Michael and I spent the weekend in Reno volunteering for the Kerry campaign and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt. That's OK.
We met:
A woman who had once volunteered for Robert Kennedy's campaign and protested the Vietnam war. Her fiance was killed in Vietnam, and so were many other people she knew. Her brother was sitting on the tarmac in a plane when his orders got changed and he was spared. Today, she is married to another Vietnam vet... and she is voting for Bush. "I watched the debate. I hear what Kerry is saying now... but I remember what he said then. What he did was unforgivable." There was nothing we could say to change her mind.
A man who said he considered himself a Republican fiscally and a Democrat socially. If he had to vote today, he said, he'd probably have to vote for Bush. Kerry needs to prove himself as a leader. He'll be watching the debates before making up his mind. Then he spent the next 20 minutes talking to us about all the stuff he hated about the Bush administration's policies. I don't remember a single positive thing he had to say about them, probably because there wasn't one.
A man who declined to take our survey, and then, upon shutting the door, bravely shouted "Go Bush!"
A pair of nice women having a garage sale. One of them was wearing a cross. They both declared that they'd made up their minds and were voting for Bush. I asked them what the main thing was that they liked about him, and the cross-wearing lady answered, "He's straightforward." Plus, she was glad Bush was dealing with Iraq, since Clinton "never had the balls." However, she did acknowledge that she was troubled by the war. I told her that I just wished that he'd stop downplaying what the soldiers were up against. She agreed with that.
A Republican man who said, "It pains me to vote for a Democrat, but we gotta get rid of Bush."
Another man who said, "I'm voting for Bush, though I would have preferred McCain. But I won't vote for a traitor."
A cashier at a fast-food Mexican restaurant who told me, "I'd give you a discount for wearing such a cool button, but we're not allowed to."
We encountered:
A lot of homes where nobody was there or where nobody wanted to answer the door.
A scary house with Bush/Cheney propaganda plastered everywhere. A sign on one car reading "Bush is my man; Kerry is Bin Ladin's man" and a sign on the other that said "Kerry: Best Friend to Terrorist". That's not a typo. We declined to ring the doorbell.
Many, many friendly dogs.
Saturday night we went to a volunteer happy hour at the local brew pub. The beer and food were very tasty, and we talked to an interesting couple who live in Carson City. The husband had served in Vietnam, though hadn't seen any combat; he said he knew within 15 minutes of landing there that the war was bad. He works in construction now, but when he retires, he's hoping to work with vets as a counselor. Oh yes, they'd also been to Burning Man, and when they got married, she rode in on a camel. Neat!
And that was the weekend that was. I'm not sure we made much of a difference, but I'm glad we did it anyway.
