Sigh

Most of the volunteers are still in the field. They'll stay until the polls close at 7 p.m., but we're heading to the airport. A little early, I'd.say, but our van ride has some people who don't like to fly by the seat of their pants like Robert and I do.
We knocked on just about every door three times today. We wrote personalized notes on door hangers. And while we took a frapaccino break, we called people on our cel phones. The roaming charges are going to get me.
As soon as we got back to the staging area, they sent another crew out to our precinct to keep knocking as people start getting home from work.
Marty

Skaters 4 Kerry

So I just brought in a Kerry vote. I rustled this young sk8ter dude out of bed. He was expecting his housemate to give him a ride to the polls, but he looked around and realized the guy wasn't there. So I gave him 10 minutes to get dressed and my van driver picked him up. P. Diddy gets some credit too for leaving him a message that he must vote or die. He's never voted before. ---

The Last Harangue

We're in line to get our walk lists. Today we'll be going back to people who said they were going to vote today. We'll offer them a ride, beg and plead that they go vote. We'll also be monitoring how long the lines are at the polls. We won't be checking if individuals have voted. I heard that's not allowed in Nevada In our van today is one of the writers for Desperate Housewives.

--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

May the spirit of Liberace guide and protect us

Smack dab in the middle of our precinct this afternoon is the Liberace Museum. The folks who live in the area are hardly living the lavish lifestyle of "Mr. Showmanship." We were in the poorest neighborhood we've walked so far. And we were there after dark, so I was a bit worried about the cash I had in my wallet. White dude walking through a tough neighborhood with a wad of twenties. Real good. After a dinner break, I unloaded my wallet and stashed my cash in the van.

We ran into another Move On canvasser today knocking on some of the same doors.

We were told that the organizers had expected 300 volunteers this past weekend in Vegas, but we were more than 1,000. Tomorrow, they now expect 1,500. That's in addition to whatever other groups are out and about.

Today our van was full of people from California: a native Canadian Ph.D. candidate studying at Berkeley, a single gay man living in the Castro who is part of a group called "The League of Pissed Off Voters," and an African-American woman with fabulous hair from L.A. named Stacy.

Robert just got his second water massage of the day. Now we're off to see the Cirque du Soleil show, Zumanity, right now. Then we catch some zees before heading to the staging area at 7 a.m.

A sprint to the finish

Actually, we have the morning off. We just had breakfast and finally figured out the Wi-Fi configuration at the Tropicana.

I'm sitting on a concourse where I can reach the Wi-Fi hotspont and watching people walk by. I'm seeing a lot of our Planned Parenhood compatriots walk by with their red "Stand Up For Choice" t-shirts.

We're meeting at the staging area at 12:30 and will probably work until 8 p.m. tonight to catch the people just coming home from work.

The polls tracked by electoral-votes.com show that the momentum is in Kerry's favor. The site has Kerry with 298 electoral votes right now. But, they still show mixed results for Nevada with most recent polls showing Bush ahead by 3-5 points.

For the record, I believe Kerry will win Nevada, and most of the poll results we see today are 2 to 5 points off what will actually happen tomorrow. Why? Most previously undecided voters will ultimately vote for Kerry. So will a majority of young, first-time voters like Nick, the Vietnamese-American Stanford sophomore who walked with us yesterday. At the end of the afternoon, we had to cajole Nick and Sarah to stop for the day. We picked them up in front of a gated apartment community. They literally had to crawl under a gate to get in (and out). If this level of passion represents their generation, the world can breathe a sigh of relief after tomorrow.

It will be an inspiring, beautiful, hopeful thing if it turns out that young people make the difference. As James Carville said on Today this morning, the youth are going to turn out to take back their country. He and I agree: Kerry is going to win big tomorrow.

A suburban hike

(From Sunday afternoon)

Whew! We've done some serious hiking this afternoon. The golf course community is on the side of a mountain. If I wasn't hiking it, I might classify it as a gently sloping hill, but today it's a mountain. There aren't a lot of Kerry supporters up at this altitude so we've been walking about a quarter mile or more to reach each house we're targeting. After I made it up to the highest point, a woman in a hybrid car stopped to ask me if I was canvassing. I said yes, and she said she's from Move On, a progressive group.

"I wish I had a car," I said.

"Get in!"

So I did and she drove me around for the last half hour. "Shirley" lives in the neighborhood and has been working it for weeks. She confirmed that most of the neighborhood is conservative. It's a 55+ community. Shirley is originally from Manhattan where she was involved in politics. Here in Vegas she walked precincts for Democratic Senator Reid. That race was decided by about 400 votes.

The wind is whipping around up here and it's starting to feel like we're above the tree line at Heavenly.

Shirley said she's also seen canvassers from my own union, AFSCME. So I think Vegas has really been saturated. In this older, wealthy community (quite a contrast from yesterday), many people voted early, all the addresses were valid, and just about everyone is home. It's eerily quiet and pristine on the streets. Robert got invited inside one home for a cold bottle of water and a bathroom break.

Another couple was a little abrupt at first until they realized we're on their side. Then they apologized, explaining that they've been inundated with visits from Republicans.

False start

(From Sunday)

We've had a bust of a morning. Our assigned precinct was all gated communities with guards. We called some of the names on our list to try to add some value. We got a ride back to the staging area and joined another van. All the others in this new van are very young. A tweny-year-old guy, Nick, bless his heart, seemed surprised that we gambled last night. "Oh, so you guys are over 21 then." Uh, yeah, just barely squeaked by. Our next precinct is a golf course community, so I think there's a good chance we'll have to sneak in.

It's morning in America

(From Sunday)

Up and at 'em. We're at the staging area waiting for our assignment. Nathan, who we walked with yesterday (dead ringer for Pee Wee Herman) said we had 1,600 volunteers in Vegas yesterday. Dang. I'm missing the Sunday news shows.

We played a little 21 last night and Robert got lucky and won 85 bucks. I won 30. So today we talk to the same people we talked to yesterday making us the most annoying people on the planet to some.