Friday, October 26, 2012

"we few, we happy few. . ."

A terrific day. Democrats may be wildly outnumbered in this part of the country, but they are really rising to the challenge. It helps that part of the point of all of this canvassing is to eliminate the non-Obama voters so we can be more efficient on the four last GOTV (get out the vote) days. So, today, a refreshingly low number of Republicans!

But, better yet, some energizing results and reactions. First, I left this morning with twenty Obama-Biden signs, and returned to the office with ONE at the end of the day! Lots of the Democrats who wouldn't agree to do any volunteering agreed to let me put signs in their yards. Psychologically, seeing an Obama sign out here just gives me a lift, and I'm sure it has the same effect on other Democrats. One of the things we have to combat here (and everywhere) is voters' feeling that their vote won't matter, Obama can't win here, because all they see everywhere are Romney-Ryan signs.

Oh, and by the way, this is Rep. Steve King's congressional district. Pity me, folks! This guy got elected here, and re-elected four more times, and is evidently leading his challenger, Christi Vilsack, by about 4 points. (Steve King gives assholes a bad name) And - how cool is it that I figured out how to title a link!!

So now there are nearly twenty times the number of Obama-Biden signs in Onawa, Iowa than there were five days ago. Go me! And go brave Democrats who will put out a lawn sign in this community.

My favorite person of the day was Virgil, 91 years old, and straight ticket Democratic voter his entire life, he said. I knocked on the back door (typical here - to figure out which door to knock at you have to  see where the truck is parked, what gate is chained, etc. - at Virgil's the cyclone fence in the front had the gate clipped closed) and it swung open. Knowing that the resident was 91 (it's on my canvass sheet) I stuck my head in and yoo-hooed (I'm turning into Aunt Bea), asking if he was okay. A woman came to the door - she hadn't realized that it hadn't closed all the way. She called Virgil over, and told him I wanted to talk about Obama. He told me he was a straight ticket dem, and voted for him before and thought he did a pretty good job, so he was voting for him again.

But, he told me, in any case he'd never vote for a Republican. He'd had enough of them with that Hoover! And ever since his daddy lost the 280 acre farm in 1936, that was the last straw, he never saw a Republican who cared about or understood poor or middle class people.

He had a ballot dilemma, though. He showed me his absentee ballot, and pointed out that there was no spot for county supervisor, and he wanted to vote for that nice Poole fellow who used to be a foreman in Mapleton. There are Poole signs all over town.  I asked if he wanted me to find out. He said yes, so for the second time today I drove to the county auditor's office (equivalent of our county clerk) - the first time was to drop off a voter registration and request to vote by mail for a young guy who was new in town - and asked about the supervisor election. Turns out that Poole is running one district over, but for some reason has signs and has sent out mailings in Virgil's area. His supervisor has two more years in office. But I'm thinking about how carefully Virgil looked at the ballot and thought about the election, that he even noticed what wasn't there. I hope to have half as many marbles left at his age as he does!!

And the capper - he told me to put out as many Obama signs on his property as I wanted!

No comments:

Post a Comment