Election Day
At 5:30 in the morning, I was at the offices of Shook Hardy & Bacon, serving as a volunteer lawyer for Election Protection 2004, advising people of either party on their voting rights. It seemed slightly odd to be in the plush conference room of an international tobacco and pharmaceutical defense law firm doing something so populist as helping average people cast their votes, but a lot of the lawyers from Shook do a lot of good works, and it was great of them to donate the facilities.
It was a fascinating way to spend my morning. Most of the callers had routine questions about where they were supposed to vote, or whether they would be allowed to vote even though they had moved and failed to notify the election board of their new addresses (quite a few were of the opinion that if they filed a change of address form with the Post Office, they had taken care of their voter registration).
My most interesting call was from someone who voted at a Catholic Church in St. Louis, where a poster hanging in the polling place had the "pro-life" positions of the candidates handwritten onto it. Another interesting intersection of church and state was one person who called me because she objected to having to vote at a church, "because I'm voting Democratic." I know, I know, my right wing buddies will get a kick out of the fact that she sensed a conflict there. It was neither the time nor the place to get into a heavy WWJD discussion and point out that George Bush opposes Jesus.
After that, I cast my own vote, ran a few errands, and made a few calls for America Coming Together. Now, I look at the polls, and it appears that Bush is going to be the second member of his family to crash and burn in a presidential election after having stratospheric approval ratings and an adventure in Iraq.
Early in this blog's history, I often referred to Bush as OTB2. It stood for One Term Bush the Second, and was a play off of the juvenile republicans in Jefferson City calling Bob Holden "One Term Bob". I gave it up when I decided that I had no desire to lower myself to the level of the general assembly republicans, but it's funny that now both tags are coming true.
I can't wait to Saturday Night Live tackle the Bush family Thanksgiving Dinner . . .
posted by Dan at 11/02/2004 05:46:00 PM
3 Comments:
Dude, I love your blog. How do we take our country back? How do we take our state back?
TTB2?
If you are a person of faith, pray that God grants our president wisdom, compassion and strength of character in generous measure. If you are not a person of faith, hope for the best.
Whatever your position was in this election, STAY INVOLVED. If you don't like the direction the country is going, don't sit around and whine about having to wait for 4 more years. You have state and federal legislators who have a huge impact on what this country does. Write them. Phone them. Bug the living **** out of them by telling them what you think. I don't care if the legislators for your area are of a different party. They listen when they hear from enough people.
Don't want abusive damages caps? Call your new legislators. Don't like what Bush is doing in Iraq? Call your legislators. Don't like how school funding is handled . . . .you get the idea.
Our elected officials need to know if you don't like what they are doing. They need to know when you think they have done a good job. Do you have any idea what is going on in Congress? If not, check the congressional web site. Watch C-SPAN. Read. The people only have power if they exercise it. I was really excited to see the number of voters increase this year, but voting is not enough. You have to pay attention all year, every year and contact your elected representatives. If we Americans get off our rich, lazy behinds and get involved it will make a difference.
Thanks so much for helping with Election Protection. Your street teams were a HUGE help out at the polling places where I was volunteering for the coordinated campaign.
The phone bank helped also, because I was impressed how many voters showed up with good knowledge of their rights and how the system was supposed to work. People definitely took the time to research the issues and find out about their voting rights.
FWIW, here's my experience out on the street... http://www.ericrogers.org/weblog/2004/11/03/working-the-election/
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