I find myself with some unexpected free time this morning, so I signed on to DKos for the first time in a while (had to make my election prediction!) and found that John McCain will make his final campaign stop tonight 10:45 in Henderson, NV -- the place I canvassed yesterday and will go again today. I wish I could attend, with an "ERRATIC-FANATIC" sign in hand. But, alas, I have a 4:30 wake-up call on Tuesday morning to get ready for poll monitoring. So in the time I have before going to Michelle Obama's speech, I'm going to tell you about a voter contact I had yesterday in Henderson.
Part 1 is the potentially interesting part. Part 2 explains the first line of this diary.
1. In which I talk to one voter for 90 minutes
I am in Nevada to do legal Voter Protection work. I am constrained from describing the details of that. I think I can fairly say that (1) Nevada has a better voting system than most, worth studying and emulating, and (2) ditto for the Obama voter protection efforts here. It's a tight ship. Worry about Ohio, Florida, or Missouri; don't worry about Nevada.
That undescribed work was complete by Saturday at dusk. I was about to write in what I did Saturday night. I literally do not remember.
Yesterday and today were my break from voter protection work, so I went off to canvass in Henderson, NV a suburb southeast of the city that is a bit more hardscrabble (at least in the parts I've seen.) I am splitting my time with making phone calls into my hometown in Orange County, CA -- supporting a local Assembly candidate, opposing Prop 8 -- so I didn't get there until after noon. With Daily Savings Time ending, sunset hits around 5:00 here, and with the low horizon dusk follows close upon it. The question is: does one continue canvassing after dark? Back home, I'd say yes. Here, in a town with so many foreclosures and so many guns, I decided that the answer would be no. As it turned out, I did canvas after dark, but in an unanticipated way: I spent more than 90 minutes on one voter's porch. It wasn't the best use of time, perhaps, but I wasn't going to do any more canvassing anyway and it was surely interesting.
This was a seriously undecided voter -- undecided because he hates all politicians and trusts nothing they have to say, which takes away one of Obama's best advantages. He was about 70, based on my calculations of when he joined the Seabees, but looked older -- tanned, scarred, wrinkled, and with just enough teeth to tell you that the others truly were missing. He let onto me that his problem with McCain was his stances on war -- which was hell -- and the environment. His problem with Obama was that he was a socialist.
No, no, he's not a socialist, I said. Look at who supports him. Colin Powell supports him. Do you think he'd support him if he was a socialist?
The voter didn't like Colin Powell -- ever since his covering up My Lai. OK, I thought to myself, you are an interesting guy. Let's talk more deeply. It's the difference between hitting another five houses with no one home or trying to nail down one vote. I'll take this shot.
I started out with my standard approach for the "I hate all politicians" type: what politicians have you liked? Truman. Eisenhower. I can work with that, I thought. Later, when the conversation turned more somber and dark, he told me that he thought that JFK could have been a good President but was stymied even before being assassinated. He also told me that he had admired George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama Governor who ran in 1968 and 1972. I thought I had lost him at that point, but he later pointed out that it wasn't about race -- it was about being tough and for the working people. On his issues, he seemed like he should be an Obama voter, and I told him that.
Do you know about his background?, he asked me. He's a socialist. He was hanging out with Black Panthers. I was confused for a moment, then: You mean William Ayers? That's been debunked. He looked doubtful. Where are you getting this?, I asked. I've been reading a book, he said. Can you get it? Sure. It's going to be Corsi, I predicted. He came back holding a hefty book. Yes, Corsi's Obama Nation. You know, that's all been debunked, I told him, realizing that I had nothing on hand that could prove that to him. He's the guy who got the goods on Kerry, he told me. You believe all that Swift Boat stuff, I said? Yes, I knew people on the Swift Boats. OK, this was going to be hard.
We talked and talked as the sky darkened. He was a bright guy but a mess of contradictions. He was a Malthusian one minute, intelligently discussing water policy; pro-life the next. He was anti-immigrant and hated the Chinese. (The Chinese military owns Costco, he told me. I have never heard that, I replied, that sounds off to me. You don't have to buy everything voters tell you, by the way -- sometimes they are testing you to see if you're just willing to eat whatever shit they dole out. Be yourself.) He loved Native American culture and showed me a wonderful wall hanging on his entry hall wall -- no doubt apocryphal, but still inspiring -- called the Native American Ten Commandments, mostly dealing with environmental and communitarian themes, which he said came from the Cree. I told him the truth -- that when I come to Vegas, I don't come looking for the Strip, but for the beautiful rock formations surrounding the valley. Then I threw Yucca Mountain at him; he said it was a consideration but he didn't think McCain would really do it.
The conversation turned back to Obama and we must have both tried to end it three or four times but we kept on going. He did not know much about Sarah Palin, but when I asked him he said he didn't like Elmer Gantry preacher types. I told him to read up on her, because McCain hasn't released his medical records and he could have cancer again, so she might be President. He didn't like the nastiness in politics. I tapped the Corsi book and said "Do you think that Obama couldn't have had a book like this written about McCain? He didn't do it intentionally, because he agrees with you about changing the tone of politics.
I had two closing arguments for him. The first: I told him not to vote for the man. I said that if he couldn't decide between them he should stand in the ballot booth and see two lines: where he saw "McCain" he should see "Stay in Iraq and spend $10 Billion per month" and when he saw Obama he should see "Get out of the Civil War in Iraq." I'll never know how that one turns out, but it's a seed that may bear fruit. The second one was that if the polls were tied, if Obama hadn't run such a good campaign, I thought people could deal with him losing. But with him so solidly ahead, if he lost now I thought it would crush people -- they would believe that a Black man really could not become President. This seemed to affect him. He told me of his experiences in the military, of his telling Black soldiers that they were the same under the skin. And then he snapped out of it. The problem wasn't skin, he said, it was socialism.
And then I just started speaking from the heart. You know, if he was Fidel Castro I'd expect you to vote against him. He wouldn't have been nominated. But when you say that we need stronger environmental protections, that it's crazy to build huge houses for two people in Vegas, that's a little bit of socialism. When you want Social Security and Medicare and the VA, that's a little socialist. When you want worker protections -- well, that's socialism. The problem isn't with having some ideas where the government takes control in some areas, the problem is when it takes over the whole society. Those people yelling socialist at Obama, I said, they're cheapening the word. They're taking away its meaning. You know that's wrong.
He looked thoughtful and then said something really interesting. He said "I don't get into a lot of intellectual conversations here. People talk about money money money, get rich quick, and then they talk about who is banging who's wife. So I appreciate the conversation." And then he tapped the Corsi book, which at some point I had taken, and said "you know, I don't watch TV or use a computer. For me, this is entertainment."
I don't know how this man is going to vote -- though I do know that my talking to him for this long, working that hard for one vote, seemed to make a favorable impression on his family members coming in and out around him, judging from their smiles. I do know this: if you are not out canvassing today and tomorrow, you are missing out.
Human contact, one on one, is our best shot at convincing those still undecided.
2. In which I fall asleep on the phone
After that conversation, I went to the office to make some calls to my hometown. First, some for a local candidate and against Prop 8; then to Nevada voters to invite them to Michelle Obama's speech this morning in North Las Vegas (which, in a fit of self-indulgence -- having missed Barack Obama's speech a scant few miles away from where I was working against a deadline on Saturday morning -- I am going to attend, and if Barack loses by one vote because I spent a few hours at that speech, I'm sorry!
I got up early today because, while making calls at about 7:30 last night, the bottom dropped out. I can only liken the feeling to one involving a sudden attack of what I will euphemistically call "gastric distress," except this dealt with sleep. I had just finished a page of contacts, lifted the phone to my ear, and then I froze. I realized that I had about 45 seconds left of consciousness if I was lucky. I excused myself and limped to my car, parked right outside the door, and had time to recline my seat before passing out. I woke up around 9:30, wondered where the hell I was, and when I figured it out I drove 35 minutes back to Summerlin, where I'm staying, and passed out again.
As a result of all this, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. today. Perfect! That's when I have to get up tomorrow to go out to the polls. My body clock is in synch. And now it is off to see Michelle Obama and a little self-indulgence before the work begins again. I look forward to both. Will you join me in the latter?