We HAVE to GEAR UP for November!!

I live in Ohio. I (like most of you, I'm sure) remember the 04 election with a whole lot of bad feelings. I think we have to come to terms with the fact that it is going to be similar, if not worse this year.

I volunteered to help MoveOn with their get out the vote effort. They are an incredibly organized and motivatied group, I was completely in awe of their efforts. I was a precinct Leader. I live in a very Republican area (tons of fun!) I canvassed for 2 weeks and managed to knock on over 300 doors. What a way to meet your neighbors, I must say! I encountered a wide range of people some funny and some who scared me (the woman who said she "could only vote for Bush, because of who he is...because he's a Bush"--I still don't understand that one, but I was NOT gonna question her!)

Ohio was one of the many states who had a "sanctity of marriage" issue on the ballot. (whatever the hell that means) I realized early on that churches were becoming very politically active, and John Kerry was somehow aligned with gay marriage and abortion--only. no other issues really mattered. My sister has a son who was in 8th grade at that time and the talk on the school bus was that if you supported Kerry you were either gay or a baby-killer...what????

Another volunteer and myself had the responsibility to use our list of signed up Kerry supporters and check them off when they made it to the polls. We had a table set up (in the rain, thank you very much), with a MoveOn sign and a Kerry/Edwards sign. We had many people tell us we were not allowed to do that. According to Ohio State Law, you can set up table, hand out literature, even picket 100 feet away from a polling place entrance door.

We had businessmen come up and yell at us for being there.
They said we had no right to be there.
One woman flipped us off from her car.
They told us we were sick, told us we needed help. (I still don't get that one)
Keep in mind that this was at the Genoa Baptist Church and a large amount of the voters were members of this church. I’m still wondering how men and women "of God" (??) could be filled with so much hate.
The Pastor of the church called the Sherrif on us THREE times! He told us we weren't welcome there (boy, talk about "what would Jesus do!!")
The third time the Sheriff came, he said he'd give us 10 minutes to pack up or he'd have to arrest us!!!

We were calling MoveON and they said churches all over Ohio were doing the same thing! I guess they claimed the church grounds as "Private Property" which just makes no sense. I managed to cause a bit of a scene inside the polling place when I was checking out their list of voters (it's posted for the public, anyone can view them)..I basically got kicked out.

Bottom Line: we have to prepare ourselves for this.
I plan on checking into the churches registered as polling places--see what I can do to make sure that doesn't happen again in Ohio. It's not gonna be easy!!! But I'm willing to work for it!! ARE YOU WITH ME?????

that an Obama supporter would start referring to WE!!! After months of hate, ugliness, vitriol, divisiveness and downright garbage spewed forth here on a daily basis we now chat about WE.?!?!?!

Not to fret, I'm a democrat and will support OUR candidate, despite the efforts of totally ineffectual pukes who claim the party as theirs.

I've always used "we"...as Democrats. and I didn't really refer to either candidate as our nominee. I would also volunteer to help Hillary if she were our nominee. Actually Kerry was not my first, second or THIRD choice in 04. I didn't even vote in the Ohio Primary, Kerry was already the winner, and I was fine with that. Any Democrat was 100 times better than Bush, in my mind. And that's the way I feel this year.