Early this morning I read in the SF Chronicle that John Kerry would hold a local townhall meeting. Having no steady job and hoping to show support for my candidate, I visited the Kerry website for more information. A press release announced the event, but gives no time or location. The closest Kerry campaign number listed is in LA. I call the LA State Headquarters for information and am told they have no information on today's CA events, but give me the San Francisco campaign number (why the SF # is not on their website, who knows?).
A call to the SF office (415-896-6840) finds an answering machine, on which one of the choices is "TO RSVP for the Aug 27th event, press 2#". Following that choice I am asked to leave my personal information for a (s)Nob Hill Fairmont Hotel fundraiser, detailing which fat cat invited me. I gave up in disgust.
Now all of you earnest supporters can shower me with logical explanations of why this is how the campaign has to be run, but for a little guy like me who has no money to contribute but was willing burn some expensive gas to show stand-up support, I feel completely disenfranchised. I can't leave home to work a battleground state and I've been working my neofascist relatives by phone and email already. Finding out today there is no place for me even to fill out a crowd was a huge disappointment. On the Kerry campaign website and by all contacts I had today, it's just about raking in the money.