HUGE fight with my father tonight - and I feel awful

[phylny]

My father is a Republican, but mostly it was from pragmatic necessity, as he lives on Long Island where years ago, you needed to be a registered Republican to get anything done for yourself with the powers that be. He voted for Kerry in the last election, but the last time he visited, and on the phone tonight, he said he's voting for McCain, even though he was/is a Hillary supporter.

The reasons are straight out of a Republican wet dream:

1) "I don't know where all his (Obama's) money is coming from." I explained that it's from small donations, he doesn't believe it.
2) "Those news people crucified Hillary." How is this Obama's fault? He ranted on and on. Dad, Obama and Hillary are practically identical in their views and voting record. How could you go from that to McCain? See point 3.
3) "I don't trust him." I know this is not an issue of race, because we weren't raised that way.
4) "That poor girl (Bristol) is being smeared on TV." Dad, that's not Obama's doing, he said to leave family and children out of it. "He said what he's supposed to say." But Dad, don't you see that they advocate no sex education, so if a teen has sex outside of marriage, they don't know how to prevent pregnancy and the grandparents or the state has to support the child? No answer to that one.
5) "That lovely woman is a mother! She's raising her baby with that disability. She didn't get an abortion!" Oy vey. I'm a mother, too, but I'm certainly not qualified to be president.
6) "I don't hear him (Obama) telling me anything about what he's going to do." Dad, it's on his website, I'll print it and send it to you.
7) Dad, it'll be 4 more years of Bush. "I don't believe that! McCain's different." Dad, he voted with Bush 90% of the time! "Yeah, and Obama probably voted with Bush 85% of the time."

Okay, I made a few errors in this conversation, because I couldn't believe what was coming out of his mouth. Yeah, I called Palin a bimbo, that wasn't right, and I don't easily use that word. Yeah, I told him that the Republicans were praying for rain, and they got a hurricane, but in the wrong week. I was irrational and inflammatory, too, once I realized that he was serious.

I'm sick, partially that he's sucked into the Republican's hateful web, but more so that I lost it, too.