Pennsylvanians for Hillary

Hillary attracts a certain kind of supporter. Hillary volunteers and staffers have a vision and a resolute determination to see that vision fulfilled. They are positive, affirming. And seldom is heard a discouraging word about Obama. Seriously. They don’t sit around talking about how Obama’s campaign has taken the low road, or if they do, they never do it around volunteers. Oh, sure, occasionally a volunteer will get angry about the ridiculous media coverage, but the staffers seem to understand that no media coverage is bad. Anytime they get a chance to speak on Hillary’s behalf is an opportunity to slip a positive message past the media filters. They are determined to take our country back. They know how important it is and they are giving it all they’ve got.

Today was no exception. I had only been phone banking for about an hour and a half when Maya gathered the phone bankers together at the front room of the Harrisburg Headquarters. It was about 5pm and the canvassers were filing in with their survey sheets. Right behind them came a couple of camera men from the local network affiliates and from the *other* side of the building came- Sean Astin. That’s him answering the phone for real. He was giving the volunteers a pep talk and the phone began to ring in the midst of it so he took it. It turned out to be an 80 year old volunteer who is phone banking from home and was concerned that she might not be sounding warm enough. Sean helped her through it. Actually, I can’t think of a better surrogate for Hillary, besides all the others, than Sean. He is intelligent, articulate and full of enthusiasm. Ours must have been the millionth stop he’d made today but his energy and optimism was impressive. Hillary should be proud to have such a hard working fan who projects such hope and intensity. It was sort of like Sam Gamgee pushing Frodo to keep on going.

But there are more. Oh yeah. We have the most beautiful volunteers in the world. Here’s Pat. She’s a bright eyed lovely who helped me figure out the phone system. She said she walked into the office three weeks ago to get a sign and they convinced her to stay and she’s been there ever since.

Pat just got a new Dell and she’s learning the ropes.  I gave her the URL to The Confluence so let’s hope she’s reading and say “Hi!” to Pat.

And then there is this beauty. I don’t know who she is but if you want to meet her guys, you have to volunteer. Yeah, she *looks* like Sophia Loren but she’s probably got a degree in quantum physics.

The H-burg team is focussed. They are committed. This is sooo winnable. We can’t take any votes for granted and there are still a lot of undecideds but there is also a lot of love for Hillary. From the calls I had today, she has a lot of fans in Pennsylvania. But if we want to win HUGE, if we want to *over win*, then we need to reach out to every voter personally and ask them to give us, trust us, trust HER with their vote. Because the quality of volunteers and staffers that she attracts is the best way to show them that she will not let them down.

Oh, and they could use some Honey Nut Cheerios, Diet Coke, lamps and light bulbs.

Where my brain explodes: Are Carter and Gore planning a joint Obama endorsement?

Teresa23 brought this story to our attention and I just have to ask, “Is this possible?”

It’s Obama, stupid: Carter and Gore to end Clinton bid
By Chris Stephen

DEMOCRAT grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president.
Falling poll numbers and a string of high-profile blunders have convinced party elders that she must now bow out of the primary race.

Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.

“They’re in discussions,” a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. “Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence.”

An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.

There are a couple of deeply suspicious holes in this story. In listing the things Clinton must do the emphasis is all about the importance of her sweeping all the remaining primaries with a 20% margin and other unreasonable/unlikely conditions. Also,There is not a single mention of the Florida and Michigan situation. Including the lack of legitimacy facing either nominee if Florida and Michigan voters are shut out of the nomination process.

Oh, I get it.  If we shut out the other 9/10 states & territories it’s not quite so unfair to FL & MI. Surely Carter and Gore have more important things to do than stifle the most exciting Democratic Primary Season before we’ve all had a chance to vote.

Is it possible that in this year when every vote counts, Carter and Gore are conspiring against allowing voters from 10/12 states to have their say? I’m hoping this is one of those famous pseudo-leaks by the Obama campaign like the 50 Super Delegate endorsements that never happened.  And that it will come to nothing.

Otherwise, that bit about my head exploding won’t be any exaggeration.

(and is the post script at the end of the the story a giant nevermind?)

Small Town

Jeralyn Merritt found this video of John Mellencamp at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It was only 4 years ago that we celebrated our roots. Oh, how the times have changed…

Here’s the original video:

Let’s give a shout out to Etters and York Haven, PA where my sister and brother live. Yeah!!!!

Tell us about your small town.

Mr. Obama, don’t draw on my coffee table

Once upon a time, a long time ago in a college town not so far away (Oakland, PA, to be precise), there lived 3 roommates in search of a fourth to help pay the rent. One of the other roomies had graduated and the summer was upon us. We lived in a second floor apartment and since I was the only one with family in town, I was the one who provided the second hand furniture: a brown chenille sofa from my aunt, some nice silk drapes from my grandma and an old coffee table from my mother

We advertised and before long a woman named Mary came to check out the place. She was from Iran. It was just after the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and she was a refugee of sorts. Her parents had sent her to America where she would be looked after by her brother who was a doctor in a residency program in Pittsburgh. I guess at 28, Mary decided she wanted to live on her own. So her brother set her up in our apartment and pretty much left her alone. She was a 28 year old Persian virgin (nothing wrong with that) in an apartment full of, er, *not* virgins. We were astonished by her ignorance on the facts of life so we gave sex ed lessons, but I digress.

She was a good cook and made a Persian version of ratatouille to die for. She did the most erotic dances imaginable, but only in front of the girls. She explained the difference between Arab and Farsi. And she told us all about her family’s farms in Iran with terraced land on the mountain sides and all of the servants. It sounded like she came from a fairly wealthy family.

So, I was surprised when I got the phone bill with a charge of $90.00 for a call to Tehran. When I asked her to write me a check, she said I couldn’t prove she made it. And she wouldn’t clean the kitchen. And she didn’t like it when we brought guys to the apartment because, well, that was something only bad women did. And she drew on my coffee table- with a blue ink Bic banana. But she said it was no big deal because it was old anyway.

One day, I had it out with her in the kitchen. I demanded the money for the phone call and I threatened to call her brother. That got her attention because her living with us was conditional on her brother’s approval. She cried and wailed and said I was being mean because I didn’t like Iranians.

???

Who said anything about being Iranian? We were sympathetic and knew she couldn’t help it that she was probably distantly related to the Shah and didn’t want to wear a chador. That wasn’t the point. She could be black, purple, or green with yellow polkadots. I *still* wouldn’t like her because she drew on the coffee table that had been in my family’s living room since I was a kid.

See, Mr. Obama, it isn’t who you are that turns us off. It’s what you say and do. We are not obligated to like you. YOU are obligated to *respect* US. But it hardly matters now. Your sublet is over and if you don’t move out, *I* will.

Update: The non-parable version of this lesson is available at Anglachel’s Journal in Class Act. Just go read it.