Thursday, January 22, 2004
Little Moments, Writ Large
Huge day for many campaigns tonight - the last debate before the NH Primary. Kerry's definitely got the momentum now and I expect the dynamic to shift this evening in a big way. Dean on the attack. Clark on the attack. Edwards on the powerhug. Kerry on defense, both for himself and the nation. If Dean fairs poorly, his plummetting poll numbers will continue in that direction, you can be sure. People here are paying attention. I assume they always do. Even if this year's race is so overwhelming that they've gotten to the point of wanting to shut it off. Which brings me to my tale of the Trail from yesterday.
Given that I'm operating at the most basic field level of gruntness, I joined in on a "lit drop" for about 5 hours yesterday. The weather, thankfully, was in the 20s with sun and no wind - it doesn't get much better than that in January in the Upper Valley. With my assigned partner - a middle-aged gentleman here on a quixotic quest to somehow become attached to the Campaign after what sounds like a rather vagabond life over the last 20ish years - we were assigned an area of West Lebanon and given 1000 mock newspapers filled with press releases and carefully chosen photos of our candidate. In other words, a waste of dead trees. But we started on our mission nonetheless motivated to spread the word and walk off some of the crap you end up eating around the office in between making phone calls to irritated NH voters. The mundanity of sticking rolled up fake newspapers in the front doors of unsuspecting residents soon was brightened by being able to just walk, walk, walk.
About halfway through our pile, I started walking down a block with a mailman who was doing his route. I assumed immediately that he would be irritated by me mirroring his path, so I began our inevitable conversation by doing my best to chat as if we were seated next to one another in a diner or friendly neighborhood bar. I wanted to avoid sounding like one of the countless drones out promoting their candidate, so I tried to stay away from politics initially. By about our fourth or fifth house, I ran out of inane chatter so I asked him if this year's Primary was producing more direct mail by his estimate than other years. The floodgates now open, I got an education. Let me preface this by saying that he then said, "all I care about is that we get that a****** we've got now out of office." But then he showed me a handful of what residents are getting. It's ridiculous - piles and piles of flyers and postcards and invites and every imaginable reminder for next Tuesday's election, as if any resident could possibly not know by now. This mailman - this wonderfully charming, as it turns out, NH native who started delivering mail a day after his 18th birthday and was as of yesterday only 99 days away from full retirement - can't do anything but shake his head and say that he just can't stand delivering this crap anymore. He told me about past Primaries - who he's met, who had a good handshake, and who got his vote because of it. As we continued through the remainder of our shared path, I found myself telling him about my travels, my views and my take on politics. One house had a friendly old mutt roped up outside the frontdoor and he told me, "this one's a softie" allowing me to confidently pat him on the head and slip my garbage into the front door handle. Soon enough he was getting back into his truck and I was continuing on my way. We exchanged friendly good wishes, I never offered my name or got his, and I continued through to the end of my route replaying the lessons I learned.
Most of the remainder of the day was downhill from there. Our office was knee-deep in planning a visit by our candidate upcoming this morning. Advance people from Headquarters arrived with ridiculous requests. A friendly retiree brought by a huge pot of pasta for the troops because a friend told her the staff were "all going to get sick" because they were eating so poorly. And a multitude of little victories and losses for each and every person here was experienced. Just like in life, except a little sillier than normally so.
Huge day for many campaigns tonight - the last debate before the NH Primary. Kerry's definitely got the momentum now and I expect the dynamic to shift this evening in a big way. Dean on the attack. Clark on the attack. Edwards on the powerhug. Kerry on defense, both for himself and the nation. If Dean fairs poorly, his plummetting poll numbers will continue in that direction, you can be sure. People here are paying attention. I assume they always do. Even if this year's race is so overwhelming that they've gotten to the point of wanting to shut it off. Which brings me to my tale of the Trail from yesterday.
Given that I'm operating at the most basic field level of gruntness, I joined in on a "lit drop" for about 5 hours yesterday. The weather, thankfully, was in the 20s with sun and no wind - it doesn't get much better than that in January in the Upper Valley. With my assigned partner - a middle-aged gentleman here on a quixotic quest to somehow become attached to the Campaign after what sounds like a rather vagabond life over the last 20ish years - we were assigned an area of West Lebanon and given 1000 mock newspapers filled with press releases and carefully chosen photos of our candidate. In other words, a waste of dead trees. But we started on our mission nonetheless motivated to spread the word and walk off some of the crap you end up eating around the office in between making phone calls to irritated NH voters. The mundanity of sticking rolled up fake newspapers in the front doors of unsuspecting residents soon was brightened by being able to just walk, walk, walk.
About halfway through our pile, I started walking down a block with a mailman who was doing his route. I assumed immediately that he would be irritated by me mirroring his path, so I began our inevitable conversation by doing my best to chat as if we were seated next to one another in a diner or friendly neighborhood bar. I wanted to avoid sounding like one of the countless drones out promoting their candidate, so I tried to stay away from politics initially. By about our fourth or fifth house, I ran out of inane chatter so I asked him if this year's Primary was producing more direct mail by his estimate than other years. The floodgates now open, I got an education. Let me preface this by saying that he then said, "all I care about is that we get that a****** we've got now out of office." But then he showed me a handful of what residents are getting. It's ridiculous - piles and piles of flyers and postcards and invites and every imaginable reminder for next Tuesday's election, as if any resident could possibly not know by now. This mailman - this wonderfully charming, as it turns out, NH native who started delivering mail a day after his 18th birthday and was as of yesterday only 99 days away from full retirement - can't do anything but shake his head and say that he just can't stand delivering this crap anymore. He told me about past Primaries - who he's met, who had a good handshake, and who got his vote because of it. As we continued through the remainder of our shared path, I found myself telling him about my travels, my views and my take on politics. One house had a friendly old mutt roped up outside the frontdoor and he told me, "this one's a softie" allowing me to confidently pat him on the head and slip my garbage into the front door handle. Soon enough he was getting back into his truck and I was continuing on my way. We exchanged friendly good wishes, I never offered my name or got his, and I continued through to the end of my route replaying the lessons I learned.
Most of the remainder of the day was downhill from there. Our office was knee-deep in planning a visit by our candidate upcoming this morning. Advance people from Headquarters arrived with ridiculous requests. A friendly retiree brought by a huge pot of pasta for the troops because a friend told her the staff were "all going to get sick" because they were eating so poorly. And a multitude of little victories and losses for each and every person here was experienced. Just like in life, except a little sillier than normally so.
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