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9-22-06 test
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Marty 

Marty at SF Conservatory 

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.

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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.

First day in the field

I'm writing this from an Internet Café next to the MGM Grand. We just had dinner after a long day in the field. But let me start from the beginning.

We met a small group of Planned Parenthood Advocate volunteers in the lobby of the Tropicana at 7:30 a.m. and headed to the staging area. After a few missed turns, we arrived at the Von's parking lot to see a fleet of minivans ready to transport volunteers around the city. On our way there, we were told that we'd all be drivers today. We soon learned that we couldn't drive because they have to do a DMV check on all drivers first. We may be drivers tomorrow which would give our feet a break.

As we entered a huge tent, we're told to stash all our Kerry pins and stickers. The organizing group, America Coming Together, is a 527, so we can't advocate for any particular candidate. It sounded stifling at first, but as the day wore on, it didn't get in the way of our work to motivate people who are known Kerry-supporters to get to the polls.

We had a quick breakfast of bagels and coffee and headed outside to the vans to get trained. We were each given a folder with maps, scripts and our voter lists. All six of us that had met at the Tropicana were assigned to the same van.

We headed out to our precinct and quickly found out that the concept of sticking in pairs just wasn't going to work. Robert went one way and I went the other, and we hardly saw each other until lunch. My list was made up mostly of large apartment complexes. Robert's list called for him to walk a whole lot to visit a few homes. But I went up a lot of staircases, so it's unclear who got the better workout. I think Robert feels he got plenty of exercise, judging from the way he scarfed down our Japanese Benihana-style dinner and the ice cream he just ate right in front of me.

All of the people on the lists were those who have already been identified as Kerry supporters, so I didn't run in to any undecideds of Bush supporters. Others did talk to some Bush supporters.

Over the next three days, each of these homes will be visited as many as four times. We're asking folks if they know where their polling place is (some don't), reminding them that election day is Tuesday (some don't know), and that the polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. We're also asking if they want a ride and if they know what time of day they plan to vote.

All in all, about 90% of the doors we knocked on were never opened -- code NH, not home. I ended up knocking on more than 120 doors. Robert visited 60 homes. I spoke to a young woman who just registered. She didn't know where to go. Her mother had already voted (Early voting ended yesterday), and I told her to make sure her daughter gets to the polls.

In the field, we saw a group of three Bush supporters canvassing. They told someone in our group that they were staying at the Venetian and they have 4000 volunteers. I don't know how many volunteers we have. I think we have more. Also, I saw a bunch of door hangers from MoveOn.org volunteers.

Our group of six came from Mountain View, Los Angeles, Los Altos, Chicago and Fresno. One of them is a Republican financial planner who is strongly pro-choice and equally anti-Bush.

Out in a neighborhood, even though we're part of a huge effort, it feels pretty quiet and isolated. I was expecting to see a lot more election materials and volunteers out and about. Along the strip, there's really no sign of election fever.

Clinton was here yesterday and today. Two of our six got to shake his hand yesterday. And Darth Cheney will be here once more before the election too. So, clearly, we are in the right place at the right time.

I realized that the eight hours we were out in the field was a long time to be disconnected from the rest of the world. We weren't aware of any of the news of the day. When we got back to the hotel, we learned that the polls haven't moved much, eight Marines were killed today and UCLA skunked Stanford.

So, if any big news happens, please e-mail me at mgrimes@valleywater.org. I've got my Blackberry.

Until tomorrow,

Marty

Waiting for all the facts

Paul Bremer was just on the Today show spouting off the same arguments Bush and company made before the video showing explosives was released, as if the video didn't exist. His assigned talking point is "Kerry is irresponsible for jumping to conclusions. We should wait until all the facts are known." Let's wait until, say, next Wednesday.

We're off!

Tomorrow we take off for Vegas. The odds-makers give Kerry the edge at 11 to 10. Actually, it looks like you can’t bet on the election in Vegas. You have to go to the UK. Party poopers.

Last night, I heard stories from some of the people who went to Reno to walk precincts last weekend. One pair started talking politics at a casino buffet and found they were sitting next to two Bush supporters, one with two sons who are Navy SEALs in the Persian Gulf. By the time they’d finished their generous helpings of snow crab legs and tapioca pudding, they’d convinced both women to vote for Kerry.

I wish I knew what their talking points were. Can you help? Give us your best talking points we can use with our Nevada neighbors.

Here, we’ll get you started:

1. Bush wants to ship nukyooler waste through Vegas to dump it forever at Yucca Mountain.
2. Justice John Paul Stevens is not immortal.
3. Tax cuts for the rich.
4. In record time, Bush blew our budget surplus and replaced it with record deficits.
5. Abstinence-only sex education doesn't work.
6. John Ashcroft
7. Abu Ghraib
8. Always split aces (Oh, that’s for later.)
9. Call it a global test, call it diplomacy, the U.S. must be able to justify its actions around the world.
10. Bush is hell-bent on a constitutional amendment to prevent loving same-sex couples from enjoying the more than 1000 federal rights and responsibilities provided to married couples.

Still can't remember any mistakes, GW?

After ignoring the issue for two days, Bush finally spoke up only to claim that Kerry was recklessly jumping to conclusions about the 380 tons of missing explosives in Iraq. Bush speculated that the explosives may have been moved before the U.S. arrived at the site. He went on to say that Kerry was “denigrating the actions of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts." Surprise, President Bush. October surprise, that is. An ABC station released a video from April 18, 2003, nine days after the fall of Baghdad, confirming that the explosives went missing after troops took control of the site.

Kerry’s criticism isn’t aimed at the troops. The blame falls squarely on President Bush who decided to ignore the assessment of Army chief of staff, General Shinseki, invading Iraq with too few troops on the ground to secure the country.

Let’s take a look at some of the things Bush’s chief warmonger said in the days before the invasion (excerpts from New York Times, Feb. 28, 2003):

“Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, ‘wildly off the mark.’” (We now know whose estimates were really wildly off the mark.)

“Mr. Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting that Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year.” (Alas, $200 billion has been committed so far).

Wolfowitz said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible.” (We‘re still waiting for the welcome wagon.)

Wolfowitz: “I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction.” (Au contraire, mon frair.)

Wolfowiz said the upper range of $95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless because of the variables. Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said.

Yet Bush can’t remember making any mistakes.

Bush says that Kerry will say anything to get elected. Actually, I think he's shown great restraint. Here are some things he hasn’t said:

• “My opponent is under the dangerous delusion that God is on his side.”
• “If the world is a safer place with Saddam Hussein behind bars, why are more than 1000 soldiers and 10,000 Iraqi civilians dead and week after week, hostages are losing their heads? Their blood, Mr. President, is on your hands.”
• “Bush illogically believes that a microscopic glob of cells destined to be washed down the sink is more important than the lives of Michael J. Fox, Christopher Reeve and everyone else with Alzheimers, ALS, Parkinsons and spinal cord injuries.”
• “Bush is a liar.”
• “It’s ‘noo-clee-ur,‘ dumb-ass.”