volunteerism


Another day working in the Howard Dean
campaign headquarters for New Hampshire.

Interesting working in the Howard Dean campaign headquarters in Manchester, NH, as a volunteer today. Been in before, and now it looks like they would like me on a regular basis, as I'm one of the few they trust with doing database work (voter registration database, etc.) other than their full-time staffers. I'll be going in every Tues, Wed, and Friday until the New Hampshire primary in January.

I'm the oldest one in the volunteer half of the building by about twenty years. It's a bit bizarre to be working for kids who could be my children, but they don't seem to realize how old I am (they haven't looked at my own voter registration record, I guess), and so treat me as one of their own. It's rather nice, and I'm not going to be the one to pop their bubble.

I worked today with one kid who has taken a year off from college and, at 18, is now on his second campaign as a full-time volunteer (the first being a senatorial one). He's from Oregon, staying with a family out here until the primary and then, I can only imagine, going to wherever the campaign sends him until all the primaries are over. We shall see how it turns out for him, but so far he's full of verve and one heck of a kid for an 18-year-old student. He's one of the better cold-callers I've heard on a phone -- I hope he's thought about theater as a backup to politics, even if that does seem like a cliche. What prompted a kid that age to leave home and move across the country to help with an election? He seems to honestly believe in this campaign -- I'd hate to be sitting beside him if Dean loses the nomination.

It's odd to be on the volunteer side of the building rather than with the press pool -- I'm so used to being a press member when I'm doing computer work, since writing for BYTE and Wired News. Now I buy my own cups of coffee rather than being handed them by a volunteer, along with anything else a member of the press wants. How different the world seems when I'm not part of the Estate of the Privileged, so to speak. Puts it all in perspective.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that only two people of all I called today (doing cold calls to break up all that database work) were not interested in speaking with me about the upcoming primary. Even the few Republicans I called were either (get this) changed to Independent this year so they could vote Democrat in the primary, or were very interested to talk to someone about their feeling that Bush needs to be ousted from the White House. Not a one told me they supported Bush, out of the calls that answered. Granted, on this Saturday after Thanksgiving, and after the publicity stunt Dubya pulled this past Thursday, many people were in a good mood to talk out against the (p)resident.

It's odd, after growing up in D.C., to live in a state that's even more politically active than the District, but in a weird way we're less politically slanted than D.C. ever is. Being here, next to Manchester, right now, is perhaps one of the more exciting places to be, politically speaking.

Posted: Sat - November 29, 2003 at 08:19 PM        

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