A couple of weeks ago, Caroline Kennedy headlined the biggest ever political fundraiser in Taos, NM. Today, her cousin Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. came to town. With him was Arturo Rodriguez, head of the United Farmworkers Union, who blessed the use of the Union's slogan, Si Se Puede by the Obama campaign. An overflow crowd of more than 200 people turned up in the middle of a weekday at the Ancianos Senior Center with less than a day's notice.
After some speechifying which was simultaneously thoughtful and rousing, the two men led a procession of attendees down the block to the County Courthouse to cast early votes.
On Thursday, RFK & Rodriguez campaigned in Colorado. A few Boulder residents were probably quite surprised to find RFK Jr knocking on their doors yesterday, and ditto on a few lucky Santa Feans today. Other stops included Mora in New Mexico for a forum earlier today. Aspen, Colorado is on Saturday's agenda.
Both speakers were welcomed heartily to Taos, with chants of Si Se Puede! filling the air:
Rodriguez made a special appeal to Hispanics to get la gente out to vote, while RFK, Jr. gave an excellent, substantive talk on wind and solar energy. Between wind turbines on the high plains, and solar power in the four corners states, he argued, the nation's entire energy needs, including electric cars, could be generated. However, the nation's grid is not ready to carry the loads that can be produced, so that infrastructure needs updating. There were lots of applause lines, including when he talked about individual homes with solar arrays selling energy back to the grid.
New Mexico loves the Kennedy clan. The mayor of Taos presented RFK Jr. with a key to the city, and a abundance of County Commissioners and the like were on hand.
SoS Mary Herrera
And our Secretary of State, Mary Herrera was on the scene, too. When I asked her about the cost of maintaining the elecion scanning machines via exclusive company contracts, she did allow how that cost is a bit of a problem.
Considering how RFK & Greg Palast have been relentlessly lambasting New Mexico for wholesale disenfranchisement of voters, and all manner of irregularities, I wondered if there would be a few sparks fly. But the topic was not on the official agenda. Herrera was in PR mode, proud that machine malfunction was detected in Santa Fe. Though, from what I've read, it could have been missed. She says, though, that they are auditing a sample of precincts before certifying the election, which is a good thing.
A voting machine test in Santa Fe County on Friday revealed a programming error that, had it not been caught and corrected before the start of early voting on Oct. 18, would not have counted possibly thousands of straight-ticket voters, according to www.Alternet.org.
The software error concerned straight-party voting, where voters fill in one oval on their paper ballot that indicates they want to vote for all the candidates from a political party. The test revealed that the precinct optical-scanner computers, which read hand-marked paper ballots and compile the precinct vote totals, were not counting straight-party votes for president and U.S. Senate.
Personally, I think there is a good faith effort to run the election right. There are counties far from here, and perhaps things are different there. A vigorous pre-certification audit is important. And that we barely escaped an "error" which would have dropped all the "straight party" votes for President and Senate in heavily Democratic Santa Fe is troublesome indeed. There would have been the paper trail ballots to correct it. But still, a little anxiety-inducing.
The Procession
It was a gorgeous day today. Clear and bright and comfortably in the 70s in the mid-afternoon when we left the Ancianos for early voting at the nearby Courthouse. The County Clerk was warned ahead of time, so she was ready. (Unlike the County Assessor, she didn't get to take time off to come to the rally.)
There was a young woman there, grew up in California, who'd always deeply admired the UFW. She brought one of their flags with her, that she'd had all her life, and Mr. Rodriguez graciously signed it for her. Which totally made her day! She asked me to photograph them together with her camera, and so I got to take a picture with mine, too.
It was a good day. The Obama campaign is taking care of business in the Rocky Mountain states. I brought a couple of first-time voters to the polls the other day. I've got a couple of newly-registered neighbors that I'm working on getting to the courthouse to vote early, too. Since they're first time voters, I figure they need a little extra encouragement. A couple of other neighbors, I failed to convince to register. But the time for that is over now. The task at hand is to get the registered voters to the polls.
P.S. Another Volunteer Shout-Out
In my diary the other day, about voting starting in NM, I gave a shout out to the out-of-town volunteers who have put their lives on hold to work around the clock for the Obama campaign this season here in Taos.
But this one, named Emily, wasn't around the office that day, so I missed including her picture. Plus, I got a kick out of the fancy shoes she wore to today's event.
I'm heartened by the array of campaign events. Kerry/Edwards lost NM by less than 4 votes per precinct in 2004. There's about 35,000 new voters on the rolls from this summer's efforts - which is comparable to the numbers of new voters in 2004. But the campaign's been proactive on registering voters, and is tracking and following up with them all.
Governor Bill Richardson also came to town on Monday, to encourage the last minute push for voter registration.
2004 did not have the kind of follow-up we're having this go-round, to get all those new registrants to the polls. Plus, the times are different now, too. Events like this one - with attention from high-profile people (two Kennedys in as many weeks!) are gears to getting the voters to the polls.
I continue to predict that we will NOT be the closest margin state in this year's Presidential election. Let that distinction fall to Indiana or Virginia or some other of the newly competitive states. We've all got work to do. And we can do it. This is the time for this change. It's needed and the country knows it.
Si Se Puede!