Santa Fe

I wrote this on Sunday but only now could post it... enjoy.

What an amazing time I've been having. Santa Fe is a nice little place and the weather has been just amazing. On Saturday I spent the whole day in the Obama office making phone calls. At first I was doing early voter calls with everyone else, but then i got promoted to volunteer management calls. There is a really funny split between young and old here where all the young people are running the show and all the old people are volunteering and taking orders. I think they saw my youth and wanted me on their side of the office which has been nice. Calling people went well and I got hung up on a lot. At the same time I also got information out to people who didn't have it and that was great. I love it when people say to me, "oh yeah I was just about to call you to find out." Bullshit. I know what I mean when I say I was just about to call you... i was supposed to call you but I wasn't going to. On Saturday

I found myself in three ridiculous conversations where I had to fight for Obama. The first started with, "I hate McCain... but I'm not even convinced that Barack is an American citizen." We went at it or about 20 minutes where finally all I could say to him was, "well, out of all the lousy candidates out there... I just hope you'll please vote for mine." The second was made quite insane in that it happened while calling to confirm volunteers! "We have you scheduled to canvass for Barack tomorrow, yes?" "Yeah, well I was going to but now I don't even know if I'm gonna vote for him." Yikes. The third and my favorite was when calling about absentee ballots I got a wrong number. I apologized and was about to hang up when the guy insisted that I try and solicit his vote. OK... Can we count on your support for Barack on Tuesday. "Give me five good reasons and I'll do it. And no Bullshit one's either!"

1. Economy
2. Healthcare
3. Renewable Energy
4. Education
5. Foreign Affairs

I was on the spot and really had to pull shit out of my ass for it but came out pretty well and by the end everyone around me had stopped calling and was listening. How'd I do? "Oh I already voted for Barack!" God Damn it. Still it was pretty fun.

Yesterday Sethy and I canvassed College of Santa Fe and St John's College. I guess you're not really allowed to canvass schools so we had to go as bi-partisan people just trying to get out the vote and assuming that most of that vote will go our way, which i think is a pretty safe bet. We snuck into the santa fe dorms and got kicked out twice before leaving (2/3 of the way done). I mean we gave it the old college try but as Andy Grossman likes to say, "You were never too good at the college try." At Santa Fe we were more successful and we knocked on every door on campus. In both schools a lo of people had no idea where to vote and we were able to tell them which was awesome. At St John's things were even worse because there had been so much campaigning for early voting that everyone assumed that Tuesday voting was at the same place which it isn't. Also at St John's they were advertising a free shuttle that ran from 4-8PM... Voting closes at 7! yikes. So after canvassing I made fliers for both College of Santa Fe and St. Johns. Soon I'll go flier up St John's (where I am staying) and then I'll bike down to College of Santa Fe. After that I'll go to the office and see what's needed of me. I'm set to be a canvassing captain tomorrow. I'm going to see if I can get any higher in the Obama rankings and maybe be at base for election day coordinating some of the Houdini project or something. I know being on the ground is very helpful and I'll do it... but if I can be more helpful in the office and be there watching the polls with everyone else that would be awesome.