Monday, November 3, 2008

Election Eve 2008

If it's Monday it must be door hanging.

Today's assignment was to hang "door hangers" on front doors of Democrats' houses with their polling location, etc. info on it. The crew pictured below went "scavenger hunt"-style all over to get this job done. We had to rent a "hockey mom" van to do this. It turned out to be perfect as it had sliding doors on both sides and we were able to "stealth" drop and deliver. I would drive slowly and team members would jump out with hangers (door hangers), run to the house and jump back in the van. Sort of like door bell ditch, but with a purpose.

The first Obama campaign HQ we went to was a converted barbershop. Excellent people there.
Explaining door hanging.
**********
Sarah Goodman.
She was my partner on much of this effort. We joked how we were collectively the Gay Jewish Army for Obama. Of the 22 or so people, everyone was either Jewish, gay or a filmmaker/film business person. Or 2 or 3 of the above. Sarah is Jewish and a filmmaker. She directed "Army of One" which won loads of awards. Read this New York Times review.
We hit it off right away and we were able to share some real personal stuff about our lives and differences of experiences. Not to mention tease each other rotten. When we came back to the campaign HQ after a day canvassing in Marion we were arguing over some point (turns out I was right...) and the campaign manager called us an "old married couple" and that is what we were right away.
To hear her story of how she made her film just inspired me so much. She had no nets, no real filmmaking experience, but now that I know her, I know she has pluck, intelligence, conviction and drive. I have to say I always want nets. I need to let go of nets. I will think of this.


Sausages and McCain
After a long day of door hanging we wanted to play tourist so we went to the German section of Columbus. Me and three straight Jews for Obama. Schmidt's seems to be the place to go. You could tell it was touristy straight off, but heck, that is what we were.

When we walked in the joint and sat down, there was a HUGE "Last Supper" table of McCain campaign people right next to us. Was this some sort of joke by the staff? We had our Obama stickers on and they sat us right next to these people. I felt uncomfortable right away. To profile, they were mostly blond, Christian, clean cut white folk. There was one black woman with a McCain/Palin tee that made me even more uncomfortable. So to deal with it I went right up to them and said "Good evening."
It was cordial-esque.
Eventually the waitress came around and said they wanted to buy us a drink. The were having libations a go go as one would. We ordered: one beer, herbal tea, a decaf coffee and hot cranberry tea. Nerds!
When we thanked them the woman said "After tomorrow, no matter what, we are all Americans." And I replied, "Yes, we all want CHANGE." They laughed until one guy muttered "Some of us want America the way it is." I knew he was on a losing team. A-hole.
A man dining alone came up to us after paying his check and said "Thank you for what you are doing."
We left and were so excited to go to sleep and wake up on what we would hope to be a new day.


No caption needed.

Outside Schmidt's. Photo taken by McCain IT guy.

No comments: