fell down

i took a spill yesterday. fuck those montreal structures with their famously beautiful but treacherous narrow stairways. i was about to descend a narrow flight of stairs which begin at, and curve immediately away from, steve's apartment door. what happened is anyone's guess. blame it on the fatigued blurry vision, faulty footing, or absence of mind. i just fucking fell. and no, i didn't hurtle down to the bottom, thank christ. i just went down and yelped owwwie. at one point i remember steve's hand was on my arm and he was asking holy shit are you ok? and every electric thing i feel in response to that question these days (and regarding him) almost came blue-streaking out. so i feigned fine and we moved on. yes, i'm fie-een dammit.

every so often today, there's an ache or a pain. these moments remind me that i fell, which in turn has inspired a bizarre montage of images of fell. of course, i paid the requisite hommage to that lady who endured a similar fate, couldn't get up, then delivered the universe an unyielding punchline. i thought of this oft-overlooked sarah jessica parker flick (who didn't make such a pact?). i contemplated these guys i knew in high school whose first band name was fall down go boom. i've been singing this excellent ditty in my mind. and i've even pictured this guy, who regaled us as a roper. with this kind of mental process, it's a wonder i even make it through a day.

my ache over not having made it today's big bush party is a whole other pain.

run down

dispatch from the 514...

spend 70 extra minutes sitting in the parking lot that is the montreal freeway system on a friday afternoon thanks to shockingly ill-timed arrival planning - check
sit through 3 hours of debate on constitutional amendments - check
regale new gay friend over red wine and french fries stolen from plate of someone else - check
feign interest in proceedings while scribbling ocd-soaked checklists and bad poetry - check
endure occasional official speeches by this guy, this guy, this guy, and unofficial ones by this guy and others - check
discreetly release sigh of relief when steve is acclaimed president - check
lose the womens rep spot on la regie before even trying to get it - check
install self on cushy bar stool and shout line em up to andrew the drop-dead-gorgeous bartender (2-4-1 highballs - i cannot be blamed) - check
flirt shamelessly with andrew the drop-dead-gorgeous bartender all night - check
flirt shamelessly with everyone else all night - check
lament insta-death of buzz when server enacts melodrama over bill payment - check
wish the party would carry on despite cosmic signs indicating its end - check
make chamomile tea upon arrival at place-of-stay due to being too wired for bed but too tired to do any actual work - check
relish soothing voice and pee-inspiring comedy of cherished outaouais friend - check
fear coming into contact with hyperactive inner thoughts - check
ensure avoidance of doing actual work by going on line for emails and posting to blog - check

go habs!

oh right, i don't give a shit about the habs. just like i don't give a shit about heading to a place that usually excites me - my favourite city in canada - montreal. there's a pretty important meeting there this weekend, one that i've been contemplating ways to get out of. i've got to shove off in an hour and am nowhere near ready. i've got roughly 39 things on today's to-do list - have only checked off 2. how the fuck has it gotten to this point? for someone who's usually organized and relatively together, the recent weeks of wobbliness and chaos are mind-fucking. i have come unglued, it seems, and i'm not sure how much i even care about it. thankfully instead of turning to something like this, i'm days away from this. (confession: lately, i've been turning occasionally to najinder's version of this... don't judge me.)

so what better way to manage the chaos than to head to a potentially difficult political meeting? i mean, quebec politics - boring and simple, right? (not that there's an emerging new political party or anything) and our party is not in any kind of flux nor in need of any kind of monumental shake up. hell no. but if this weekend doesn't go well, i might recommend we bring in some kind of guest facilitator to help us take a "real hard look" at ourselves and our strategy. nice help if you can get it.

bush party

when i was growing up back home on the range, the phenomenon of the bush party was in full swing. not a lot for prairie kids to do for fun, so small town and city kids alike would often congregate at a pre-determined location out in the bush (or more commonly, in the corner of some farmer's field) to waste time. and this was not just a summer affair. oh no, even at 40 below 0, the lure of rural silliness can be strong. the bush party is a year-round phenomenon for we pathetic prairie kids. the fire pit is always the hub of these gatherings, serving two glorious purposes: heat and entertainment.

memories of those pre-teened, cheap-wine-drinkin', contraband-cigarette-smokin', awkward-amateur-kissin' events came to mind recently. because these people are throwing one raunchy bush party next week - and it's going to be right here in the nation's capital! and like pre-teens looking for cheap thrills, we'll all rally around this fire, the so-called peace flame.

yes, in honour of dubya's first official visit to ottawa, the kids are gathering to make some noise. and while we will (likely) show up minus the baby duck and mom's menthols, make no mistake, there WILL be howling to the skies.

play misty for me

maybe it's an early mid-life crisis. or maybe i've officially lost it. i don't know who the fuck i think i am staying out til 6 in the morning on a saturday night? last night, claude and i went to a pizza party, grabbed marc-andre, then went to a party in dominic's art studio. dominic did a lot of things right, like trails of tea lights and a decent dj. but the energy was off somehow. i didn't get all falling down drunk or anything, but let's just say there were adult beverages enjoyed, rugs cut, laughs released. and there was some pretty good chat. the party would have been better if the studio and adjoining garage space had been shrunk to about 1/3 of the size. the dj was good, but with that number of people in such a large space, an ideal atmosphere of intimacy didn't stand a chance. funny how despite all our criticisms of the thing, we 3 fools managed to hang around til the bitter end. maybe we figured it was 15 years ago and we were ravers on the loose (you must be club-kidding me). oh, the slurred quote of the night: "je veux danser avec TOI" - daphne.

so i slept for 4 hours, then dragged my sorry ass to nancy's birthday brunch. lovely. good food, good friends, good everything. the fatigue and heavy eyelids may have something to do with this, but i spent this grey (cup) day feeling all misty n' shit. a few times, i found myself chasing after profound wandering thoughts like "good christ, i know some amazing people", "jeezus, corina has great hair", "holy shit, he is SO FUCKING NICE" ... people'd be talking to me, asking me questions, sharing secrets and stories, and i'd be feeling as ooey and gooey as the gourmet cherry jam. what the christ happened, i'm not certain. gratitude abounded inside of me for the oft-overlooked coolness of the people i'm fortunate enough to call friends. but it was the kind of warm fuzziness best reserved for the embarrassingly drunk ass hole in a bar who grabs the microphone in the dj booth to yell "OMIGOD I FUCKING LOVE YOU GUYS" to his rugby team.

not for inexhaustible club kids like me.

perfect moments

the launch of jenn's so easy cookbook last night was a big success. greg has already posted pictures, including some of me in my bright orange scarf doing the intro. many friends gathered to fete and BUY the book that cheekily honours the recipes of some of the people jenn knows. once again, the party icon herself dazzled everyone with good energy and good times. miss morris misted us with her remarks about the fair jenn, evoking monologuist spalding grey and his insistence that perfect moments don't just happen, they are created. i, too, believe that jenn has the capacity to create perfect moments: with a little bit of magic and a whole lot of sweat, jenn's gusto is persuasive and uplifting. last night felt like a testament to that, and i think she needed to hear and feel it. aww.

last night was my first post-madison social event. wow. i find it funny that despite the chaos and a dizzying but pleasant buzz (it comes free with four highballs), my tentativeness felt somehow steadied. however momentarily. it's as if the comaraderie, good will and laughter were like two strong hands clasped firmly on my shoulders in assurance. the weeble that is my life felt strangely calm in that perfect moment. sweet jesus, i should get out more.

sudden fromage: omigod! right now through my office window, i just saw a little boy toddle by clutching his mama's hand in one hand and the end of a string in his other... the whole time wobbling because he's looking up to make sure a precious yellow balloon is still up there at the end of it. i'm not even kidding.

perfect.

jenn's so easy

this is my friend jenn. we're launching her cookbook tonight.

this grrl has been really good for me, encouraging the re-birth of my really social self, more spontaneity, a new-found interest in manic panic and in music genres previously rebuffed, and hey, even a bit of sexual liberation.

for the rest of the national capital region and the planet, jenn has been a harbinger of hot pink and orange, flamboyance, so much dancing, socializing, cocktails, feasting, glitter, and freer love.

buy the book. do it.

gallery of shame

i have found the perfect way to combine my deep commitment to procrastination with my new recently-spiked fascination with the american electorate. a fleeting reference to it in a previous post may not have taken you to this compelling collection of apologies about the us election result. mmm mmm, bitter and sweet. delicious remedy. thanks doc, i think the fever IS lifting. maybe soon i can actually return to some sort of normal.

floating forward

exactly one week home and i'm still in the fucking bubble. fittingly, today is remembrance day. maybe that's why the bubble hasn't popped yet - a protective membrane for my limbo. but a shield from what?

it’s been hard to get back to my reality, to get motivated, to transition. slightly sequestered in the house, i have only seen a couple of friends. i want to socialize, but i really don't want to. i want to weave my stories of the trenches into the ongoing post-election debriefs, to share this perspective, to harvest nuggets from other active minds.

the clouding of the bubble is weird. i feel like i want to attribute the malaise to something specific. i want to put it somewhere. but it doesn't hang neatly on any single hook. it's not about madison or a presidential election result or fatigue.

it's nervousness about cj's promotion to chief of staff. eeps.

ok, no. it's about me and my re-entry. the jarring re-entry might have something to do with how much of an escape the time away was. and i didn't know it while in it. but i sure feel it now. i was only down there for a short time but it has impacted me in the way years can. now that i'm back, i realize how much uncertainty i carry about my current and next steps.

for now, i busy myself with details of the day. gotta ride out the bubble. meantime, i've dusted off this book which i'd started a couple of years ago.

marry three

single, sexy, american progressives - now an even more threatened species - are facing the painful dilemma of whether or not to flee to safety or stay and risk being herded onto the proverbial trains. desperate to escape, they turn to canucks for marital salvation. consider marrying one or two or three to save them from four more years of bushpalooza.

the beat goes on

are you still there? it's been awhile. i'm finally on-line since fleeing the u s of a last thursday. my still brand-spanking new laptop endured a wee injury on the campaign trail and mending it has been, well, um, an aggrevating experience. good christ i can't believe how fucking dependent we've all become on internet access. without it, even for a few days, i wound up in some kind of helen keller fog, trying to re-invent portals of access to the outside world or just avoiding it altogether.

speaking of fog, i've been ensconced in one since returning. i'm not sure how to feel. i'm not sure where i'm supposed to be. the fog, aka the bubble, is a common affliction upon post travel re-entry, but usually after trans-continental excursions and culture shock. i was only in fucking madison, but somehow it feels like i'm negotiating a return from uranus.

like too many others, i'm still bewildered by the loss. i didn't go down there thinking we had it in the bag. but i didn't think we'd lose. the results continue to roll around my brain like an aimless pinball. i've been moving randomly through the five stages: denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. it's like we're all a part of one big collective grieving process. i go through them back and forth, no particular rhyme or reason. the really wacky times are when i experience the stages all at one time, occasions which have resulted in ugly rounds of chain smoking and a seven hour series of cosmos (thanks cm).

there's been so much to read and hear in the post-game wrap up. and a game it was. a riveting match that saw the parties as teams, the media as announcers, the pollsters as play-by-play analysts. the 2004 political olympiad - a global sporting event indeed, except no one but the us team got to play.

everyone's an expert and everyone's got an opinion. some of the blather validates my blues, some tickles me, but most of it just makes me feel nauseous. are we doomed? at least we can hope for a rush of new friends up here. if your level of discomfort in bush's land of the so-called free is such that you're thinking of getting the hell outta there, consider north. i mean, c'mon, we've even got a cannibus bill in play.

i am proud to say that many people, including michael moore here, have taken notice of the inspiring showing of young progressive voters in this election, thanks in part to groups like the one i kicked it with.

i'm so glad i met the people i did, if only to reinforce that america is only half full of dumb americans. this site launches pictoral apologies, not bombs, to the rest of the planet.

i miss my new friends. i miss the adrenaline. most of all, i miss the ever-present excitement of change in the making. i miss the sense of possibility.

she's leaving home

i'm packed and ready to call a cab. today, i leave madison where i have spent the last two weeks in the trenches with the most amazing people. i came to "be a part of history", as adam put it in his invitation, and i'm leaving with so much more. as for the learning, i'm grateful. i have had access to the internal and grassroots levels of electoral organizing here. how lucky am i to have been able to gather that through the energized plotting of enlightened and charged young people. i was here for such a short time, yet my new friends and i have remarked that it feels like many months. in a good way.

yesterday, i composed a blog post about the incredible spirit of the young people i have met. then the fucking blog site seized and i lost the text. i will never be able to replicate what i said, but i'll try tonight. for now, suffice to say that this experience has renewed my optimism about the power of young people to make change. dubya may have squeaked in for another four years, but there is a force on the ground that will continue to shift the american psyche. evolution is slow, and there is a heavy history of culture that needs to move. and it's moving. there will be thousands of meetings to de-brief what happened, to argue about the future of the democratic party, to decide on leadership and approach. but underneath those process-related discussions, let's hope there continues to be the nudging. young people are the ones who just might have the spirit, and the magic formula, to close the gaps and fill the cracks. what could emerge just might turn this country upside down. and not soon enough.

i'm heading now to chicago to catch my flight. see you at home.

time warp

greg just came home and said "i want to play you something" - he hurriedly popped in a cd and we've been bopping our heads and popping our eyes to this song. (it's the same guy who did the revolution will not be televised). holy fuck. it's from 1980, but the poetry rings eerily true today. spooky. what the fuck year is this again?

good mourning

everyone's probably read and heard more morning-after analysis than i have. i rose at noon and have been moving pretty slow. so far: toast, fried egg (thanks adam), two oranges, two cups of instant coffee, one cigarette.

we stayed at the democratic party party at monona terrace until around 2am. claude was right: there's nothing sadder than a bunch of drunk people who've just lost an election. near the end of the night, there were barely 75 people left in the room gathered near the big screen that had been broadcasting cnn election coverage. we were feeling what i can only describe as a melange of anger, deflation, pain, and stunnment. the ohio numbers were still up in the air, as were crucial others. major networks had called it for bush. all but cnn, ironic considering its role in the 2000 debacle.

i wasn't that drunk, really, but between the fatigue and disbelief, things were tipsy. confession: i felt rather disconnected. what a feeling to be in a room full of folks who are deeply invested in all of this, yet feeling some kind of forcefield between me and them. not that i felt shielded in any way, just kinda behind the glass. the emotions that raced through me were of course very real. very real. but i couldn't shake this feeling of profound relief, for myself and for where i'm from.

an entirely misguided way to feel, surely, considering that the election results will register high on the richter scale for all of us, everywhere, for another four years. that's a long fucking time.

spending a couple of weeks here, i'm more accutely aware of the moral uneasiness - on both sides - that rests like a thick layer of fog on the country. and it's incredibly difficult to read it's nature or impact. the decreasing (or was it ever really there) separation of faith and politics is frightening. we can't deny the increasing divide between the christian right and the more moderates here. that cleavage is becoming more and more dangerous. it's leading to an erosion of civil rights/human rights and an embracing of a neo-con approach to the economy and foreign affairs.

the bush family history reads like a piece of fiction; their agenda has been long at play. which one? this one? this one? this? insiders are probably right now sipping from heavy silver goblets and slapping each other's backs at how well the plan is going.

and today, john kerry said things like "don't lose faith - what you did made a difference, and building on itself we go on to make a difference another day. i promise you, that time will come when your work and your ballots will change the world. and it's worth fighting for."

then he said he wanted to "leave this campaign with a prayer ... god bless america."

god bless it, indeed.

voting in pictures

we're getting restless. itchy to get out there and smell what's going on. it's isolated in this room where teamsters have had yelling matches during negotiations. the kitchen gang just served us subs and pizza. there's also an abundance of halloween candy. i'm tempted to turn on that lone christian news channel to get some media stimulation, but i fear it may be more like strangulation.

thanks be to the holy internet. we've been browsing a wee bit. the ny times has quite a compelling slide show of e-day images here. there has been some interesting numbers emerging about the latino voting on that open thread, which also lists exit polls #s for 6pm.

the last npr hourly newscast indicated that there have been reports of weird goings on in missouri. the aclu there has "100s" of lawyers watching polls in the greater st. louis area. here's the list of wisconsin municipality city clerks we've been using for inquiries.

had a quick phone check-in with austin in madison - the campus base of the voter mobilization plan has been going really well. he said that candidate dave magnum got booed out of a tour stop. sweet. i saw this guy (try to) debate the remarkable tammy baldwin last week. not impressive.

i checked in with a couple of our drivers who are bored out in the field, asking for vital signs. but the phone calls in this room are picking up as darkness overtakes us. the rides game is always a gamble. does does a low number of calls for rides indicate a low voter interest, or does it indicate a sudden high mobility among the electorate? given the predictions of high voter turnout today, we hope for the latter.

this is what i wish for right now.

4 hours left

i only have a few minutes. where the fuck has the day gone? it's 4pm and we're doing a shift turnover with the drivers here. it's been a slow day for rides.

there was just a loud whopping and hollering from the big room - the chief coordinator just announced the good looking exit poll results. in case you haven't seen them, here are the 3pm numbers:

FL Kerry +4
OH Kerry +5
MI Kerry +4
PA Kerry +16
IA Kerry +2
WI Kerry +5
Minn Kerry +15
NV Bush +1
NM Tied
NC Bush +5
CO Bush +1
VA Bush +1

during the drive this morning, adam told me about white flight from milwaukee. makes me shudder, but it's not uncommon in suburban america. great article at salon about the election protection volunteers in florida who are doing "god's work" - it's listed under "florida mid-day report" here. the election day open thread here offers some interesting pan-geographic updates. cnn will be monitoring the balance of power as numbers come in, probably starting in two hours. and this is a great picture of a famous teamster.

someone needed the computer and now i'm back. by now, we have new results from 4pm:

a quick look at exits as of 4pm

Kerry

FL +2.2
IA +0.5
MN +13.7
NV +0.9
NH +15.6
NM -0.2
OH +3.2
PA +13.4
WI +5.0

this just in

thanks for your patience.

i'm sitting in the board room of teamsters hall, local 200, in the west side of milwaukee. i am one of three people trying to coordinate the 'voter ride' program for the city. there is a very loud phone that rings whenever someone needs a ride to the polls. we arrived this morning with a bounce in our step. ward maps were already yahooed and there are two computers set up with a city map program. the room quickly began to fill with eager drivers, who we tried to dispatch into zones as we quickly assembled an admin system. many are not from around here, in from chicago and even beyond.

ride requests have been a bit slow. i've tried to get a sense of what else is going on in this staging area outside of our swank room. the big union hall is a-buzz - it's all tightly organized. at one point this morning, it was chock full of volunteers who were dispersed into specific teams for quick training. this is the place from where canvassers are combing the city, phoners are dispatched to phone banks, and from where drivers are sent to wait patiently in coffee shops and book stores for the ride requests. i'd say that several hundred volunteers are being coordinated from this spot. the food depot is fucking amazing - coffee, juices, h20, and a full smorg of snacks and eats. union halls are special to my heart - i just love being in this teamsters hall, especially one that's alive with this much activity and anticipation.

there is a tv in this room that only broadcasts a christian news channel - hardly helpful. we're trying to get more info about what's going on in the outside world. we heard that this morning, there were line-ups at polls that were up to two hours long. good signs. there are poll monitors all over the country. i'm going to use this lull point to dig up some news - hard news.

countdown

about an hour ago, austin turned to me and said, "24 hours from now..." and i just smiled and said, "yeah." deep, i know. profundities like that are being swapped all over the place tonight. though hardly capable of sharp intellectual banter at this point, everyone is incredibly lucid and 'on'. the canvassing is done. the phoning is done. we actually had a surplus of volunteer phoners tonight who wound up doing calls for our office neighbours, moveon, because our id's were completed. there is presently a gaggle of young volunteers sitting on the floor in our reception area, listening to political hip-hop, eating candy, cutting up excess campaign t-shirts to make patches and arm bands that say things like "don't be a loser - be a chooser", "kill apathy and vote", "the only solution is revolution". folks are giddy in their creativity. sweet release.

i went home at 5.30 to cook. cooking + music + adult beverage = relaxation. i came back with a big pot of sweet potato and chipotle soup for the masses. people seemed to enjoy it. while eating, adam and i looked at some of the letters sent to guardian readers in response to their letter-writing campaign to u.s. voters. the shitty things that outraged people said. i'll say it again, the american electorate is fucking amazing, and not in the "ooh aahh" way.

everything is pretty much done here in this shop. now it's a question of cruising into the morning, the day of reckoning. everyone is heading in different directions tomorrow, some starting as early as 6.00 am to set up for various duties. everyone is now folding into the america votes program, a mind-boggling coordination of people and time to pull the vote. adam and i are headed to milwaukee at 7.00 am to report for duty at 9.00 am at one of the main staging areas. apparently we will be coordinating rides to the polls. in fucking milwaukee. it would be cool to stay in madison to see the day through, but that's where we've been summoned and so we go.

campaigners will be at the oscar meyer plant for the shift change. a bunch of spritely youth have just headed to the campus with an act crew to do a late-nite lit drop. the same bunch will be setting up tents there at 6.00 am to engage in vote mobbing with students. maybe it's just my vantage point, but it's as though everyone is somehow holding their breath until tomorrow night. politicos and even non-nerds will probably be toggling on this mesmerizing fantastic electoral vote map well into the wee hours (the #s keep changing - it's addictive).

i wonder how much of america will actually sleep tonight. or the world?

[as i log off here, some guy just came in and started playing acoustic guitar... we're all singing along to children by csny. how old are these people?! inspiring.]

welcome to wisconsin

John Kerry just landed in Milwaukee for a lunchtime rally downtown. Gore won Wisconsin in 2000, but Kerry is struggling to hold on to it now. Although most polls aren't nearly as worrying, a Gallup poll out Sunday night had Bush up by eight here. Kerry is lavishing attention on the Badger state. salon tells the rest...

the post

forgive me for blogging links to spots like the washington post and new york times - can be irritating if you don't have an account, and i keep forgetting that. here are some highlights from an article in this morning's post that discusses the human and financial resources the parties are pouring into this election:

Unprecedented Efforts to Mobilize Voters Begin

By Dan Balz and Thomas B. EdsallWashington Post Staff WritersMonday, November 1, 2004; Page A01

President Bush and challenger John F. Kerry unleashed the biggest and most aggressive voter-mobilization drives in the history of presidential politics yesterday, tapping hundreds of thousands of volunteers and paid organizers in a final effort to tip the balance in a handful of states where the election will be decided tomorrow.

Mixing sophisticated techniques to identify their potential supporters with old-fashioned shoe leather and face-to-face contact to woo loyal and sporadic voters, the two campaigns will contact millions of Americans -- many of them more than once -- in the final hours of the campaign and then track their movements throughout Election Day to ensure they have gone to the polls.

The unprecedented efforts underscore the conviction of officials in both campaigns that with the race so close in so many states, the key to victory depends more than in any recent campaign on their ability to win the battle of the streets. In Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico, opposing armies fanned out under blazing sun or cold, drizzly skies to reach as many voters as possible.

Both campaigns hope that no potential voter is likely to escape the net cast by them in the final days.

The weekend blitz represented the culmination of many months of preparation by the campaigns, which along with their outside allies will spend $300 million and perhaps much more on targeting and turning out their voters. Longtime organizers say they have never seen so much money available for such an effort.

Bush's budget for voter mobilization is about $125 million, at least triple that of four years ago, a knowledgeable official said. Kerry's field operation, run out of the Democratic National Committee, will spend nearly $60 million, more than doubling what the Democrats spent in 2000, campaign officials said.

Supplementing the campaigns and party operations are outside groups, the biggest and potentially most important being America Coming Together, a pro-Kerry organization funded with "soft money," that is likely to spend $100 million to $125 million. Organized labor also will spend tens of millions to reach union members.

Bush can count on help from conservative and business organizations, although none comes close to the scale of ACT. "We are going to have 45,000 paid people out on Election Day," said Harold M. Ickes, ACT's executive director.

Republicans say the battle on the ground represents a test of opposing theories of how to reach voters in an era when attention spans are limited and information sources plentiful. Both sides are using a mix of paid staff and volunteers, but the GOP is far more dependent on a volunteer corps of organizers more than 1 million strong. Democrats, with ACT's help, have a more professional operation to turn out their loyalists.

Democrats have about 250,000 volunteers, compared with 90,000 four years ago, and contest the GOP suggestion that they mainly rely on paid professionals. But Karen Hicks, national field director for the campaign at the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats have far more experienced organizers than the Republicans, noting that one county in Florida is being managed by someone who ran the entire state of Pennsylvania for Bill Clinton in 1992. "We have a very deep bench in the Democratic Party who have done this before and know how to do it," she said.

Both campaigns have made bold claims about the strength of their get-out-the-vote operations, and while they have produced reams of statistics to tell them how many calls have been made, how many doors knocked on and how many supporters they have state by state, neither can tell until tomorrow who has the edge in effectiveness. Four years ago, it was the Democrats; two years ago, it was the Republicans.

Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman said yesterday that Republicans built their operation on the belief that neighbor-to-neighbor or colleague-to-colleague contact is far more persuasive than relying on paid canvassers who have no personal connections to the voters they are wooing. "Our effort will be larger, it will be more credible and it will be targeted," he said.

The campaigns have produced precise precinct-by-precinct vote goals, based on their best estimates of tomorrow's turnout. At an organizing conference in Milwaukee a week ago, a young Kerry organizer recruited volunteers for the final weekend, saying they would need to knock on 120,448 doors.

in print

yipee - my/adam's editorial appeared in today's badger herald! and they endorsed all the progressives. whew.

sclemeel, schlemazel!

with one day left, guess where both presidential candidates are stumping today? they will be three blocks and one hour apart in none other than milwaukee. home of laverne and shirley, the fonz, a special brew, and one of my mom's alma maters.

big events are planned there for both contenders, with barely hours left in the campaign.

celeb alert: dreamboat jon bon jovi, will be performing at the kerry stop. c&w legends brooks and dunn and the oakridge boys will play to the republican crowd.

it boggles my mind how many resources are being poured into this state. and by both parties. the democratic coordinated committee here has had more people on the ground than ever before. canvassers have been working smaller markets and pursuing the rural vote in strategic ways. the bush camp has its own strategy too, supplementing the dubya stop with two other top guns - daddy bush in green bay and boss cheney in waukesha. hard to fathom just how narrow the gore win was here in 2000 - the bush people sure want those 5708 votes. it's a piece of the bigger plan that has turned more than a few politico heads.

there may be only ten electoral votes here, but those republicans want them so bad, they can taste it. great to be in one of the key six.