3 November 08
Slogging Through the Rain
Numenius was in San Francisco two days this weekend, so I decided to spend Saturday walking precincts in West Sacramento. My job was to put a reminder to vote on the doorhandles of people who have been identified as Obama supporters but who have a low propensity to vote. It suggested who to vote for downticket and how to vote on propositions, of which there are the usual poorly written baker’s dozen for California.
It was raining. Warm, lovely, hard rain. I was soaked before I left Davis. Jeans-up-to-the knees soaked. The lists I had of addresses in a part of West Sacramento I’d never been to (demographic: heavily immigrant, lower-middle class, lots of Yes on 8 signs) were soaked too. I had foreseen this and made photocopies so I could turn in something legible.
GOTV GOTV GOTV, they say. Get out the vote. I don’t like doing this, it puts me way outside my comfort zone. But if Obama can stand in the rain urging people to get out the vote, then go and do it again in the next town, and the next — for all these days and weeks and months he’s been doing this — I can put up with a little going outside my comfort zone and get soaked. Nothing a change of trousers and a cup of chai couldn’t sort out.
I arrived back at Davis headquarters, a bedraggled thing, with my sopping-wet map and a smile. Crinkled fingers. I did it. They welcomed me with a smile and their own stories of a wet day.
This campaign has been so well-organized it’s frightening.
Hope. The world is watching, hoping…
you go girl – the first time anyone ever said that to me was in around 1980, an elderly waitress at a restaurant along the highway in nevada.
thanks for dropping by my blog and leaving a comment. i took that post down – think i was suffering from a rage-attack. i’m an anti-war-monger-er, and these times have provoked my ‘episodes.’ smile – thanks for doing what you’re doing, pica. i’m part of the hoping world. ~ k
We’re watching, Pica. Good luck to all of you!
Thanks from Australia, especially as you probably influenced Prop 8 a little!
Holding your hands with those damp wrinkled fingers, and hoping, hoping…
Fingers and toes crossed here! I was mightily encouraged to see slightly more Obama-Biden than McCain-Palin signs in people’s front yards in Athens, GA last week.
We have been watching in Scotland, well done on such a wonderful victory! Joe
I am so grateful to you and the many people who slogged through the rain to help elect Obama. I am so excited, no elated, that such a fantastic election has finished in such a wonderful way. So many of us could not do that kind of work, for various reasons, and I think of you with the bad back in a less than great neighborhood knocking on doors to get Obama elected. In the end without you, and your fellow door knockers he probably would not have made it. I owe you a big thanks for your effort to step outside your comfort zone to act on your beliefs. I am only sorry I did not have the same experience but I send you my love and thanks!
G
Good for you!
I stayed up all night to watch the results and the speeches – and drew a queue! :)
Wasn’t that a wonderful speech?
Big hug to you for your part in this wonderful victory!