I can't concentrate on anything right now. Which means it's not the best time to try to construct a neat little entry, but that's just the way I am. Take that, America.
Today is election day. We've been pretty loyal Obama supporters, the ones with the sign on our lawn and the stickers on our cars. We're as active as we can be, given the family and school circumstances. Sweets took time before the primaries and called people through moveon.org to urge them to vote for Obama. Today I took the day off and went to volunteer with the local Obama office to try to help out. Santa Fe is overwhelmingly democrat, but much of the rest of the state is republican so we need every dem vote we can muster to balance out the rest of the state. Thank goodness NM is a sparsely populated state outside the three major urban areas.
I don't do cold calls unless my life or dissertation depends on it. That has been one of the biggest trials for my research, because I had to spend a year doing call after call. It was awful. I signed up to volunteer knowing full well that they may require me to do cold calls. I've had a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach all week worrying about that. This morning when I arrived at the office, they told me to go sit with all the people waiting to do the phonebank training. I actually BEGGED them to have me do something else. The woman who was assigning people looked at me like "Who is this freak who can't get over herself enough to help Obama." Or maybe it was "Why did you volunteer when you knew you would be phonebanking?" Either way, she told me to go across town to the office where they were organizing canvasers.
I didn't mention above that canvasing was my second biggest fear. I really, really didn't want to canvas, but I figured that I had already made a scene about phonebanking and I couldn't do it again. So I went across town and was assigned a team for canvasing.
It turns out it wasn't that bad. It would have been really nice if I hadn't had to go around doing that knocking on doors talking to strangers thing. It was a gorgeous morning and we were in a super cool neighborhood. Everyone we spoke with was all set to vote, we had no problems, and we were done pretty quickly. Then we were sent off to a major intersection in town to stand with Obama and Vote Today signs for an hour. That was unreal. Most people were excited and honked or gave us a thumbs up. Some frowns, some negative energy, but most people were happy to support us and share the excitement. One young guy asked us "Do you like muslims?!!" which was so wierd, I didn't know quite what to say. The funny thing about it was that he was sitting at the light when he said it, and then the light took forever to change, so we had a lot of time to talk about how lame he was and make faces in his direction before he zoomed off. We decided that the correct answer to that was "Yes!"
Then more canvasing, because they wanted us to return to the houses we'd visited that morning where no-one had answered the door. One more person was home and we crossed him off the list, then we went home.
When I got home I didn't know what to do with myself. I still don't. The wait is agonizing, the evening is young yet. I can't help but have flashbacks to the last two elections where we didn't find out the results until much later. I can't help but have flashbacks to the disappointment I felt when my guy wasn't elected. I almost didn't volunteer because I didn't want to become too invested in the election and feel that let down again. But then I realized that I would not be helping if I hid from that possibility. Maybe canvasing and phonebanking is scary, but four more years of republican crap? Much, much worse.
So that's my story. I'm nervous, anxious, and after two weeks of not drinking I busted out the Fat Tire to help us through the television coverage tonight. It's going to be a long night, my friends. Good luck to all of us and may the best man win.
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