Day Two

I woke up early and exhausted. We had to be in by 8:00am to call the elderly and disabled voters who didn't respond to the other 3 messages we left for them the day before.

I had a suspicion that they wouldn't respond then either. I figure once you've called someone 3 times and they haven't picked up, they aren't going to answer a 4th time. I've learned this through many a-non-second-date.

There was a general sense of "we've already won" among most of the volunteers. My brother, the ever-neurotic, always-conspiratorial type was fairly sure that the evil Republican Vote Stealing Machine was in motion, but he was in the minority.

After making some last minute phone calls to generally enthused old ladies, I spent a few hours canvassing around a bus stop; passing out voting information to "unlikely voters". And boy, were they ever unlikely.

I didn't realize it, but Scranton must have a large grizzled, acne scarred, Meth Addict population. They were about as interested in the national election as Karl Rove is interested in not looking like a life-sized potato and they definitely let me know. "Go Away" "Nah Way Man", etc.

One interesting interaction came between myself, a young African American and Hispanic couple. The Latina, who had her name tattooed on her neck in cursive, spoke up when I asked her if "she had voted today".

"Why do you support Barack Obama?"
"Well, first off, under his tax plan, I would receive $850 more in relief per year..."
"And what about abortion?"
"Well, I believe in a woman's right to choose, and I think that Senator Obama will appoint someone to the Supreme Court that will uphold that right."
"How do you feel about the fact that Obama supports transporting minors across state lines to give them abortions without their parents' consent?"
"I don't think that's true"
"I read it in a flier"
"Well, there are a lot of things you can read in a flier that's not true. They're passing out fliers that say Obama is a Muslim."
That's when the African American kid spoke up:
"Well, I support Obama...but he's not a Muslim?"
The Latina joined in "He isn't?"

After a few hours of this, I began to get dispirited. I really wanted to go back to NYC to vote and I didn't really feel like trying to get people who weren't going to vote...to vote. It was like trying find a piece of hay in an extremely large stack of needles.

I went over to my brother and asked him if we could go back to NYC so I could vote. We had a little bit of a fight, because he was planning on celebrating the win in PA, but he was kind enough to agree, after I through my feces at him and cried like a woman or baby.

I spent the next 4 hours calling a list of potential Democrats reminding them that it was election day. Again, most people were kind; but some were angry, because everyone we called were on about 5-6 different call lists, which means that they were getting AT LEAST 5-6 different calls a day.

If we left them a message, they were put on another list to "call again". I felt bad, and you really have to wonder if it was necessary. At least 2 people told me that were "rethinking" voting for Obama because we called them so much.

Anyway, we left at 5pm (just when everyone else went to the local college to knock on doors and remind people they still had 2 hours to vote), and rushed back to NYC so I could get my vote in.

As I anticipated, Indiana would be too close to call at 7:01, which told me Obama was going to win. I did think Virginia would be called at about 8:00, so that did cause me to pause for a second...but once they called Ohio, it was over.

I was actually surprised that Ohio went for Obama and went so convincingly. It seemed like the kind of state where Palin's BS would fly. BTW, FOXNEWS(!) is reporting that Palin didn't know the countries involved in NAFTA (uhhh "North American Free Trade Agreement"), and didn't know that Africa is a CONTINENT, not a country when McCain chose her as VP. Smeriously?

Anyway, I got back just in time to vote, there was no line and everything ended the right way...except Gays Can't Get Married Or Adopt...so it's two steps forward and one step back, I guess.