Today was a beautiful day in the little town of 3000 I live near in Eastern Washington - sunny, blue skies, light breeze. Just off downtown is Riverwalk Park (Another Benefit of Hydropower! as the sign says), and this weekend is "Riverdaze" which is an arts and crafts fair in the park similar to what a lot of small towns have.
The principle reason for the fair is to give tourists from Seattle something to do - our economy is principally apples and tourists, Labor Day weekend signalling the beginning of the apple harvest and the end of the tourist harvest.
From 10AM to 2PM I manned the Democratic Party voter registration table with Stella. I had a pretty damn nice day, although it wasn't earth shattering by any means. Here's my report:
Mostly I spent 4 hours talking to Stella which in itself was fascinating. She and her husband are in their 70s, grew up in logging towns on the west side of WA (she remembers Redmond being logged), raised 3 kids and ran a construction business, and for 20 years have owned a resort here. Not your average Democrat? She's anti-war, pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. And most definitely pro-Kerry and anti-Bush.
We registered 4 new voters (which isn't that bad considering how small our town is, and that traffic at the fair was very light until about the time I left). Stella registered 15 a few weeks ago. We sold a few bumper stickers. Tourists would walk by, point at the Kerry signs and say "I'm voting for him", "We've got to get rid of Bush". Locals would come closer and almost whisper "I'm voting for him" or "Bush is a moron".
What continues to surprise me as that this is a very conservative part of WA State, but all the locals I saw were on our side. I'd like to say a lot more than that, but I don't want to put local names and stories on the net. Everyone (locals and tourists) was amazed and pleased by the 4x8 Kerry-Edwards sign on the main road into town (and no Bush sign in sight yet).
We got a few dirty looks - I can recall only two, both from guys who were trying to look like Vin Diesel from the neck up, but looked more like John Goodman from the neck down. Definitely turistas - must be some kind of Seattle trend.
This is typical small town stuff, but you'd be amazed at how much reliable intelligence you gather from seemingly innocuous chit-chat. When I got home I had a fascinating debriefing session with my wife. I'm convinced we're going to win this - I don't care what the polls say right now.
This is what made the whole day (and while this is going to seem really contrived, it's the God's honest truth). Stella was away from the table looking for some blown-glass hummingbird earrings she'd seen at a previous fair. A scrawny girl about 12 years old with braces and glasses walked hesitatingly towards the table - I thought she was just going to pass by, but suddenly she turned toward me again and before I could even say "Hi" blurted out "Thank You! Thank you for being here" and ran off.
Are you crazy, are you high,
or just an ordinary guy?
Have you done all you can do?
Are you with me ...