[Update: Changed picture to one from our apartment in Sydney one beautiful morning]
I'm in the early stages of feeling that we have our hands on the edge of the hole and are about ready to pull ourselves out of it. I hope you are too.
I was going to make this a diary forcussing on Steve Young Ca 48th Irvine but decided at this point to leave that out of the title and focus on the more general theme of positivity.
So many things are beginning to point to a new day in America. I'm not talking about a partisan victory for Democrats; I'm talking about a new national mood and demeanor. After 6 years of Republicans faking it with Bush's "I'm a uniter, not a divider" Americans are tired of them doing the opposite as if Bizarro World was real and one that we can be made to live in.
Ironically, a corner piece of Evengelical & red America support for Bush had been laid on the more civil nicer meme from the early days of the Bush administration. I remember vividly the Republicans releasing what we now know to be lies about the condition of the White House after the Clinton staff left. The claims of removing the "W" from the computer keyboards and literally trashing the White House turned out to be an early Karl Rove national lie and deception.
At the time, I feel for it and was disappointed that anyone would demonstrate such a lack of class. You see at the time I didn't consider myself a Democrat. I considered myself an independent voter and would go with the best person. Now, I will be changing my registration to Democrats because I think that is where I will make my base to be involved in the changing of our society to something we'd all be more proud of.
This post came about because I was thinking about Steve after he and I and a couple others went out last night at 10pm to put out door hangers with polling station addresses for Democrats who are registered but who have not yet voted.
Steve was telling me about his cell phone ringing off the hook all day. In case you don't remember, Steve gives out his personal cell phone number to anyone who cares to know. That fact was made known to a more general audience in Dana Parsons' column in the LA Times. I also saw him hand out his business card with his cell number on it to a group of Republican demonstrators at a rally at UC Irvine last Tuesday.
Lately, the campaign has been doing some robo calling in the district in which Steve gives out his number saying that people should be able to easily get in touch with their representative. Well, his phone has been ringing off the hook and many of them are from really angry people who don't like the calls and don't like being disturbed.
One of the calls was from an angry man (surprise, surprise) who was asleep when the call came in and he wasted no time yelling at Steve that he was a Republican and not to ever call him again. It was just a generally nasty call. Steve told him to just keep his number just in case and while he's angry now he might really like to call him for something later. The guy yelled some more and then slammed down the phone.
Are you ready for it? Do you know what's coming? Five minutes later the guy calls him back and says "If you can put up with my screaming and yelling and STILL want to look out for me then you've got my vote".
This wasn't the only time. Others called thanking Steve for making himself personally available to his future constituents. Even though the calls went to Demcrats and Decline-To-State's Steve did get more calls from Republicans who said they were voting for him. We figured that the calls were to houses with policically-split marriages. Those can't be fun households nowadays.
There were other angry calls from people who did not call back but I told Steve that I'd bet that many of them will remember Steve and his willingness to really serve when they step into the voting booth.
I was one of the most worried about these elections and the possibility of theft and fraud and whatever stunt Karl would pull. I'm less worried now but still not resting. Steve and I are going out again tonight and putting out more door hangers. Anyone care to join us? Sorry to slip back into campaign mode. I can't resist in the hopes that someone will respond with an offer to help.