You Say Telemarket, I Say Phone Bank

September 26, 2008 in The Way It Were
Tags: barack, obama, phone bank, telemarket

As much as I hate an interrupted dinner by way of odd political solicitation, inflicting the same solicitation is even less rewarding.

Within no fewer than 50 phone calls to Colorado, one of the few Western swing states, I actually talked to three voters. After announcing that I was a volunteer for Barack Obama’s “Campaign for Change” — that’s the script, like it or not — I got as far as “Campaign” before hearing a click, then a dial tone.

Of the rest, one man was already an Obama supporter, and the rest were either wrong numbers — some of those were more like “wrong numbers,” as in the times I asked if Sasha was home and Sasha said she wasn’t — or chose to let their answering machine take on the call.

We don’t leave messages in Colorado, and I think Coloradans know that.

Into Enemy Territory

September 18, 2008 in Personal Reflection
Tags: camp, candidate, mccain, obama, party, third

In reading my latest non-fiction conquest and 848-page blunt object, I noticed one similarity among presidents since Reconstruction. Most of the really effective presidents, and all of their really effective cabinet members, were involved with politics from an early age.

If I listed all the presidents who canvassed for, stumped for or simply outspokenly supported presidential nominees from an earlier age, I’d have quite a list. Benjamin Harrison for Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt for Benjamin Harrison. Franklin Roosevelt for Al Smith and, funnily enough, the same Roosevelt for Herbert Hoover a decade before Hoover took office, and 12 years before Franklin whomped Hoover’s pasty Quaker, Chinese-fluent buttocks.

However, It takes dedication and self-sacrifice to get ahead, just as much as political opportunism. William Taft three times turned down his dream job — Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, which he much later earned — from T.R. so he could finish up his current job.

If I’m going to amount to anything in life, I should take these examples of model citzenship, and get active. Lacking a better idiom, I need to get fired up and ready to go — a simple interest, however active, is not enough.

Hopping over to another side — I’ll vote third party this year — isn’t new to me. I went door-to-door for Bush in 2004, but that was more because I got paid $75 than because I believed anything he or Kerry believed in. Either candidate has but to ask, and I’m on the mailing lists for both candidates.

Both ask for cash. Obama more often asks for help.

Looks like I’ll be going to Camp Obama.

Palin’s Sex Will Draw Votes

September 4, 2008 in The Way It Were
Tags: barack, clinton, ferraro, geraldine, hillary, john, mccain, mom, mondale, obama, palin, sarah

It seems accepted knowledge that America’s women are smart enough that they won’t vote McCain just because his running mate is a woman. That would be true if, and only if, America’s women were any smarter than America’s men.

Not so, you sexists. After all, it was not six months ago when my mom told me she supported Hillary Clinton. I asked her why.

Because she’s a woman. I’ve been waiting for this for a while. I think we need to see a woman president. She won’t mess it all up.

She chuckled her mom chuckle. I groaned inside.

After trying to convince her that she was using particularly bad reasoning, my mom gave me one of those familiar “I guess you’re right” sighs, and we changed the subject. I’m not sure I changed her mind.

Whether or not you want to vote for John McCain, and whatever you think about Sarah Palin, having a woman on the Republican ticket will draw votes their way. However well Mondale and Ferraro know that with an unconventional vice presidential pick the number of votes ]might not be enough, those votes will, in some quantity, materialize.

In a normal election year against a reasonably popular figure — say, 1984 — those votes wouldn’t amount to much. This is not a normal election year.

Consider this: At least some part of Hillary Clinton’s highly mobilized, energized electorate voted for her because she was a woman. Which way will that no less energized part vote when, feeling betrayed by their party, are subsequently given the opportunity to vote in a female vice president?

Guess which way John McCain’s betting.