i'm not interested in changing anyone's mind -- unless it was dead from the get go and i can give it a jump start. :) likewise, i enjoy it when someone can flip the "on" switch in my brain in areas previously darkened.
where politics is concerned, it seems like a sporting event. it's pretty much all been done in, say, baseball. there are the strikes, the hits, the catches. there are the rules that have always been the rules. occasionally one will be modified, but it's still basically just plain baseball.
the only thing "different" is the heights and depths the players can reach or fall to, as individuals or as a team. the players change, but they are confined to the same rules, the same equipment, etc.
so i don't expect much to change in politics. i don't even expect much from the players in that game. baseball can still thrill me; politics... eh, not so much.
what i DO enjoy about politics, though, is the way it stirs people up. it gets the juices flowing, the gumption jumpin', etc. sure, it's often just the same old armchair pitchers, so to speak, making the same coulda woulda shoulda commentary -- whatever makes their team look stellar and the other look like crap.
but every now and then a new thought will come along -- not a couldawouldashoulda, but a veritable, bonafide "what if" or "why." it might blow away in the wind like a tangy mustard burp, but every now and again one will fall like a seed, and in time something will grow from it.
the fact that this nation was built upon a "what if" and a "why" gives me hope that other ideas can take root and grow up into something great as well.
until then, there's still baseball. :)