I've done all of the calling I'm going to do to get out the vote for this year's election. I feel relieved. And, I'm gratified to be able to report, I feel better than I did at the start of the day. It helped to speak with a number of voters who also seemed eager for change—eager enough to have already voted or to be going to vote for sure before the polls close tonight.
The late news tonight and the news tomorrow will tell us how some of it came out. May my visions of Bushevik dirty trickery have been more paranoid than realistic. I'll vote for that.
I'll bet you worked at a polling place, didn't you?
ReplyDeleteI voted. That was my job.
Well, Steve, I'm certainly content to let it rest tonight, but if evidence of significant "voter irregularities" should arise tomorrow and in the coming days, I know that I won't be able to just "live with the results." I ended a post the other day with the challenge whether "you'd" be ready to take to the streets. Of course, none of us wants to have that to happen, but under Bush that's the way we've been drifting....
ReplyDeleteSouthern, in 2004 I worked at a polling place, but I didn't like it, probably simply because it involved a lot of standing around and chit-chatting with other poll workers. I'm not a small talk guy.
This year I donated money (a few small amounts here and there, don't get me wrong; I had to reduce my usual annual budget for charitable donations in order to do this) and contributed several hours over the last week and a half to calling Democratic-leaning voters in close districts previously identified by MoveOn.org.
Fortunately, my Congressional district is pretty safe for our multi-term Democrat, who has a good, progressive record of "doing the right thing." (I live in Chapel Hill, widely regarded--and despised by Bush Republicans--as a liberal bastion.) So, in fact, it was more important to try to help get Democratic-leaning voters in districts in Pennsylvania, New York, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Montana, and a few others in North Carolina out to vote than for me myself to vote, although I, of course, did vote.
You did your part, Mori. The race I was most concerned about is still very close. I guess all we can do now is wait and see.
ReplyDeleteI heard people voted in record numbers. Guess there are a lot of dissatisfied citizens out there, huh? Take that Bush! Sadly, some Republicans still kept their offices here in the South, but it wasn't because of me!
ReplyDeleteArkansas finally got a Democrat in
ReplyDeletefor Governor Hooray ! here in Northwest Arkansas lots of Democrats
won ! Happy for that!
Hi Uncle Mo.
Dawn
And, Southern, I just learned from a friend that Rumsfeld has resigned!
ReplyDeleteLet us know, Serena, when you learn how that race most of interest to you came out.
Dear my niece Dawn, most of my other readers (assuming that I have enough readers to even use the phrase "most of"!) don't know that I have Arkansas roots. Let them know by this that my parents and my four sisters (one of whom is Dawn's mother) were born in Arkansas. I came along after the family's "great California migration."
My especial pleasure this morning was hearing and seeing so many familiar names of election winners--candidates on whose behalf I had called potential voters in their states and districts. I use "winners"
...I use "winners" somewhat reluctantly, for I don't really like to think of elections as having winners and losers. It isn't an athletic contest. In my opinion, we use way TOO MANY sports (actually, its war) metaphors for describing how we interact in our society. Perhaps this will change as the role of women in public society continues to grow.
ReplyDeleteIn particular, ideally, our politics would be bipartisan, not so fiercely partisan as of late. Part of our national healing will be to restore a spirit of bipartisanship in government and politics. We need to survive and rise above our current ideological impasse.
Note that Sam Harris's book addresses this point, in the religious context. But his thesis that cultural relativism is self-contradictory (and not all cultures are equal) applies, I would argue, to political ideologies as well. That is, it should be possible, rationally, for conservatives and liberals to talk and agree on something—and not stand on either side of a field and hurl stones at one another.
Let us know, Serena, when you learn how that race most of interest to you came out.
ReplyDeleteLooks like it's going to be a while. Jim Webb appears to have won by a very slim margin, but George Allen refuses to concede. Consequently, there will be a recount.
Ah, the Webb/Allen race...of course! I'm as interested in that as you are (or as it is possible for someone who doesn't live in Virginia to be <grin>). Yes, a rather significant race. It could define Cheenie's role as President of the Senate.
ReplyDelete