An amusing story, possibly the earliest one of this Election Day:
I've been in St. Louis doing GOTV since last Monday. My sister lives in Chesterfield, one of St. Louis's most conservative suburbs. So last night after finishing making tons of signs for late night visibility runs, I headed over to her place to hang out and play with my nephew (he's 2.)
(more below the fold)
Well, my nephew decided that a fun thing to do would be to play with my car keys, and who was I to stop him? My car has one of those remote-control thingies where you can lock/unlock your doors or trunk from afar. But we were pretty far away from the car and obstructed by various walls, interior and exterior, so I didn't think he'd hit anything that would matter.
I was so exhausted that I ended up falling asleep on the couch. Three and a half hours later I awoke in a panic - before looking at the clock, I thought I might have overslept the time I was supposed to get up (5 am) to get started kicking ass and taking names. I've been assigned as a driver for folks who need a ride to the polls. As it turns out though, it was only 1 am. So I headed out the door.
Outside my sister's house was a police car with the beams on super-super-high, just a few feet behind mine. The trunk of my car was open, and had been since my nephew's little experiment with car keys I guess. The policeman didn't know that of course, and must have figured that some troublemaking Kerry supporter (I have two bumper stickers and one big sign in the back) was up to monkey business in the conservative heart of St. Louis county. When I walked up to him he said something about wondering if the car had been robbed.
I set him straight but boy must I have been an interesting site - my hair disheveled, but otherwise me looking every bit the part of a conservative yuppie. And here I was, a proud Kerry supporter in the middle of Bush country. Eventually the policeman decided that there was no wrongdoing going on and took off.
Now, this must be a very good omen, since no Republican has ever won an election in which the early morning before a policeman investigated a mysteriously open trunk on my car. Little did he know it, but that guy just cost Bush his job. Furthermore, based on the amount of time the trunk was open (three and a half hours I reckon, though it could have been more,) I am predicting Kerry will win the Electoral College 350 - 239.
Some other scraps from yesterday:
- I drove in my third and fourth votes yesterday, giving a ride to a couple folks so that they could vote early. Standing in line it looked like everyone was not only voting Democrat, but was doing so because they were volunteering for either Kerry or MoveOn/ACT (we all got to talking about it, making snarky jokes about whether or not we were "electioneering" or not.)
- Yesterday morning one of our volunteers was voting early and a St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer was on the scene to find people to interview for a story on early voting. He explained this to the folks in line, and asked if he could find a Bush supporter who would give him a quote. Not one person raised his or her hand.
- St. Louis County authorities are expecting 46,000 early votes, including mail-in and in-person absentee ballots - that is a 50% increase over 2000. No idea what the party breakdown is.
- The woman I canvassed with yesterday early afternoon was also from Chesterfield, and she reports that in her neighborhood, a lopsided Bush advantage in 2000 had become a slight Kerry lean in 2004 (in terms of yard signs).
- The neighborhood we were canvassing was a very, very rich area - huge mansions, long driveways, etc. We were only canvassing supporters, giving them doorhangers to remind them to vote. Nevertheless, we had to hit pretty much every single house.
Don't know what all this means exactly, but mark my words - it'll be Kerry 350 - 239, and Bush will concede right around 10:30 pm EST.
Turn off your computer and get out the vote people!