The wingnuts are too demoralized to send me hate mail, but the slack has been picked up by people sending me really nice notes, like this one:
Hi Kos,
I wanted to express a big thank you for your leave everything on the road article a couple of weeks back. Your article motivated me to go down and volunteer at Obama Campaign headquarters in Portland, OR which I have been doing after work almost every day over the last week, this week and next week. Additionally, I canvessed over the weekend and recruited my sister and husband to volunteer. My husband and I have also donated additional money.
I now talk to lots of volunteers on a daily basis and am communicating 'leave everything on the road' to them as well. It has been effective in having the volunteers sign up for additional shifts.
Prior to reading your article, I would have been crossing my fingers..now I am involved and ask myself "is there anything more important than this I could be doing right now?" The answer is No.
Thank you for making a big difference.
Here is that post, the key passage, and the one that has motivated me to push myself to my limit, but physically and financially, is this one:
One of my favorite cyclists likes to say, "Leave everything on the road", meaning that when he crosses the finish line, he will have burned every last ounce of energy in his body. If he falls short? No regrets because he gave it his all, every last bit of it.
We can't have regrets on Election Night, thinking that some Democrats came up short because we failed to leave everything on the road. We can't have a Jim Martin or a Bob Lord or a Darcy Burner or whoever come inches from victory, knowing that maybe we could've done just a little bit more to help them cross the finish line victorious. Even if all you can give is $5 to one candidate, or one afternoon phone banking, it still matters. There's a lot of us, and a lot of little gestures adds up to a whole lot of action.
I'm glad others were inspired by it, and guys, I mean this -- I'm in awe and beyond inspired by what you guys are doing for our country. I get pretty emotional when I think about it, but no, those aren't tears; I got some dust in my eyes, both of them.
Please share with everyone what you are doing for victory next Tuesday.