I traveled from Brooklyn to help the Arizona Democratic Party in Tempe turn out the vote for Kerry. I'll be working here until 10/28 when I'll begin my stint as a volunteer for
Election Protection . (
http://www.electionprotectionvolunteer.org ).
But I'm also trying to help a friend back in New York connect with a community group here in Phoenix/Tempe that might be interested in running a film festival. This person ran the Imagine Film Festival which took place in NYC during the RNC.
Can anyone out there help me?
Check out
http://www.filmstoseebeforeyouvote.org/ to find out about some of the films the group can make available to you (in DVD format). This includes
all of Greenwald's films. You'd have permission to show them to a "public" audience. The community group, however, would need to supply the venue, the DVD Projector, and the screen.
Meanwhile, a little about my volunteer efforts here in Tempe:
It turns out I've exited one Kerry-lovin' bubble (Park Slope) and entered another one. While I realize that Arizona is considered unlikely to tip for Kerry you couldn't tell that by me. But that's because I've only been making phone calls to Kerry supporters. I've been reminding them to get their Vote by Mail ballot in the mail and asking whether they'd like to participate in this weekend's "Million Door Knock." And the Kerry supporters have been great. I and another volunteer are being housed, for free, for the entire month. It's been pleasant to wake up every morning, take a swim, then sit and sip coffee on the deck and look out at the palm trees.
In terms of the state of the state, the one bit of good news is that the Arizona Republic's poll showed that the number of undecided voters increased after the first presidential debate. Other than that, it's hard for me to gage anything. Granted, though, I've only been here for 3 days and I'm just now over my jet lag. (I was up for 19 hours straight my first day and I'm still kind of hazy.)
Being from New York, I'm finding the clusters huge (HUGE) political signs posted along commercial streets kind of... odd. There are rows of 10 or 15, devoted to both candidates and ballot propositions. They, like the Kerry/Edwards road signs are as large as 4 x 8 feet. But it's the Kerry signs, as well as the smaller Kerry lawn signs, that are disappearing at a rapid clip. We have a daily stream of people dropping by or calling for the lawn signs, and every once in a while we receive a complaint that they see Bush/Cheney signs everywhere and why isn't the Kerry/Edwards ticket similarly represented?
I can't tell you whether it's good news or not that the pace of Kerry sign-stealing has reached epidemic proportions. I like to think of it as a sign of increasing Republican desperation. On the other hand, that's little consolation to the one woman who had rocks thrown at her car (cracking her windshield, or another woman whose car was keyed while she and her husband were at a local mall).
For any of you Kerry-supporting Arizonians out there, give me a shout. I'd really be happy to hear that someone's started a Phoenix-Tempe chapter of Drinking Liberally. I'm sure, as time goes on, I'll be encountering more Bush Republican types and I'll need a beer, and some congenial company, to chase the bad taste away.
Off to watch the debates...