Blog embargo lifted - October 3rd 2008
"I ain't racist," says the man, standing in his doorway wearing a pair of too-small graying pants, his huge, white, hairy pregnant belly quivering indignantly like aspic. "I just ain't gonna vote for no nigger."
I guess the trials of getting here in one piece is a heavy indication that volunteering in Colorado isn't going to be as clap-happy as my training weekend at Camp Obama in Long Beach, CA.
For starters a kid in a beat-up Acura drives into the Merc twenty minutes into the journey while I'm gliding happily along the I15. 911 later, I continue the journey shaken and pissed. Just as I'd gotten over that with a sober night in a shitty motel in Utah and 600 miles of relatively drama-free driving, I suddenly realize the same white Cadillac has been following me for 30 minutes, ever since I'd left a tiny remote town called Elsinore. I'm on a 150 mile barren stretch of road which is devoid of turn-offs, gas stations or small towns, and there's no place to escape. So I speed up - and the white car does exactly the same. I try slowing down to 40 miles an hour, and it slows down too, and for nearly two hours on this windy, rocky barren stretch of road through bumfuck Utah I'm followed by the creepy white Cadillac with blacked out windows. Eventually we near Green River, and I call 911, pull into the nearest gas station, and a fat, pompous Sheriff stroking a Tazer jumps out of his patrol car and walks gleefully over to the white Cadillac which has, of course, followed me in. I never do find out what happens. The Sheriff just tells me to keep driving, and he'll keep them in custody for a couple hours to prevent them from following me.
I eventually arrive in Lakewood, Colorado on Friday evening at 9pm. I'm staying with a host family I've never met before in my life, and the way my luck is rolling I half-expect to turn up and find myself placed with a bunch of NRA supporting raccoon hunters who wanted to kidnap and torture Obama volunteers, but I'm met at the door by a sweet, gentle, elderly Jewish couple called Diana and Bill. Bill used to be a Republican, but not since Bush got sworn in. They usher me into the house, install me on a sofa and ply me with milk and cookies. Bill regards me with curiosity: I am a 'pink-dotter', apparently, by virtue of my book and its subject matter. "You know, I didn't wanna put anyone up, but Diana insisted. She really wanted to help out because her nieces are working in Florida and Ohio on the campaign."
"They're staying with strangers like you are," says Diana. "And I just hope they have people who will treat them like family. What can I get you from the store? We're going tomorrow so just make a list and we'll pick it up"
Diana and Bill's home is a Home - no other word for it. Warm and filled with books and toys from their grandchildren, fresh baked goodies and quilts and the smell of vanilla coffee. I got lucky I guess, and it's about time after the month I've had. Bill and Diana's daughter suffered a stroke shortly after the birth of her first child, and so Diana and Bill are helping to raise the kid, a tiny, skinny two year old with carroty red hair. Bill looks at his picture sadly and shakes his head. "Kid can't jump, the doctors say his mobility is at 7%, but kid's a genius." He smiles wryly and affectionately. "Guess I've gotta get used to having a grandchild who's a nerd."
In the morning I get my first view of Lakewood, a suburb of Denver, the Mile High City, fringed by snow-capped mountains, russet, brown, red and golden leaves, strip malls, and a lot of Republicans. I drive to the Lakewood Campaign for Change office and am put to work canvassing in the Hispanic outreach areas with a Spanish/Cuban/American girl called Ana who's just moved back to Colorado after three years in Pampillona. The area we are assigned to isn't the poorest in Lakewood, but it certainly isn't affluent, as the junk and the overgrown weeds, the broken windows and the decrepit cars testify.
The first door I knock at is opened by an enormous fat man wearing only his pants. "I'm votin' for McCain," he drones, and narrows his eyes at me. "Even though McCain is going to raise your taxes, tax any employee health benefits you receive and continue the same policies as Bush?". "No he ain't." "Yes he is." "No, he ain't." "He is, look here at this pamphlet." Pause, and then the real issue. "Well, that may be, but I ain't gonna vote for no nigger."
There are people who invite us in, give us Mountain Dew and tell us their stories, registered Republicans who don't even know why they vote Republican but their parents did, and their grandparents. An old man with eyes blurred by cataracts, flaky dead skin hanging off his hoary face and a stale, urine smell about him answers the door and starts crying because he isn't going to vote this year - he can't vote Republican the way the country is, but he can't vote for a black candidate either.
There are three days left until voter registration ends, and so we hand out forms and encourage people to do the mail-in ballot. Colorado is plagued this year with an even longer ballot than usual - various complicated amendments to the state constitution rendering the ballot form a complicated maze of epic and confusing proportions. People are making a conservative estimate that completion will take at least 20 minutes, meaning voting on November 4th would probably involve lengthy and protracted queues. The Democrats are also gearing up to combat voter intimidation - Republicans informing felons they are unable to vote (untrue: they can vote in CO as long as they're not on parole), weeding out voters wearing Obama buttons or t-shirts (no political paraphernalia can come within 100 feet of the polling station), taking control of polling stations in predominantly blue areas and failing to open them at designated times, preventing many people from casting their vote. I spent the afternoon working in the office and at least 3 valid registered voters came in to check that they actually could vote: they'd been told by a Republican campaigner, wrongly, that they couldn't.
That first day I feel wobbly and uncertain, alternately depressed and ecstatic by the people I encounter, and eventually it hits 9pm and the office starts to quieten down, until it's just me and the other long-term volunteers - Erin, a girl from Tennessee, Graham, a schoolteacher from Brooklyn, Perrin, a law student at Yale, Nick, a math teacher from Pennsylvania with an uncanny resemblance to Michael Cera, David, an Iraq war veteran - a gun-toting, redneck registered Republican who'd 'seen the light' (and couldn't believe he was "workin' fer free with a bunch of freakin' hippies") and Rachael, a political science major at the local university. We are all under 30, not native to Colorado, organizing and recruiting a group of local volunteers who are predominantly over sixty. We work all night entering data and chasing up issues, occasionally pausing to grab pizza and fries provided free by local restaurants, and then crawl home to bed at 1am, a layer of frost settling gently on the crisp, quiet night.
The next day I'm out in the field canvassing Hispanic areas again, and I return eight hours later to an office that goes suddenly quiet when I walk in. There is an awkward pause, broken only by Former-Republican David arguing with Perrin and Nick about the 2nd Amendment -
"Did you know that when Great Britain banned firearms after the Dunblane Massacre violent crimes increased by 450%? And that suicides with shotguns are counted amongst victims of gun crimes?"
Nick pauses, tries to swim, flails wildly, drowns.
"Er, well, I have this article you should read which says guns are bad."
David grabs the article and marches outside, the light from his cigarette throwing an eerie glow across his face, an intricate battleground of scars. "Nick, what the fuck kind of hippy crap is this? What the fuck is an AK-pistol? There's no such thing as a fuckin' AK pistol!"
"It's a pistol made from recycled hemp materials," I say, and David pauses momentarily, his eyes wide with disgust, before he realizes, too late, that I'm taking the piss.
Rachael and I make an executive decision to make a last gasp at registering more voters by going for a beer, so we drive down to The Baker Street pub and settle down next to a log fire with a couple of Coors Lites, and a mass of forms.
"So everyone googled you and found all these articles and pictures online," giggles Rachael. "It was really cool! And then David downloaded your pictures and put them on a slideshow on all the computers and all the old ladies volunteering started complaining about porn and there was some mild hysteria, but everyone thinks it's kind of cool and radical. David's such a pervert. Freaking Republican. I don't know what he was trying to do, but it kind of back-fired. I think Erin was a little freaked out, but they're impressed with the book and the fact you're here and you can't even vote."
"That's weird, I get on really well with David. He's nuts but I thought he was cool."
"He's very conservative still. I caught him perving chicks on that facebook group 'Hot Mommas for Obama' this morning."
"Hmm. It happens."
A drunk, skinny red-head comes over to argue with us because he's heard we work at the Obama office.
"Why you working for the nigger? Don't get me wrong, I ain't votin' for McCain, but why'd you wanna work for Obama? This country fuckin' sucks, we need a third party, the people's party, led by the fuckin' people, controlled by the people... like at the Rage Against the Machine concert when we marched! That was fuckin' awesome! And the cops knew they couldn't stop it as we'd kill them all! You believe that Obama bullshit? He's gonna be like every other fuckin' leader, a lyin', cheatin' asshole. We need to abo - abo - abolish the government. "
"But then we'd dissolve into total anarchy," says Rachael pragmatically,
"You shut up! There might be a bit of anarchy, but then it'd sort itself out, and the people would get heard, people like me... who no one listens to...."
He starts snorting and wiping his nose, and pulls out a hundred dollar bill from his wallet, throws it in the fire and giggles insanely as he watches it burn, a thin, vivid purple flame. He's too skinny and too pale, his pupils malevolent little pinpricks. It turns out he's the local drug dealer, and despite the fact he doesn't like black people, he says he will vote for Obama. Strike one for the Democrats.
Rachael and I hand out a few forms and get to bed at 3am. I get up at 7 to the sound of Ewan, the tiny grandchild of Bill and Diana, screeching excitedly about his new toy Ferrari outside my door. I sit down for coffee with Diana as Ewan gabbles away, a huge grin on his tiny, eager little face. "Are you getting enough sleep? They're working you so hard! Bill and I want to take you for dinner one evening. Can you get a night off?"
I shrug. I want to go for dinner with Bill and Diana too but there's a sadistic streak in Obama Campaign HQ's, and we seem to just work and work and work, and 'nights off', not to mention - god forbid! - days, are anathema to the truly dedicated Obama volunteer. I have never worked like this before. Ironically I discover a work ethic in a job which does not have payment and offers few rewards, if you discount the bonus of helping to elect a President that is neither retarded nor crooked and may actually sort out the economy, but I was thinking more of free t-shirts, perhaps a yard sign or two.
I bade goodbye to Diana and Bill who are doing 'Race for the Cure' today, and get to the office at 8.30 am. David and I spend the morning looking up 'Dachshunds for Obama' which is an interesting and informative site I recommend you all visit. David has three dachshunds, one of which is called Simon and is, according to David, misanthropic, with major trust issues. The rest of the day is spent with last minute voter registrations, and driving like a mad-woman in my broken Mercedes to the County Clerks office to deliver forms before the 5.30pm deadline.
So this is my life for the next 28 days - no sleep and anonymous hate phonecalls from Republicans ("Is this the Obama office? I was jes' in there an'.... an'.... I have never met... so many pseudo, yeah, pseudo intellectuals who look down on other people because you think you're all so special and clever voting for the nigger....", "Well, I have never met a person low enough to harass young women they don't know on the phone because of their political beliefs. Good day!" Ring ring. "An'... an' I wanted to say - you Democrats are gonna burn in HELL!" "Dude, get off the phone before I call the cops." Pause. He hangs up.)
I guess the trials of getting here in one piece is a heavy indication that volunteering in Colorado isn't going to be as clap-happy as my training weekend at Camp Obama in Long Beach, CA.
For starters a kid in a beat-up Acura drives into the Merc twenty minutes into the journey while I'm gliding happily along the I15. 911 later, I continue the journey shaken and pissed. Just as I'd gotten over that with a sober night in a shitty motel in Utah and 600 miles of relatively drama-free driving, I suddenly realize the same white Cadillac has been following me for 30 minutes, ever since I'd left a tiny remote town called Elsinore. I'm on a 150 mile barren stretch of road which is devoid of turn-offs, gas stations or small towns, and there's no place to escape. So I speed up - and the white car does exactly the same. I try slowing down to 40 miles an hour, and it slows down too, and for nearly two hours on this windy, rocky barren stretch of road through bumfuck Utah I'm followed by the creepy white Cadillac with blacked out windows. Eventually we near Green River, and I call 911, pull into the nearest gas station, and a fat, pompous Sheriff stroking a Tazer jumps out of his patrol car and walks gleefully over to the white Cadillac which has, of course, followed me in. I never do find out what happens. The Sheriff just tells me to keep driving, and he'll keep them in custody for a couple hours to prevent them from following me.
I eventually arrive in Lakewood, Colorado on Friday evening at 9pm. I'm staying with a host family I've never met before in my life, and the way my luck is rolling I half-expect to turn up and find myself placed with a bunch of NRA supporting raccoon hunters who wanted to kidnap and torture Obama volunteers, but I'm met at the door by a sweet, gentle, elderly Jewish couple called Diana and Bill. Bill used to be a Republican, but not since Bush got sworn in. They usher me into the house, install me on a sofa and ply me with milk and cookies. Bill regards me with curiosity: I am a 'pink-dotter', apparently, by virtue of my book and its subject matter. "You know, I didn't wanna put anyone up, but Diana insisted. She really wanted to help out because her nieces are working in Florida and Ohio on the campaign."
"They're staying with strangers like you are," says Diana. "And I just hope they have people who will treat them like family. What can I get you from the store? We're going tomorrow so just make a list and we'll pick it up"
Diana and Bill's home is a Home - no other word for it. Warm and filled with books and toys from their grandchildren, fresh baked goodies and quilts and the smell of vanilla coffee. I got lucky I guess, and it's about time after the month I've had. Bill and Diana's daughter suffered a stroke shortly after the birth of her first child, and so Diana and Bill are helping to raise the kid, a tiny, skinny two year old with carroty red hair. Bill looks at his picture sadly and shakes his head. "Kid can't jump, the doctors say his mobility is at 7%, but kid's a genius." He smiles wryly and affectionately. "Guess I've gotta get used to having a grandchild who's a nerd."
In the morning I get my first view of Lakewood, a suburb of Denver, the Mile High City, fringed by snow-capped mountains, russet, brown, red and golden leaves, strip malls, and a lot of Republicans. I drive to the Lakewood Campaign for Change office and am put to work canvassing in the Hispanic outreach areas with a Spanish/Cuban/American girl called Ana who's just moved back to Colorado after three years in Pampillona. The area we are assigned to isn't the poorest in Lakewood, but it certainly isn't affluent, as the junk and the overgrown weeds, the broken windows and the decrepit cars testify.
The first door I knock at is opened by an enormous fat man wearing only his pants. "I'm votin' for McCain," he drones, and narrows his eyes at me. "Even though McCain is going to raise your taxes, tax any employee health benefits you receive and continue the same policies as Bush?". "No he ain't." "Yes he is." "No, he ain't." "He is, look here at this pamphlet." Pause, and then the real issue. "Well, that may be, but I ain't gonna vote for no nigger."
There are people who invite us in, give us Mountain Dew and tell us their stories, registered Republicans who don't even know why they vote Republican but their parents did, and their grandparents. An old man with eyes blurred by cataracts, flaky dead skin hanging off his hoary face and a stale, urine smell about him answers the door and starts crying because he isn't going to vote this year - he can't vote Republican the way the country is, but he can't vote for a black candidate either.
There are three days left until voter registration ends, and so we hand out forms and encourage people to do the mail-in ballot. Colorado is plagued this year with an even longer ballot than usual - various complicated amendments to the state constitution rendering the ballot form a complicated maze of epic and confusing proportions. People are making a conservative estimate that completion will take at least 20 minutes, meaning voting on November 4th would probably involve lengthy and protracted queues. The Democrats are also gearing up to combat voter intimidation - Republicans informing felons they are unable to vote (untrue: they can vote in CO as long as they're not on parole), weeding out voters wearing Obama buttons or t-shirts (no political paraphernalia can come within 100 feet of the polling station), taking control of polling stations in predominantly blue areas and failing to open them at designated times, preventing many people from casting their vote. I spent the afternoon working in the office and at least 3 valid registered voters came in to check that they actually could vote: they'd been told by a Republican campaigner, wrongly, that they couldn't.
That first day I feel wobbly and uncertain, alternately depressed and ecstatic by the people I encounter, and eventually it hits 9pm and the office starts to quieten down, until it's just me and the other long-term volunteers - Erin, a girl from Tennessee, Graham, a schoolteacher from Brooklyn, Perrin, a law student at Yale, Nick, a math teacher from Pennsylvania with an uncanny resemblance to Michael Cera, David, an Iraq war veteran - a gun-toting, redneck registered Republican who'd 'seen the light' (and couldn't believe he was "workin' fer free with a bunch of freakin' hippies") and Rachael, a political science major at the local university. We are all under 30, not native to Colorado, organizing and recruiting a group of local volunteers who are predominantly over sixty. We work all night entering data and chasing up issues, occasionally pausing to grab pizza and fries provided free by local restaurants, and then crawl home to bed at 1am, a layer of frost settling gently on the crisp, quiet night.
The next day I'm out in the field canvassing Hispanic areas again, and I return eight hours later to an office that goes suddenly quiet when I walk in. There is an awkward pause, broken only by Former-Republican David arguing with Perrin and Nick about the 2nd Amendment -
"Did you know that when Great Britain banned firearms after the Dunblane Massacre violent crimes increased by 450%? And that suicides with shotguns are counted amongst victims of gun crimes?"
Nick pauses, tries to swim, flails wildly, drowns.
"Er, well, I have this article you should read which says guns are bad."
David grabs the article and marches outside, the light from his cigarette throwing an eerie glow across his face, an intricate battleground of scars. "Nick, what the fuck kind of hippy crap is this? What the fuck is an AK-pistol? There's no such thing as a fuckin' AK pistol!"
"It's a pistol made from recycled hemp materials," I say, and David pauses momentarily, his eyes wide with disgust, before he realizes, too late, that I'm taking the piss.
Rachael and I make an executive decision to make a last gasp at registering more voters by going for a beer, so we drive down to The Baker Street pub and settle down next to a log fire with a couple of Coors Lites, and a mass of forms.
"So everyone googled you and found all these articles and pictures online," giggles Rachael. "It was really cool! And then David downloaded your pictures and put them on a slideshow on all the computers and all the old ladies volunteering started complaining about porn and there was some mild hysteria, but everyone thinks it's kind of cool and radical. David's such a pervert. Freaking Republican. I don't know what he was trying to do, but it kind of back-fired. I think Erin was a little freaked out, but they're impressed with the book and the fact you're here and you can't even vote."
"That's weird, I get on really well with David. He's nuts but I thought he was cool."
"He's very conservative still. I caught him perving chicks on that facebook group 'Hot Mommas for Obama' this morning."
"Hmm. It happens."
A drunk, skinny red-head comes over to argue with us because he's heard we work at the Obama office.
"Why you working for the nigger? Don't get me wrong, I ain't votin' for McCain, but why'd you wanna work for Obama? This country fuckin' sucks, we need a third party, the people's party, led by the fuckin' people, controlled by the people... like at the Rage Against the Machine concert when we marched! That was fuckin' awesome! And the cops knew they couldn't stop it as we'd kill them all! You believe that Obama bullshit? He's gonna be like every other fuckin' leader, a lyin', cheatin' asshole. We need to abo - abo - abolish the government. "
"But then we'd dissolve into total anarchy," says Rachael pragmatically,
"You shut up! There might be a bit of anarchy, but then it'd sort itself out, and the people would get heard, people like me... who no one listens to...."
He starts snorting and wiping his nose, and pulls out a hundred dollar bill from his wallet, throws it in the fire and giggles insanely as he watches it burn, a thin, vivid purple flame. He's too skinny and too pale, his pupils malevolent little pinpricks. It turns out he's the local drug dealer, and despite the fact he doesn't like black people, he says he will vote for Obama. Strike one for the Democrats.
Rachael and I hand out a few forms and get to bed at 3am. I get up at 7 to the sound of Ewan, the tiny grandchild of Bill and Diana, screeching excitedly about his new toy Ferrari outside my door. I sit down for coffee with Diana as Ewan gabbles away, a huge grin on his tiny, eager little face. "Are you getting enough sleep? They're working you so hard! Bill and I want to take you for dinner one evening. Can you get a night off?"
I shrug. I want to go for dinner with Bill and Diana too but there's a sadistic streak in Obama Campaign HQ's, and we seem to just work and work and work, and 'nights off', not to mention - god forbid! - days, are anathema to the truly dedicated Obama volunteer. I have never worked like this before. Ironically I discover a work ethic in a job which does not have payment and offers few rewards, if you discount the bonus of helping to elect a President that is neither retarded nor crooked and may actually sort out the economy, but I was thinking more of free t-shirts, perhaps a yard sign or two.
I bade goodbye to Diana and Bill who are doing 'Race for the Cure' today, and get to the office at 8.30 am. David and I spend the morning looking up 'Dachshunds for Obama' which is an interesting and informative site I recommend you all visit. David has three dachshunds, one of which is called Simon and is, according to David, misanthropic, with major trust issues. The rest of the day is spent with last minute voter registrations, and driving like a mad-woman in my broken Mercedes to the County Clerks office to deliver forms before the 5.30pm deadline.
So this is my life for the next 28 days - no sleep and anonymous hate phonecalls from Republicans ("Is this the Obama office? I was jes' in there an'.... an'.... I have never met... so many pseudo, yeah, pseudo intellectuals who look down on other people because you think you're all so special and clever voting for the nigger....", "Well, I have never met a person low enough to harass young women they don't know on the phone because of their political beliefs. Good day!" Ring ring. "An'... an' I wanted to say - you Democrats are gonna burn in HELL!" "Dude, get off the phone before I call the cops." Pause. He hangs up.)
MIMI IN NY | 12:21 PM |
