With a week to go I've been rethinking my plan to go to Pennsylvania and campaign for Bob Casey. I still feel very strongly about wanting to see Rick Santorum out of office. But (knock on wood) it sounds like it's going to happen with or without my help. I've been following the polls for over a month and Santorum has been consistently way behind, never gaining any ground.
I'd already planned to stay with my folks in Delaware over the election, so if I'm not going to PA then I could go to NJ or MD instead. New Jersey is a really close race, but Menendez sounds kind of sleazy. Really sleazy actually. I'm not about to travel hundreds of miles so I can pound the pavement for a crook, just because he's a Democrat. That kind of blind party loyalty is a big part of why the current government is in such a sorry state. (Besides, I'm not a Democrat, and why would I have blind loyalty to a party I'm not even a member of?)
Maryland looks like a better prospect for me. I looked up their Democrat, Ben Cardin, on a great website that provides candidates' voting records (or quotes when voting records are not available) on a variety of issues. It was all laid out on one page so you could see where they stand on abortion, immigration, health care, the war, the environment, etc etc. Unfortunately I can't remember the URL, which is very frustrating because it was a great website. It was called "Vote the Issues" or "Know the Issues" or something like that.
[Edit: the site is OnTheIssues.org ]
So anyway, I looked up Cardin on this site and I'm pretty comfortable with his positions on social issues. Especially abortion rights, which was my biggest problem with supporting Casey. (Casey's position on abortion is identical to Santorum's!) Cardin is ahead in the polls, but not by much. Which makes me feel like my efforts will do more good. Realistically speaking, I'm aware that no one person can make that much difference in an election. Especially not a novice like me. But still, I want to feel like I'm contributing something, not just going along for the ride.
The Maryland democrats seem more enthusiastic about my help than the Casey people did, and also less organized. I filled out a contact form to volunteer with Cardin on Friday. Yesterday I got four phone calls, three from different volunteer coordinators who had no idea I'd been contacted by anyone else! They asked me to work in Aberdeen, Annapolis, Havre de Grace and Elkton. (Nice of them to only approach me about communities that are close to Delaware.) The first guy asked me to work in Havre de Grace, which is about 45 minutes from my folks, so I said yes to him. Too bad the Elkton guy didn't call first; that's even closer. But 45 minutes isn't too bad.
The guy from Havre de Grace said they're going to want me knocking on doors, every day from Saturday through Tuesday. I better take good walking shoes! And probably some kind of foot treatment too.
6 Comments
I'm not counting any of these sleazebags out until the body has been identified. There's way too much chance for vote-hacking with electronic machines.
true, but if they're going to steal the election then no amount of knocking on doors will help. So I might as well just support the candidate I feel most comfortable with.
I saw Cardin in a debate on tv the other night and found him to be a putz. Just like most races in this country it's two abject losers pointing fingers at each other saying "I love children and puppies, while my opponent here wants to kill them and eat them." Or whatever. In their case it was "no, I love stem cell research more," and imho they both got it wrong. I gave up and turned the channel. If there is a sound argument for the complete eradication of the human race, it would have to begin with this year's campaign rhetoric.
Watching Santorum is fun though, getting more and more hysterical as his certain electoral doom approaches. I still maintain there is no practical difference between Democrats and Republicans - unless you're talking about Rick Santorum.
I heard Cardin didn't perform well in the debates. The Post described him as appearing ignorant about local issues.
"I still maintain there is no practical difference between Democrats and Republicans - unless you're talking about Rick Santorum."
I know you do. If you mean that as a group, both parties will grab as much power and corruption as they can, I agree wholeheartedly. I think the Republicans have more capacity for corruption than the Democrats, given equal opportunity, but the point is debatable.
If on the other hand, you mean that no single member of either party is in any way different from any other, that's so laughable that I imagine you laughing as you say it. I'm laughing too -- with you, not at you :)
You know I've met a lot of these people and like most of them personally. And for the most part they honestly believe they are trying to do what's best for people. But I'm afraid I've become much more cynical over time. I see them as products of the system, pretty much interchangable parts. I hear them talk in some legislative marketing code, not English, which means they have been totally immersed in their party's culture and forgotten what real life is like. Sometimes you get a total slime like Santorum, but it's even rarer to get anyone in politics who is willing to speak plainly and honestly about anything. I'm holding out for someone who is willing to do that. As much as I've seen in this business, I still refuse to believe I am asking for too much here. I've seen Al Gore on Saturday Night Live so I know at least some of them are capable of it.
Bob Casey is looking more and more like a disaster in the making. I tried contacting his campaign any number of times, and got nowhere. He has avoided saying much of anything about any major issues. Clearly he thinks he can coast to victory while the crazy Santorum self-destructs.
And what little Casey has said, looks extremely worrisome. The other day I posted a commentary, "How Bob Casey lost my vote", at Unbossed:
http://unbossed.net/index.php?itemid=1154
I discovered that Casey is so indifferent to defending the Constitution that he has actually come out in favor of the Military Commissions Act, which, among other outrages, eliminates Habeas Corpus. So how does this make Casey a "moderate"?
And next door in New Jersey, the Democrats have saddled themselves with the crook Menendez. Really dampens my enthusiasm for the party of 'reform'. I think it's going to be a long two years, whether or not the Democrats pitch the Republicans out of control.