We met and dispersed as quickly as possible yesterday; I managed to run off without duct tape to put up signs at three caucus locations.  The site managers were kind enough to offer tape, but I still had to leave my location to locate duct tape.  Clear packing tape simply doesn’t hold on brick, trees, cold smooth surfaces or in a stiff wind.

 

By 11:00 am I was ensconced in front of the largest polling location in the county.  A steady stream of folks came and went, some taking cookies, some not.  I’ll bet that 75% of the votes cast for Dean passed in front of my eyes.

 

My. Ass. Froze. Off.

 

Dropped onto the ground with a thud frozen.  It was so damnably cold.  The sun shone part of the day, but feebly and ineffectually against a cold, damp wind.  The temperature struggled to reach 25F deg.  I wished I’d worn warmer footwear, but I’d had no idea when I left the house in the morning that I’d be outdoors all day.

 

When we received our assignments, we were told we could not campaign within 20 feet of the voting tables.  For some locations that meant we could not campaign inside the polling place.

 

Specifically, that meant the polling place at which I would be working.  I didn't find this out until my arrival.

 

I stood outside, hawking cookies, plying people with literature, calling voters to remind them to vote from outside in the cold and wind, from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.

 

Well, at least most of that time.  I’d managed to throw a pair of wind/warm-up pants in my car; after an hour outdoors, I went inside long enough to slide the pants over my slacks.  It was an improvement, but I think my core temperature had already dropped, not to recover the rest of the day. 

 

At 2:30 pm, one of our energetic young campaign staffers arrived on site to offer a bit of a reprieve.  He wasn’t familiar with the area, had a vote that needed a ride; would I go and pick him up?  Heck ,yeah.  I would be out of the cold, in the warmth of my car for the duration of the trip.  The address looked really familiar; it was only a couple miles from my home as the crow flies.  But why a room number?  I couldn’t think of a single multiple housing unit within miles of that location.  The kid – I mean campaign staffer – only shrugged.  He had no more information other than the vote was for Dean. 

 

I drive ten minutes across town, tracking down the street address for some guy named Theodore.  Ah, doggone it all, that’s why it was familiar.  It was the eldercare home immediately next door to the church I attend.  Damn.  I wasn’t prepared for this.  I went inside to be greeted by a middle-aged gentleman scolding an elderly man.  Aren’t you voting for Kerry, father? He asked the older man.  She’s with the Dean campaign, she may not give you a ride.  The older man glared a bit at his scold, chafing a bit in his wheelchair.  I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, he said with a bit of a snap.  The younger man wheeled the elderly man to my car and helped him in.  Nuts, he can barely walk, I think to myself; I will have to help him out on arrival and hope that someone inside the polling place helps him since I won’t be permitted within the polling area.

 

The younger man asks him if he’s gotten his “get-out-of-jail” ticket for the day, as the older settles into my vehicle.  I am helping him buckle in as he laughs and says yes.  The younger man waves his goodbye.

 

Damn.  He said, Good-bye, Father.  Capital F.  Not small-case F.  This guy is dressed head to toe in black and has a collar on.  It dawns on me he’s a retired Catholic priest and I’m picking him up at the retirement home for Catholic clergy.  

 

I’m taking a fricking penguin to vote.

 

My Catholic upbringing is chewing on me from the inside out as I politely and carefully introduce myself; I’m wondering how sharp this guy is.  It doesn’t take long before I find out; he’s picking my brain in a way only a seasoned prosecutor might.  I try to turn the tables on him and work on him to vote for Dean all the way to the polling place.  He’s non-committal and prying all the way.  By the time we arrive, he knows about my kids and my church affiliation as well as all of Howard Dean’s positions on issues.

 

The entire parking lot to the polling place is a mess; it wasn’t salted and is therefore covered in thick, chunky glaze of ice and snow.  I pull up as close as I can to the doorway and shout at the kid – campaign staffer – to come and help me.  We get Father Ted to the door, cane and all.   A high school friend’s father is working at the caucus; I flag him from the doorway and beg an indulgence.  Can he keep an eye on Father Ted and let me know when he’s ready to be escorted back?  We work it out.

 

I step back outside as the folks working the caucus guide Father Ted to a table and chair.  A television news crew arrives as I re-position myself outside.  Please don’t come near me, I think to myself; my cheeks are now brilliant red and wind-chapped from the cold, my head stuffed into a red fleece hat to keep my head warm.  Decorated as I am with Dean stickers and a half-tray of cookies, I really don’t feel much like making the evening news.

 

The kid asks me about Father Ted.  So?  He’s voting Dean, right?  I told him about the exchange at the home.  We both express some frustration about this situation; I’d already invested 45 minutes of valuable campaign time on carting this guy to the polls for this one vote.  Look, I was raised in the Catholic Church, I told the kid; there’s no way I could walk away and leave him if he needed a ride to vote regardless of the candidate.

 

Hell, said the kid, I’m Catholic and I would have left him in a heartbeat…

 

Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to be in politics.  I can imagine my mother kicking my butt thoroughly if I were to strand an aged priest because he didn’t vote my way.

 

Maybe they just don’t make Catholic kids like they used too, either.

 

The news crew comes back out of the polling place, having finished their story.  I ask for an update on Father’s status; a couple of folks working the caucus report that Father is still nursing his cup of coffee and doughnuts and should be done shortly.

 

It’s already quarter to four, the polls close in fifteen minutes.  There’s a mad rush of voters in this last half hour; we work them hard, the kid, me with my cookies and some poor soul for Kucinich who’s kept me company all day.  We laugh about an observation we’ve made during the course of the day.

 

We can tell at a glance how the voters are voting; it’s written all over their faces, in their attitudes.  The kid gave it a name after one man walked inside brusquely past us, growling at us that he wasn’t interested before we could make a peep.  Damn, he’s sure got a stick wedged up his butt, doesn’t he?  I nod affirmatively.  Sidewise and firmly, I agreed.  The Kucinich fellow laughed in validation.  Dang, did you notice all the Kerry people act like that?  I asked my fellow campaigners.  Wow, now that you mention it, yeah, says the kid.

 

We wind down the remaining time plying cookies, cajoling for votes.  As the door shuts behind each entrant in the polling place, the kid mutters, Stick.  And I mumble, Firmly.  I don’t know if it’s us they resent or if it’s the candidate they’ve chosen or the kind of person each of them are.  They’re middle-class working people, probably union, middle-aged and white – with an attitude.

 

There are a few last stragglers who are receptive; you can tell the Kucinich folks right off.  This one is asking for a comparison in environmental policies between Kucinich and Dean; he’s wearing outdoor gear only an enthusiast would wear, along with fleece socks and clogs.  Kucinich.  Two young men in jeans and can-you-believe-only-T-shirts run up to the kid in his Dean-button laden down coat.  Deaniacs.

 

And no stick lodged in any of these three.

 

The site manager for the caucus peeks her head outdoors looking for me.  Father Ted’s ready to go, she bubbles.  Wow, the television crew just loved him!  They really enjoyed interviewing him!  I try to choke something out; I don’t know if it was enthusiastic or not.

 

I take Father Ted’s arm and support him out to my car.  He’s in very good spirits now, quite chipper after all the fuss.  The caucus folks are buzzing all over him right up until we get to the door.  We manage to get him bundled in the car just as they lock the polling place doors.  I make a quick good-bye to the kid, exchanging email addresses as I back out. 

 

As we pull away, I comment on the exciting afternoon he’s had just in the 45 minutes he’s spent at the polls.  He laughs and tells me he voted for Kerry.  I can tell he’s trying to get my goat – but he did, he voted for Kerry.  We chat a bit more about the state of things; Father makes it very clear he’s extremely displeased with this president, that we must be rid of him at election.  I concur – you know I would on this point – saying that this administration is immoral if they will lie to achieve their ends at the expense of human life, whether soldiers or female operatives with children.  The old guy is well-read; he knows about the outing of the operative and he explains in a number of ways why he thinks the president is a liar. 

 

Wow.  It kind of takes your breath away to hear a priest call the president a liar.  You could try to claim this guy was a doddering fool, but you’d be wrong.  Only his body has failed him.  His mind is still crystal-clear, evident as he tells me that he worked with our current Senator on a civil rights commission for nearly two decades.  I think I have to some research into this guy dressed in black that I’m escorting around town; he’s rubbed shoulders with some distinguished and intelligent folks in his 83 years as a Democrat.

 

It’s been a pretty big afternoon for you, I tell him.  Out to the polls, visiting with Democrats, a television interview…He laughs and says, Yes, and I met a nice young woman, too, winking at me as he takes my arm.  I don’t know if I’m really ready to go back in, he says.

 

I get him settled back into his wheelchair; he’s too proud to let me bring it out to the car, managing to walk back in with my help.  He lets me wheel him back to his room, down a warren of hallways, past numerous women in chairs.  Pointing at one, he tells me she was an organist for 40 years at a local church.  He knows them all very well.

 

His room is small, only a bed, a chair and a wardrobe – and a 45-inch television.  I’m not prepared for this surprise and he knows it without looking at me.  Father laughs, points to the television and tells me he had a Super Bowl party in his room to watch the game.  Fourteen guys and a hundred women in here, as he waves his cane from corner to corner of his small room, but it didn’t work out too well for old men like me.  I can’t help but laugh.  You know they make drugs for that now, Father, I said.  We laughed and I bid him farewell.

 

Too sharp, that old penguin.  Now I’m not certain who he really voted for.

 

I went out for dinner with my husband and friends, having promised months ago we would get together this evening.  Not a wise decision, in retrospect; I was too tired to be much company and I was too keyed up after a couple of weeks at a dead-run working for the campaign ahead of the caucus.

 

Today finds me with a nasty cold – sore throat, head ache, stiff all over.  I hope I didn’t give this to Father Ted.  I don’t know whether my immune system finally had enough of the late nights and yesterday’s cold.

 

Or if my body is just plain let down, as is my spirit.

 

At least I got a couple good laughs out of the experience.  That’s more than some candidates’ supporters might say about the experience.

 

If you get the chance, go and work the caucus or primary in your state.

 

Better yet, campaign for Dean.  You might be surprised at what comes of it.

 

  9:19:36 PM    comment []