We worked our butts off trying to nominate a viable candidate in 2004.
And when our attempts to get Kerry elected fell short, we said:
"To hell with it, this country has gone to hell in a handbasket".
We were 'full timing' in a motor home at the time, and decided to stay in Mexico and Canada until things got better.
Two years later, things weren't much better, but we decided to come back and try again. Now we're home and again working our butts off. This time we're 'leaving everything on the road'.
While serving a twenty-year career in the Air Force, my politics leaned pretty much toward the conservative.
I voted for JFK as my first president, then Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. It wasn’t until the election of 2000 that my politics changed, not so much because I felt that Gore would be a better president, but because I didn’t think Bush II was very smart.
After 9/11 when plans were being drawn up by the Bush Administration to invade Iraq, I became polarized.
DeVonne, my wife, had already been anti-Bush during the run-up to the election, and wondered why it had taken me so long to see the light. But I had experienced the turmoil of Vietnam during the 60s and could now see the dangers of going into an ill-advised war once more. We knew it might be counter-productive, but when a hastily organized Vietnam Veterans Against the War rally was held on a stormy day in March of 2003, we donned our gortex and drove to Bremerton to gather on a pier next to the USS Turner Joy. This site was fitting, as the Turner Joy incident was Johnson’s excuse to escalate the war in Vietnam. Politicians and spokespersons delivered speeches from under umbrellas, taunts were endured from a small knot of counter-demonstrators, coffee and hot dogs were consumed, and everybody went home.
This was the first time we participated in a political rally, and we wondered if our cause was futile. Certainly we were swimming against the popular tide, but now during the 2004 election campaign, we wanted to influence the direction in which the country was going. Traveling around the country in our motor home, we felt we might contribute in those states that mattered, so we volunteered to help Gen. Wesley Clark’s presidential campaign. Clark decided to enter the race, perhaps too late, as he skipped the Iowa caucuses and concentrated on the New Hampshire primary and other states like Oklahoma, Tennessee and South Carolina. He organized a pretty effective phone and letter campaign, so we called and wrote prospective voters from a list that was supplied on his web site. Maybe we weren’t cut out to be phone solicitors, because it soon became evident that the hang-ups outnumbered the polite deferrals, five to one. But for several weekends we called and tried to persuade, and maybe changed a few minds. One evening General Clark hosted a conference call during which I had an opportunity to talk to him personally:
“Hi, General. Welcome to the ranks of the retired.”
“Hello. I want to personally thank you for…” [The phone went dead.]
In a few seconds somebody came on and said his satellite phone went down and to hold while they tried to fix the connection. In less than a minute he was back:
“Sorry about that,” said General Clark. “ I’m up in Maine using a satellite phone. These satellites aren’t as reliable as I’d like…”
“That’s OK, general. I know about satellite reliability,” I said. “I helped to develop spy satellites when I was in the Air Force…I’m sure you used some of our products when they were working right.”
“Oh indeed I have,” he replied. “I should thank you for that also.”
Our conversation went on for several more minutes about his campaign and our mutual interests. The subject of fly-fishing came up and we went off on another tangent until somebody else interrupted and said there were other volunteers the general needed to talk to.
“Well thanks again for your help, and maybe we can talk again,” said Wesley.
“I'd like that”, I said. “Good luck on the campaign.”
Bolstered by the conversation, we continued working phone lists, writing letters, sending e-mails and attending ‘meet ups’. The meet ups were particularly interesting because they provided an opportunity to meet other campaigners in diverse places as we traveled through the south. As out of town ‘full-timers’, we were always the center of attention after introductions were made. Although Clark was enthusiastically supported in these meet-ups, it became clear that the momentum of the Kerry juggernaut was too much to overcome. Clark won Oklahoma, which was some consolation, as the only other states not won by Kerry were the Carolinas, John Edward’s areas of strength, and Vermont, John Dean’s home state.
Discouraged at the fact that Clark didn’t make it past the primaries, we decided we would at least try to help Kerry get elected. Anybody was better than Bush, and after contacting the Democratic National Committee to offer our services, we were told that Nevada would be a pivotal state, and since we were going to be there en route to Mexico, maybe we could do some doorbell ringing to get out the vote. To get organized, we attended a Las Vegas meet-up with some of Clark’s residual volunteers, and were told that precincts in the town of Laughlin about 75 miles south were in need of help. We volunteered to go there and do what we could. After checking into the RV resort at the Avi casino on the Fort Mohave Indian Reservation, we contacted our assigned precinct leader and were given a list of names and addresses.
“I’m not sure I want to do this,” said DeVonne, as we parked the Honda and surveyed our first assigned neighborhood. “I don’t handle confrontations very well, and these voters have probably had it up to here with solicitations already.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “But look at it this way: If Nevada becomes the key state and just a few votes make the difference like Florida did last time, we’d never forgive ourselves for not trying.”
“I suppose you’re right,” sighed DeVonne. “I’ll take this side of the street, and you take the other.”
We rang doorbells for most of the afternoon. Almost all of the Kerry voters had already voted, either by mail or through early visits to polls. Several registered voters either couldn’t be persuaded to go to the polls, weren’t really democrats or didn’t want to admit it. It was a tough neighborhood. One belligerent republican berated our efforts, and as we left to move to another area, cast dispersions at our Honda as he pointed to its Kerry/Edwards decal:
“I see someone slimed your car.”
That evening, we joined a smattering of volunteers gathered in the bar at a Mexican restaurant to speculate on our success. Already polls were closed in the Eastern time zone, and CNN exit polling showed Kerry in a comfortable lead in two of the biggest swing states: Pennsylvania and Ohio. There was an air of jubilation but later after we returned to our motor home to continue to watch the returns, Ohio became less of a certainty, and while the exit polls showed Kerry with a comfortable lead, the actual counts trickling in showed just the opposite. Preliminary returns for Nevada also were discouraging, and our gloom turned into depression the next day when we heard that Kerry conceded the election.
“To hell with it,” I said. “This country is going to hell in a hand-basket. Let’s just spend the next four years in Mexico and Canada. We can get visas for six months in each place and act like visitors when we stop by our place on the way through.”
“The way I feel right now, I don’t even want to visit”, said DeVonne.
Can’t we just fly over?”
So this was our first foray into campaigning. This time we’ve started much earlier and are back home doing so, after spending two more years in Mexico and Canada. We could have continued this fight from either of these places, or just retire into obscurity, but we still love our country, and firmly believe with Obama, things can only get better. Moreover, our neighborhood here in Western Washington State, while a mixture of political persuasions, is still friendly. One thing we’ve learned, however:
Involvement is a contact sport.