It was about 30 years ago I became active in electoral politics. Turned out to be the sort of local campaign that would provide as good of a learning experience as one could hope for.
The campaign I joined won the election by 13 votes. We won because about 300 volunteers came through the door of the modest campaign office door to do the tasks that give all candidates a chance - envelope stuffing; putting up signs, maintaining them and then later promptly taking them down; talking to voters (and potential voters) on the phone; making coffee and passing out cookies; knocking on the thousands of doors that need to be knocked on to pile up enough citizens behind your previously little known candidate to give them a shot at winning.
(All I had to give to that campaign was my time - that and a little free media sprayed out of a can onto the walls of a shopping centre or two. I had not yet recovered from the economic shit kicking forest workers like me nearly all took 30 years back. I am fortunate to be able to offer both my time and money these days.)
I know I personally helped add the 13 voters to the pile needed to win but, of course, that was not what won the day. What won the day was the hundreds, probably upward of a thousand, young people like me who convinced their parents, grandparents, friends and neighbours to vote for the candidate I volunteered for because they knew she was on our side, the side of working people, and that our principal opponent did not give a dirty hair off a rat's ass about us.
You had that talk with the people in your life? You walked through a campaign office door to ask if you can help someone who is on your side? It is not too late to do so. It is not too late to prevent the election of someone who does not give a dirty hair off a rat's ass about you.
It is not too late to help Stop Harper, motherfuckers.
1 comment:
Hear, hear.
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