when we canvassed

Most of those initiatives, referendums, items on our Voting Ballot that are not individuals running for office, are pretty well worth voting "No" on, most years, most of the time.  Once in a while there's something where we voters want "Yes."  This year, about 6 minutes of research told me that, for my taste and priorities, it's "No" on all of 'em except 14.

The rest of them, this year and most others, seem to be --
something the legislature didn't want responsibility for -- "let's turn it over to the people!"
or
somebody who has a good deal and wants an even better deal,
by passing something or, heaven help us, changing the State Constitution....

---------------------- Thinking about the Election, I started remembering past elections -- and over the years, the "thrill" of voting has sometimes started to feel more like a "chore" instead...(less like a Bob Dylan concert and more like, say, vacuuming.)  But then unexpectedly it can again become a thrill.  (Put away the vacuum cleaner -- Bob Dylan's coming to town!)

When I was a senior in college I worked as a volunteer on Ronald Reagan's campaign for president, stuffing envelopes and typing press releases at the campaign office in downtown Boston.  You got off the trolley at the Park Street stop and walked on the crowded, bustling sidewalks to a small suite of non-sparkling, low-rent rooms in a tall building.  There was a woman there named Barbara Pond, whom I sort of bonded with, and "followed" -- like a mentor, and I remember a guy named Bernie Sweeney (one of my professors said, of him, "Ooh! -- lace-curtain Irish!" just from hearing the name...).  Bernie Sweeney had a patient, impassive face and attitude in the midst of campaign hurly-burly. 
He -- paced himself, at his desk in the corner.

I liked going down there and helping, and expressed my enthusiasm by inviting everyone to a party at my apartment in Brookline.  My space was student-y, and stereo-centered, and in someone's basement....and yet the amount of self-consciousness, nervousness, or pressure to measure up that I felt about that party was Zero - !  (Looking back, that seems amazing, lol.)

It was easy -- maybe it's kind of like the person who accomplishes something because he didn't "know" that he "couldn't."  There was an ease and happy froth of having a common goal and yet not a horrible amount of pressure on any one person -- it was just sort of a "together" effort.  And that ease and casualness and good-will just flowed right over to my little party.  I invited everyone and everyone attended and it was fun.

The idea of a Republican such as Reagan winning in Massachusetts was somewhat foreign, and when he did win in Massachusetts it was like frosting on the cake.  (A newspaper carried headlines that Carter had won in the Bay State because they went by the early returns -- so it turned into a sort of "Dewey Defeats Truman" situation.)

Reagan was the candidate I wanted to vote for, and work for, that year not because I didn't like Carter, but it seemed like things were bogging down a little bit, with the energy crisis, hostages in Iran -- (my Italian professor said, "I think the Ayatollah is going to get aya-told something!"), 18% interest ....Ronald Reagan seemed like a nice guy who wanted to help.  He was optimistic -- I think he called himself "the eternal optimist".  (Like President Obama -- when I read sections of his book, The Audacity of Hope, I thought of Reagan and the attitude of "Yes we can do this!)

------------------------When we heard last week that George McGovern had died, I remembered the 1972 presidential campaign, and mentioned to a co-worker that I had volunteered on that campaign in 8th grade, & she kind of looked at me like that was a "different" sort of phenomenon....but perusing Hunter Thompson's book about the '72 campaign, came across various passages about kids being involved in that campaign -- it was not so unusual, that year.
------------------- [excerpt, H. Thompson]: 
MILWAUKEE, WISC. -- The George McGovern field organization has become a legend.  Gene Pokorny has been hailed as the "best young political organizer in the history of this country"...
A bunch of beautiful, euphoric, very young McGovern volunteers were having a completely informal victory party in a block-long two-story brick warehouse, formerly used to store toys.  ...

They had all worked in the Fourth District, the Polish South Side of Milwaukee, a section that even the McGovern staff crossed off as the inviolable turf of Muskie, Wallace, and Humphrey.  McGovern had not only won the district but beat Wallace by eight thousand votes.  At the warehouse at 3:30 in the morning, nine or ten of the volunteers gathered around to talk.

"Tell everybody we really love George McGovern," said a blonde girl.

"The district coordinator we had was really great," said another girl.  "Every time you came back he'd say, 'I know you'll go out one more time.'  But he worked later than anybody.  And he had a great way of getting little 13-year-old kids to work so they wouldn't just hang around the office."

"I came from Utah for this primary campaign."

"We came from Springfield, Illinois."

"When we canvassed we thought a lot of people were against us.  We got really discouraged, it was freezing cold.  You'd get a whole bunch of uncommitteds and then you'd hit three favorables in a row and it was an amazing up.  The people were good to us, they were impressed that we were out in the cold and they let us come in to get warm.  They were impressed I had come from Michigan to do this."

..."Some of these people were weird," said another girl.  "I asked one guy, 'What do you think of McGovern?' and he said, 'I'd vote for him if he'd turn Christian.'..."
...
"This is the old politics," says Joel Swerdlow, the 26-year-old who ran McGovern's operation in the North half of Milwaukee.  "We have precinct captains, ward leaders, car captains, the whole bit.  That's the only way you win.  But instead of patronage bosses and sewer commissioners, we've got young people who work because they're interested in the issues."
...

"I have to crash," the girl from Utah said...."But I have to tell you something first.  I've been here less than a week and yet I know so many people here well, 'cause they're beautiful people.  Even if we'd lost, we'd have won so much."

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