Back in the Blue
Someone should point out that I should title this Back in the Green, but I've been back in Hanover land for a couple weeks now, so blarg to that! Plus this title is a little more in line with my day.
You see, I walked a few miles over the course of the afternoon knocking on doors of complete strangers to make sure they knew that Tuesday coming. I failed of course to ask if they brought a coat. You see, Tuesday is primary day here in New Hampshire. No no, not presidential primaries, those are always held when the ground is frozen and shortly after Iowan's get together to express some sort of preference every four years. This will be state and congressional primaries.
So I looked around a little and found someone I could endorse. So I'm going to vote for Annie McLane Kuster for the US congress primary. A few reasons (pro-choice, anti-war, tax cuts for the middle class but not the rich, interested in having a people focused campaign, isn't one of those 'my turn' types that her opponent seems very much to be... and a number of other things).
David N., aka Emo from the College Dems (he has since graduated), spotted me in the Novak café the other day and asked me to help. I had been meaning to do something now that I was back in town, and so said yes. So today I canvassed the east end of town south of Wheelock St. I did screw up once and had to back track a couple blocks as I missed one of the pages. But I contacted a couple dozen folks and reminded them to come and vote. While I was on the mountain, the campaign did most of the ground work of identifying friendly voters and this was just a reminder visit.
After the canvass/GOTV, our organizer host offered me lemonaid, then I went home, played some Ratchet & Clank (picked it up in Colorado used when I had some spare time), then went to 'Rocky', aka the Rockefeller Center. Indeed it is named after the former vice president. I went there as there was sort of a mini-ralley, thank you event for the volunteers and I actually got to meet Annie. She comes off as very nice, and knows her stuff, and is very interested in coming up with creative solutions to difficult problems. So overall impression is very good. I asked her to tell Dave Loebsack I said hi when she gets into congress.
She also told a funny but kind of sad story about her main opponent. Annie is very big on getting volunteers out and about and to get people involved with the campaign (means that if she screws up we won't come back when she needs us). Her opponent, Swett, has no volunteer base in the upper valley area. So Annie was surprised to be going down the road and noticing totem pole like signs for Swett. Her first though was 'maybe I was wrong about her not having many supporters around here, this could be bad'. But as they rounded the top of the rise, they saw that the people holding the signs were not a group of volunteers, but her opponent and a couple family members!
So instead of being out and meeting people, her opponent is hanging out in generally unfriendly territory waving a sign...
Amusing, but really kind of sad.
So yeah, back in blue, I'm back in the political game. Reading dailyKos all summer hasn't been a mood booster there due to the doom and gloom many have there these days, but being out on the ground certainly cheered me up a bit on it all. Meeting happy enthusiastic voters again is kind of refreshing. Not all democrats are demotivated. We can still kick some ass. Ass some kicks? Hmm...
You see, I walked a few miles over the course of the afternoon knocking on doors of complete strangers to make sure they knew that Tuesday coming. I failed of course to ask if they brought a coat. You see, Tuesday is primary day here in New Hampshire. No no, not presidential primaries, those are always held when the ground is frozen and shortly after Iowan's get together to express some sort of preference every four years. This will be state and congressional primaries.
So I looked around a little and found someone I could endorse. So I'm going to vote for Annie McLane Kuster for the US congress primary. A few reasons (pro-choice, anti-war, tax cuts for the middle class but not the rich, interested in having a people focused campaign, isn't one of those 'my turn' types that her opponent seems very much to be... and a number of other things).
David N., aka Emo from the College Dems (he has since graduated), spotted me in the Novak café the other day and asked me to help. I had been meaning to do something now that I was back in town, and so said yes. So today I canvassed the east end of town south of Wheelock St. I did screw up once and had to back track a couple blocks as I missed one of the pages. But I contacted a couple dozen folks and reminded them to come and vote. While I was on the mountain, the campaign did most of the ground work of identifying friendly voters and this was just a reminder visit.
After the canvass/GOTV, our organizer host offered me lemonaid, then I went home, played some Ratchet & Clank (picked it up in Colorado used when I had some spare time), then went to 'Rocky', aka the Rockefeller Center. Indeed it is named after the former vice president. I went there as there was sort of a mini-ralley, thank you event for the volunteers and I actually got to meet Annie. She comes off as very nice, and knows her stuff, and is very interested in coming up with creative solutions to difficult problems. So overall impression is very good. I asked her to tell Dave Loebsack I said hi when she gets into congress.
She also told a funny but kind of sad story about her main opponent. Annie is very big on getting volunteers out and about and to get people involved with the campaign (means that if she screws up we won't come back when she needs us). Her opponent, Swett, has no volunteer base in the upper valley area. So Annie was surprised to be going down the road and noticing totem pole like signs for Swett. Her first though was 'maybe I was wrong about her not having many supporters around here, this could be bad'. But as they rounded the top of the rise, they saw that the people holding the signs were not a group of volunteers, but her opponent and a couple family members!
So instead of being out and meeting people, her opponent is hanging out in generally unfriendly territory waving a sign...
Amusing, but really kind of sad.
So yeah, back in blue, I'm back in the political game. Reading dailyKos all summer hasn't been a mood booster there due to the doom and gloom many have there these days, but being out on the ground certainly cheered me up a bit on it all. Meeting happy enthusiastic voters again is kind of refreshing. Not all democrats are demotivated. We can still kick some ass. Ass some kicks? Hmm...