the apocalypse.” They are, in order of severity, criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.

Surely our apoplectic talking cable heads are the best indication that the national Apocalypse is nigh. Tightly wound candidates, and their wives, also display a level of contempt that can’t be binding up the wounds that afflict us.

But Gottman has advice for unhappy couples. When they find themselves midargument, he recommends changing the subject, lightening the mood with humor, switching to a caring remark about the partner, backing down, taking a break to cool off, and “making it clear you’re on common ground.” The key there is to frame the battle this way: “This is our problem.”

That’s what battling Americans need to do — recognize that many serious questions must be addressed, the nation’s problems belong to all of us, and we must start treating one another with respect.

Like a family full of individuals with widely varying opinions, or a 50-year marriage, the country needs to find a way to bring people together, to tone down the rhetoric and to remove personal attacks from the conversation. We need to continue the discussions, but avoid going for the jugular. The future of the union depends on it.

Debra Rice of Spokane comes from a long line of enduring unions. She and her husband Jeff share the same anniversary date, June 25, as her parents, sister and niece. Her parents, Don and Nona Kimpel of Spokane celebrated their 65th anniversary this summer.

They screen potential mates heavily for politics in their family, but Debra says while they all vote Republican, religion can be a touchy subject. They also have friends and other relatives who plan to vote for John Kerry. Rice believes in using humor and gentle acceptance to keep family reunions on keel.

“You tolerate it,” she says. “We don’t discuss it much. Otherwise it kind of ruins the get-together.” My parents have their own way of not letting politics divide them.

“I guess what it comes down to is that we respect each other’s right to have our own opinion without destroying our relationship. You can only talk about issues like politics about so long before you have to ‘agree to disagree’ and then not discuss it further,” my mom says.

My dad, whose hearing aid can always be turned off, also has a practical tip: “Just tune each other out.”

And so it goes, here in real life, at my family reunion and yours this summer. In the end, we fall back on selective hearing — and love.

A week ago, our daughter sent another e-mail to her dad listing President Bush’s failings. She followed up with a phone call.

My husband claims he’s still undecided.

But as his fellow empty-nester, I’m beginning to suspect his stance. There could be a method to this fatherly madness.

After all, this fine strategy all but ensures that his beloved first-born daughter will continue to shower her dad with phone calls, e-mails and lavish attention — right up to Nov. 2.