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December 21st, 2003
02:45 am - The Bush Tax
My comments as submitted to the Bush Tax survey...
http://www.bushtax.com/
In Maryland, our roads are clogged with police that are hammering on commuters in order to raise money through speeding tickets. When she appeared in court, my wife was given the choice of paying $200 for a $140 traffic ticket, or taking 2 points on her license that would have cost us hundreds more over the next three years in increased auto insurance rates. The judge said, "The state needs the money." That's the Bush Tax.
( Read more... )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/angry.gif) angry
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December 1st, 2003
04:29 pm
This morning was back to reality. After a five hour trip returning from the Hudson Valley through rural Pennsylvania, we got in around 11:30. Unfortunately for me the coffee I drank to stay awake for my wife's sake was too much for me, and it wasn't until 2:30 in the morning that I even attempted sleep. That attempt went very badly.
This morning was an interesting one. Despite feeling crumby I had a pleasant conversation with a short gray haired man who seemed eriely familiar. In fact, I think he may have been a congressman. We talked about the BWI airport, USAir and Southwest. We talked about Musilini and Franco, and how fascists would never allow the trains to run as late as they did this morning. We talked about Robert Ehrlich's father. This man has got to be involved in the government, and I know I knew his face from somewhere.
I guess we'll find out just as soon as the Internet connection here begins working again. I've come back to work only to discover that yet another power outage has caused the Exchange server to crash violently and the firewall to go down and not come back up. I guess it doesn't matter after all that the trains were running late, because I can't get any meaningful work done anyway.
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November 30th, 2003
12:22 am - Alice's Restaurant
By Rick Lyman, The New York Times, Saturday November 22, 2003, (here)
In the winter of 1970, a 21-year-old senior from Yale walked into his armed services physical in New York carrying X-rays and a letter from his orthopedist, eager to know whether a fairly obscure back condition might keep him out of the military draft.
This was not an uncommon scene in 1970, when medical deferments were a frequently used avenue for those wary of taking part in the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam.
And this story would have little interest save that Howard Dean was the name of the young man who later said his experience was "like a scene from the movie 'Alice's Restaurant.'"
Now, 33 years later, he finds himself a leading Democrat in the quest for the party's nomination to be president of the United States. Dean got the medical deferment, but in a recent interview he said that he probably could have served had he wanted to.
Well, more power to you Howard.
Honestly, if it had been me in 1970, I would nt have wanted to go either, and it only offended me that Tom Brokaw forgets that. I loved the song Alice's Restaurant! Anyone who has not heard it should definately look for a copy on Kazaa or email me and I will send you my MP3.
"Another case of American blind justice!" LOL Hilarious.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/wink.gif) giddy
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November 29th, 2003
09:36 pm - On optimism, being discouraged, and stick-to-itiveness
One thing I can say about calling lists is always call the next person on your list. Never invent a reason to skip a call where you can invent a way to make that call work. Once you start juggling around a list, you start putting off all the calls you are afraid to make so they don't happen until they are in a big pile of scary calls.
The same could be said to apply for any task list. Just do them in order instead of saving all the least fun stuff for last.
Which reminds me that the hardest thing to do sometimes is just to stick to it. Some days, distractions will abound, conditions will be poor, you'll forget to eat, whatever. But if you keep at it anyway you feel better about it in the end. After I had my dinner, I seriously considered walking away from my calling list just because I was sick of it and didn't feel like I was good at it or having any success. But in the end it was all just chance and the second half of the game was much better than the opener.
You just never know.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/thinking.gif) contemplative
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09:31 pm - Putting Down the Fight
Well after a few more hours, I may finally be getting the hang of calling people who live in the tiny, savvy, anti-biotic resistant, state of New Hampshire. My one great accomplishment, aside from staggering into hordes of people who already knew about tomorrow's event and were planning to go anyway, was to help one elderly man who wanted to go - to get a ride from a volunteer. That in itself was worth bothering 100 people during their football games or whatever.
I'm feeling a lot more upbeat at the end of the day than I was halfway through it, and it was this fact that made me realize it would have been a grand idea if I had remembered to eat. So my advice to others who may be new to political campaigns is to nourish yourself first; you will fight the fight more effectively than if you deprive yourself of what is needed.
Certainly this isn't something I would've done on purpose, but really it's something that comes out of distraction. And that's been the real challenge. At the end of the day the hardest thing I have to do is to put down my fight for an hour or two and think of something that is not politics.
Current Mood: accomplished
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05:50 pm - Calling NH Voters
Today was the day I agreed to help the New Hampshire arm of the campaign to call voters there and help raise their awareness. My assignment: to call them and tell them that Howard Dean will be at an Inn near their town tomorrow for about an hour to do Q&A with the community.
This should be easy. There's no money being asked for. There's no price tag on the ticket. It doesn't take more than an hour of a person's time. To put it simply, this is an opportunity to actually meet someone who wants to be president, to make an educated hiring decision.
My conclusion. People don't want to make an educated decision. With a couple important exceptions, people want to believe what they already believe. To me that is not very good citizenship.
That said, I feel this work is important. For every 10 people I call, I talk to one who didn't know they would have this opportunity, and they will consider going. Maybe not everyone will be able to in the end, but these are folks who didn't hear about it through TV, local radio, flyers, mail, or the Internet. That one "thank you" is worth ten or twenty "not interested -- click".
So, whatever. I am not afraid to say that New Hampshire voters are by and large spoiled by the positioning of their elections. But, not all of them are. For those who still treasure the great power and responsibility they are bestowed, hats off to ya.
For those who like to hang up on a campaign volunteer, I can only say that I wish presidential candidates paid so much attention to me and my neighborhood. We should all be so lucky.
By the way, everyone I talked to who took the time to tell me they were voting will be guaranteed to have a ride to the polls in January and again in November. In a wintery place like New Hampshire, I think that's a great civic service and well worth the price paid for it.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) exhausted
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12:48 am - With undying hope
...that someday I will learn to use "cuts" and "links" and all these other weird-ass LJ commands...
Oh, and it would also be nice to have a pile of friends who will read my rants. :-P
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) hopeful
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12:15 am - Money
I have just been looking at the money figures at http://www.opensecrets.org/ This is a site dedicated to explaining the facts and figures regarding how campaign money is raised and spent.
I would say it is enlightening, but its really more alarming. For one thing, "W" has raised $87 million, and he has NO OPPONENT. He's spent more than Dean so far, $14 million to be specific. By contrast Dean has raised the most of the Dems and spent $12 million himself in the primaries.
Apparently, I'm in the 0.16% of adults who gave more than a grand to the election. I know not everybody can do that, but I still believe strongly in what I am doing, and I know that I can't do it alone.
I don't mind telling you now that I don't feel nearly so bad about passing the hat around! Knowing that I am facing an opponent who has already raised over three times more than the horse I am backing has made me feel just a little bit better about asking my friends and family for a little bit of help.
There are people who don't want to help, well, I can't force anybody, but I don't want to hear one word about it next December if they don't like what comes to pass. We need to change fundraising trends so that we no longer have less than 1% of America being willing to donate to a campaign.
That's why I am out here flipping over rocks and trying to help find 200,000 people who will give $100 each. Almost everyone I know can afford $100, and I know people who can't aford it and they gave that much anyway.
The next time we look at these huge numbers W. is getting from big business and billionares we should remember what the Beattles had to say...
You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world
But when it comes to destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Apparently, you can also count us out if it involves spending an hour of our spare time, or not buying that cool new CD or Playstation 2 game. Well, if that's how it is, then rich people will always have their way, and we'll always get the pointy end of the stick.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/shock.gif) distressed
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November 28th, 2003
10:22 pm - Today in history
Whew! I've been all over my computer trying to get this journal set up and also talking in IM to staffers in New Hampshire. Tomorrow I'll be calling NH voters to tell them that Dean will be in town to answer their questions, but also to scope them out regarding their attitudes toward Dean. These will all be Dems and Indis in NH of course.
New Hampshire is an interesting state because they allow their Independents to vote in the primary election, something I wish Maryland would allow. The inability to vote in primaries was one of my major reasons for choosing a party affiliation after all these years, the second reason being that I am actually seeing some significant differences between the two parties; for a long time it really was like Coke and Pepsi.
I suppose the people up there must get tired of all the extra attention they get for being one of the first primaries. I know Iowa voters can be downright jaded sometimes, but somehow in New England they are more polite. I used to live in Vermont, just across the river from NH. They were best known for not having any sales tax. But my math teacher lived across the border there and I went to visit him five or six years ago. Maybe while I am up there we will look him up again.
Speaking of being jaded about politics, I should also point out that I have noticed something recently that I do not like at all. It comes in two flavors, each indigestible in its own special way.
The first is the tendency of Bush supporters to be openly malicious or even mocking to me for expressing my opinion - on a button. They often do things like say "neener neener, I'm voting for W" and then they run out the door of the pub before I can offer a counterpoint. What crap is that? Well all you GOP folks, this is your chance to say something to me a bit more persuasive - if you are brave enough. :-)
The second one hits me closer to home, and that's the way that other Democrats are treating Dean - and by extension Dean supporters. What I mean by this is that they are often bitter and inflammatory. You could see it in the debates on MSNBC, and you see it on the streets as well. Dean seems to be trying his best to stay above it, and I think that's the best policy. One of my friends sites his observation that the Democrats are "eating their own dead" as a major source of disappointment and his reason for deciding to back Dean.
From my point of view, and I am admittedly biased, I see Dean supporters being friendly, high-spirited, and open to fair discussion. They haven't been insulting anyone in public - except perhaps Bush himself. They seem to be moderate and thoughtful, and mostly above that kind of meanness that is all too common around us. This is the campaign supposedly fueled by anger? Yes, we're angry, but that need not trickle down to individuals we meet on the street; they are not the cause of this anger. At the worst they are people who have been lied to.
I think it's a real shame that not everybody I've met really wants to "change the tone" of politics. After all, how can we do it on Capital Hill if they don't want to do it on Main Street?
Now, mind you I have come to realize that by wearing a button I am wearing my opinion out where people can challenge it. I have gotten a fair number of legitimate challenges. But, I am not going to change my mind for people who mock me openly, I'm not going to think they are right for doing it, and I hope that anyone who sees this kind of behavior will come to realize just what kind of small minded people are supporting these other candidates.
You may now use the soap to do the laundry; I'm done standing on the box. :-P
Current Mood: busy
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09:12 pm - Background
First, some background. Let me tell you a few things about who I am and what I stand for that might seem to run against the fact that I am here now creating a LiveJournal to talk about a political campaign.
For one thing, I swore that I would never do anything like this. I have a journal, and it's private. I keep my thoughts in it, sometimes inconsistently, when I feel like I need to. Normally, the garbage that I just need to jettison comes out along with my true feelings. Therefore my journal isn't healthy for public consumption, whether or not it may be profound or entertaining. This LiveJounral is not my journal and it won't resemble any of that. It will be on topic and though I hope it will be insightful, it will not include any of my dirty laundry or a shopping list for next Tuesday's trip to the market. My apologies in advance to my many stalkers who are obsessed with the petty and banal details of my every day life.
Second, though I have been political for a long time, readers should not assume that I am a rabid democrat. This may surprise people who see that I have thrown my hat into the ring for Howard Dean. Until only this year I was a registered Independent. I live in Maryland, a state where to be anything but a Democrat is to throw your vote away, at least in the primaries. For a long time I was content to do that, as I didn't see the process as representing me or speaking to me in any significant way. In that way I am like a lot of young people.
Republicans (who may wish to stop reading this) should know that in many ways I am like you. I believe in fiscal responsibility. I own a small business that was utterly destroyed by the recession, but i make a good living. I hate taxes (duh, who doesn't). I want to protect the constitution, and I respect the right to bear arms. I love my country and what it stands for. Democrats will understand that I have chosen sides because I also believe in civil liberties and social justice. Probably there is no one party that completely represents me and what I believe; I think we need to stop pretending that these goals I am talking about are antithetical to each other.
This is my first time getting this involved in a political race. I would be lying if I said that I hadn't wanted to for a long time, but this year is the first time I've been motivated to actually get involved. My reasons will eventually become evident as you read this, but to make a long story slightly less long I see this year as being a time when my action or inaction will really make a difference in what happens next. I've always believed in the democratic process. This year I believe in myself as a part of it.
About two months ago, I decided to start wearing a Howard Dean button, and my life has not been the same since. So that's how this story begins, almost. What has happened so far is a good story in itself, but I will take my time in telling it.
Current Mood: contemplative
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