I'm in Palm Springs, CA tonight, on Julie Bornstein's campaign against Mary Bono Mack (CA-45).
It is my last race of the cycle. As my Facebook profile says: "I spent the winter in Erie, PA and the summer in Palm Springs, CA. On purpose."
Julie is a great underdog candidate. Smart, hard-working and (thank God) cheerful.
Bono Mack has cruised to reelection the last five times pretty easily. But this time is going to be different. We've closed the registration gap between Dems and Republicans from 36,000 in 2006 to 16,000 today. We've had Mack on the run, have been running some great ads, including one of the best I've ever worked on (video here).
But this isn't just about Julie, and certainly not about me. It's about all of us working tonight on underdog races. And for us, I have a treat, and a tradition.
I love underdog races. It's almost all my company does. We lose a lot, as you can imagine. The (un)official company song is Just One Victory by Todd Rundgren.
Every election eve in these races, we play two video clips for the (usually undermanned) staff and volunteers.
The first is the "was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" speech from Animal House. Still gets yucks from me, after 30 years.
But the second clip is a bit more dramatic: the St. Crispin's Day speech from Branagh's Henry V.
Let me set the scene for you.
Young, untested Henry has crossed the Channel in 1415 with a very small force (!) to take France, and has taken Calais and some other towns. A battle is set at Agincourt between the English and Welsh and the vastly superior French.
As Brian Price said in 1998: "Morale in the English line as they looked upon the overwhelming force of heavily armoured, highly skilled French knights must have been extremely low. King Henry, rising to the occasion, spoke words of encouragement that rallied the English troops and carried them to a victory."
Here are those words, dedicated to all of you also working tonight against long odds, but ready also tomorrow for victory.
(A note: yes, the language is a bit sexist, but it was written over four hundred years ago and, well, it's Willie the Shake.)
It's a speech that makes me think of volunteers tonight in Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, and here in California, but also in Alabama, Idaho, and Alaska, working hard in hard causes. Causes that we know we may lose, but if we do, we'll "get off the floor and hit 'em one more time," and if we don't lose, if we win, well, then, "the greater share of honour."
Westmoreland, Henry's cousin, first laments that he wishes they had more men (read: help from the DCCC).
Enter the KING
WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!
KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
On to tomorrow, underdogs. On to St. Crispin's Day.
Video here.