Politics. With the Ohio primary election lurking, the home phone has been ringing off the hook with state, local and national pleas for support. Thank god for caller ID – although i’ve let calls* from Hillary and Barack go right to voicemail because i didn’t recognize the numbers…
Things are also interesting at the local level. i spent about 4 hours yesterday afternoon preparing a 10,000 piece mailing for a local candidate, Bob. This gentleman is running for county office, after serving as a city and township official for over a decade…
Most amusing to me? He is a member of that party. The one that bought our white house in the last two elections. Yet there i sat for 4 hours, sticking labels on envelopes at breakneck speed – so fast that a junior team member had to supply water-cooling for my fingers. i was that dedicated. I’ve also ghost-written his campaign literature, and sent him draft ‘letters to the editor’ for others to send to local newspapers.
As a libertarian** at heart, this may seem strange. All i know is that if it weren’t for the assistance of Bob a few years ago, there wouldn’t be a sk8park in our small city.
Leading a rag-tag bunch of sk8r punks into the city council chambers on numerous occasions, i was getting nowhere. Until Bob showed up at one of our planning meetings. He was impressed with the tenacity of the group, and the fact that we came to the city planning to raise as much of our own money as possible.
With his support, lots of press releases, car washes, benefit concerts and generous donors, we did it. Raised $25,000 on our own, and got the city to hack up the $100,000 to do it right… So, to quote a wise and scraped-up eldersk8sman, “it’s very important that the youth of today has a controlled environment to hurt itself in”.
Couldn’t agree more. And if Bob needs me to stuff his envelopes, then i shall continue to stuff his envelopes. Guess that’s how politics works…
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* those damned recorded messages… please, please, please don’t insult me and waste my bandwidth…
** key challenge with libertarians? they disdain organizational structure. hard to get their shit together, it is… so lately, i’m just an avowed “anti-wingnut”, and will generally vote in such a manner to maximize the chances we’ll get an administration in place that will stop with the egregious disregard for the constitution… oh, and stop invading other countries…
Trailer Park Refugee 
I got nothing accept I really like getting my envelope stuffed and licked.
I’d like to volunteer as a stuffer and licker. 🙂
uw – how did i not see that one coming?
toby – civic-minded, are we?
i dont know a thing about politics… but i love the fact that you are from ohio… i was born and raised and lived an adult year or two here and there in ohio…. i’d love it if you emailed me where you are from…..
no wonder i always felt so at home in the company of the people from the park!!!!!!
paisley – politics. not worth wasting much time on, in my opinion. i just like to be active in my community, and sometimes that means putting on a brown snorkel and dealing with politicians… and check your e-mail! interesting that you found resonance with the words. so did ‘toby’ – he was born/raised in ohio, too…
Much as we detest most of them, politicians are the price we pay for living together. The best we can do is to try for the best one we can find. And kick out the bad ones! I have stuffed and licked my fair share of political envelopes in my time.
“…brown snorkel…” *snort* Good description. I’m an anarchist at heart, so elections are always distressing times for me.
$25,000? that is very impressive daisyfae
archie – even the good ones smell funny.
kyknoord – i made a box for my office wall: In case of fiscal emergency, break glass. The box contains a pair of kneepads and lipgloss.
nm – took almost 3 years to raise $5k – car washes until our fingers puckered, outdoor benefit concerts until the neighbors complained… through obsessive/aggressive use of local media, i snagged a big donor – $20k in concrete. a couple years later, i helped the theater raise $400,000. that only took a year – which proves my point that theater people are slightly less annoying than sk8r boyz…
wait a minute – aren’t you ohio people the ones who caused this whole mess for the last 4 years??? seriously though, how sad is it when you’ll settle for any president who upholds the constitution…like it’s a choice!!??
Libertarian is a dirty word in Norway. I cannot find anyone’s envelope to lick. I shall live vicariously through your envelope licking!
I’m a Monarchist. I think the world would be better off if I were declared King!
Party politics sucks in my opinion. There aren’t nearly enough people who will find out about the candidates’ opinions and platforms but just go in and vote for a party. How much more intelligent to look at the man or woman than the letter after their name. Kudos, sister!
Is that ‘elder’ as in wise and astute being of great importance and standing in the community or ‘elder’ as in old giffer who should know better than to be dropping into halfpipes (very badly) at his age… ?
tony – hey, at least we got our chads sorted… although it’s highly likely that there were some irregularities with the electronic voting apparatus in our state… deliberate or not, it was just inexcusable…
BB – who knew politics could be so [ahem] ‘rousing?
uncle keith – you’ve got your own religion and want to be king? ok. so long as you agree to keep them separate, i can deal with that…
awalkabout – i’m diligent at the local and state level, but have become far too cynical at the national level. lesser of evils is the best we can hope for…
penfold – ‘elder’ as in ‘totally hot – and inspiring – that he will sk8 regardless of what it may look like’ 🙂
Cripes Ms Daisy…. I wasn’t aware of that definition. But I like it… x