In the immortal words of
Trapeze, "There's a
black cloud following me." Every time I volunteer for a campaign, we lose. It all started when I volunteered at pre-voting age for, wait, can you guess?...
George McGovern!
More reasons why I am the kiss of death, below.
Not sure why
Carter lost his second term, but I think I might have volunteered as an election clerk for that one. Next comes
Michael Dukakis. I volunteered and got my wife to work at his local campaign headquarters and did my first (okay, and only) fund raising to pay to have more
yard signs printed. I even had some remote influence on the
Monica Lewinsky thing because I volunteered to work on
Clinton's inauguration since I was bicoastal at the time (got to attend a nice party at the Nike lobbyists' town house, too—woo hoo!).
Okay, I didn't work on the Gore campaign but, um, wait... we won the popular vote on that one! After the coup d'état in 2000, I vowed to do all I could the next time around. (Mistake.) I volunteered for the Dean campaign then, following the Iowa implosion, the Kerry campaign. I gave a few thousand dollars that I couldn't afford to various Democratic candidates and the Dem machine. Hey, I was a friggin' delegate to our Democratic state convention!
I must be on everybody's list by now because every day I get several contribution solicitations in the mail. I guarantee our winning this off-year election by ripping up and throwing away each and every one unopened. And I won't be canvasing, putting up signs, or pouring over voter-registration rolls. I will vote, though. I want us to win this time.