Dystopian Paradox

Tuesday, October 28

Yesterday in Roswell, I canvassed one set of walksheets in the morning and one in the afternoon. I had no problem sleeping last night.

A lady who lives across the street from where I am staying has had as many as seven out-of-town volunteers crashing at her place at a time. We got to meet each other and talk last night. Great lady.

She’s now a medical examiner for the county for 18 years. Prior to that, she was with the police and worked her way up against all odds because she’s a she. Old ways die hard and it’s people with true grit who bring about change.

The volunteers staying with her are from LA, Arizona, Austin and Chicago and other places. People from all over the country are answering the call for change. No telling how many out-of-state volunteers are in Ohio.

All work and no play sucks. Yesterday evening, three of us were kidding around about 5pm at the office and they were bringing up ObamaLantern stencils on their computers. The raw material is a real pumpkin. If you want to make one, you can find patterns on the Internet. One of my new friends, a lady from Austin, says she’s dressing up on Halloween. I have a beard and my bike helmet with me. I’m wearing it and my huge fitover sunglasses and arriving Friday as the Unibomber on a bicycle.

Unofficial word last night was that in Albuquerque, the Demos are out-voting the Repubs 2 to 1 in early voting. That’s a good sign but no one is letting up here is Roswell.

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Sunday October 26

Blogging has had to take a back seat the last few weeks because my time’s been spent getting stuff out of the way in anticipation of the trip to Roswell to help out in the Obama New Mexico campaign. I left with some stuff still hanging like renewing my PO box which expires on November 1.

I started working in Roswell today. Got here yesterday evening and stayed in a Motel Six, which is false advertising. Should be called Motel Zero. I asked for the first floor and all they had was one for the handicapped. The deskclerk said the difference was that it had a walkin shower. I didn’t know there was any other kind.

I said Ok and got the stuff from my car and used the card key to get in the room. It wasn’t a walk in shower. It was a walkin bathroom about 7 feet square all white tile floor and walls with a head, a small sink with no counter space, a shower head on the end of a hose, a white plastic chair and two drains in the floor. It wasn’t for the handicapped. It was for the criminally insane.

The whole room, bedding, bathroom and everything else stunk like bordertown bordello perfume. I stayed the night and never got used to the stink.

People here are great. Several Texans have worked here and they need us. The Obama campaign is getting more local volunteers than the local Democratic party. But we need more so come on over if you can. Robert is the Obama paid field organizer here and his phone number is 575 680 6197. He would love to here from you.

I spent the day walking mainly urging people to vote early. NM’s early voting goes through next Saturday. The main concern is complacency because Obama’s leading in the polls. NM is a battleground state and both Obama and McCain were through here yesterday.

They’ll be working here all day November 4 getting people to the polls, so I’m going to see it through. I’ll miss being in Fort Worth election night.

Let’s hope that in 2008, Barack will be running for a second term and Texas is a battleground state. Or even better, it’s already turned a deep true blue.