Michael Bauser Is Losing His Mind

I’m generally able to avoid going to Christmas parties. My until-now-secret technique for avoiding them depends on three things:

1. I’m an atheist. (Therefore, no religious functions to attend.)
2. I’m usually unemployed. (Therefore, no business functions to attend.)
3. I’m antisocial. (Therefore, no friends’ functions to attend.)

The secret technique didn’t work so well this year. The Democratic Party keeps inviting me to Christmas parties. I guess they need a token Liberal Atheist Democrat for old times’ sake. Anyway, a pointless party breakdown:

November 30, Congressman Dingell‘s holiday party: I got invited to this one by e-mail the day I after I agreed to go to Louisiana for a run-off election. Dingell isn’t my congressman, but I worked with some of his people during the fall campaign, so someone thought to inviite me. Unfortunately, I was expecting to be on the road to Louisiana that night, so I RSVP’ed that I couldn’t make it. As it turns out, I could have gone, because the DCCC took too long to get my travel plans together (I need to tell that story soon, but it’s got to be it’s own entry). Stupid DCCC.

December 9, Downriver Democrats/15th District Organization party: Held at Crystal Gardens, a local banquet hall institution. This party was the day after I got back from Louisiana, so after amusing a couple of DDO colleagues with the story of the southern deputy searching my car for Xanax, I ended up at a table with some people I barely knew. I had to keep reintroducing myself, because my nametag kept falling off the jacket I bought at Men’s Wearhouse.

I discussed international trade with a laid-off autoworker named Bruce (who looks so much lot like Tony Hale from Arrested Development that I kept wanting to call him “Buster”), a laid-off autoworker named Andrew (currently temping as one of those guys who holds signs in front of stores having big sales) and a derranged greenhouse worker named Sue who tried to convince me that illegal immigrants are the cause of traffic jams in the United States. (There’s a politically incorrect joke about carpooling and pickup trucks just begging to be written there.) Sue brought her college freshman daughter along. All I remember about the daughter is that she didn’t think any of my jokes were funny. I find that creepy in a girl.

I’m kind of glad that I don’t live in the same congressional district as most of these people. I made a vague promise to stop by some of the District Organization’s monthly meetings, but forgot to ask when they’re held.

December 11, 14th District Organization Party: I didn’t get invited to this one, which is only worth mentioning because that is my district. Go figure.

December 16, Trenton Democratic Club Christmas party: The invitation for this showed up while I was in Louisiana, but I RSVP’ed in time. A small gathering at the club president’s house. (A house which does not have its address anywhere on the outside of the house. I ended up knocking on the door and having to ask the host’s daughter if I was at the right house. On the plus side, the fact the host had a daughter meant that, for once, I wasn’t the youngest person at a meeting of the Trenton Democratic Club.) Discussed the Washington state recounts a lot, spilled some punch, and made two odd discoveries: Everyone in Trenton hates the house across the street from mine (it’s apparently become a symbol of annoying rich people blocking the river with big ugly houses), and the club president has read this weblog (she thought the caucus story was funny). I may have to start being nicer to people in Trenton.

December 18, Congressman John Conyers‘ holiday party: Finally, a party with my congressman! I got invited to this one while I was at the Trenton party, apparently because the Trenton club had been asked to make sure lots of suburbanites showed up. (Until 2002, Conyers’ district was almost entirely in Detroit. Redistricting added Trenton and some other suburban cities. In other words, everyone was worried that the white suburbanites would be afraid to go to a party full of Detroiters. Unfortunately, that’s not a silly a fear as it sounds. I know one guy who skipped the big parties for just that reason.)

The congressman’s party was held at the same hall as the Downriver Democrats’ party, but in a bigger room. (Same meatballs at the buffet, though.) I sat as a table with some of the Trenton crew, and a nice couple from Detroit, Elana and Arnold. Surprisingly little discussion of politics — mostly Arnold and I discussed our jobs (he was a contractor). My nametag kept falling off my jacket again, leading me to wish aloud that the Men’s Wearhouse salesman had warned me he was selling me a nametag-proof jacket.

I finally got introduced to Congressman Conyers (who was wearing a metallic tuxedo jacket that made him look very stylish for a congressman) and told him Keep on `em about those recounts. Later on, he joked that his staff asked him not talk about recounts, because it was a party. I know how that feels. I get accused of bringing down parties a lot, too. But I’m done for the year, unless somebody somehow manages to invite me to another party. I rather hope they don’t, because I’m officially Christmas’ed out.

After Election Day, I was feeling a little dejected. Although the Democrats did pretty well in Michigan, the Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress. Even worse, 2005 is an “off year”, with nothing but municipal elections in Michigan next year. That meant there wouldn’t be much for a half-assed activist like me to do for the next year, except maybe join some letter-writing campaigns (Oceana has couple right now, if you’re interested).

But I forgot about Louisiana.

See, the Bayou State doesn’t use traditional primary elections to winnow down the number of a candidates each party fields. They just let as many Democrats and Republicans as possible run for each office, and hope that somebody gets more than fifty percent of the vote. If nobody does, they hold a runoff election a month later with the two most popular candidates. Those crazy southerners.

Two congressional races went into runoff elections this year, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has decided to throw some leftover money into the campaign by recruiting volunteers. Basically, all I have to do is get my ass to Louisiana the weekend after Thanksgiving, and the DCCC will pay for food and housing. So, unless somebody offers me a job between now and then, Louisiana here I come! I still got some fight left in me.

I checked my probable route on Maps On Us (Why do I use that site? It has a horrible name.), and discovered I have to drive through Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to get to Louisiana. As it turns out, my map-collecting project sort of petered out with New York, so I don’t have road maps of… Kentucky, Tennessee, or Louisiana. See what happens when you don’t follow through, kids? I’ve ordered all three maps today, but it’s unlikely any of them will show up before I leave. (Look on the bright side — I might actually have an anecdote about the states by the time the maps arrive.) But finding Louisiana can’t be that hard, right? Drive south from Michigan, and stop when I reach something that looks like the Gulf of Mexico, right?

Anybody here know the Gulf of Mexico looks like?

Today on Crossfire, Paul Begala came out in (half-joking) support of the same constitutional amendment I proposed 13 months ago. I’m still looking for steady work — maybe I’ll send a résumé to CNN. With a little practice, I’m sure I could be almost as big a dick as Tucker Carlson.

I spent most of yesterday in bitter denial about the election and Kerry’s concession. Still tired and sore from running all over Heritage Park on Tuesday, I avoided most political news by sitting on my couch and watching a bunch of shows I’d taped last week. (If you must know, Smallville, Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, Gilmore Girls, and Da Vinci’s Inquest. All but the first were from nights I was volunteering.) Last night, I even taped The West Wing (a show I’m close to giving up on, anyway) because I didn’t want to think about politics.

I keep thinking about this “values vote” everyone is talking about. Values, my ass — this is the “shallow Christian vote”. Apparently, it doesn’t matter how bad a job somebody does, they’ll get votes if they wrap themselves in a flag and thump a Bible often enough. And don’t even get me started on the rampant and useless homophobia.

Today, I tried cheering myself up a little by buying a ten-dollar t-shirt at Target. It’s dark blue, with Captain America’s shield silk-screened on the front. (Geeky and patriotic!) I like the shirt, but buying t-shirts won’t banish the awful feeling that I’m an endangered species: A liberal atheist living a Bible-thumping nation. I should buy a boat, so when the mob comes to burn me at the stake, I can make a break for Canada. I hope they’ll let me keep the t-shirt there.

It seemed like a good plan. Get up, get out, work for the Democrats all day, so I won’t have time to stress out about the election.

Except this election is apparently going to last forever. Damn Ohioans.

I lived in Ohio on and off for six years during college and graduate school. I have no reservations about stating that Ohio government officials excel in incompentance and sleeze.

Jeez, their Secretary of State just said that Ohio’s provisional ballots can’t be legally counted until eleven days after the election. Great, I don’t get to sleep for eleven days.

Anyway, here in Michigan:

After saying up late (again) last night, I rolled out of bed at nine a.m. and spent in an inordinate amount of time trying to figure what was the warmest outfit in my closet, because I was going to be working outside until at least eight o’clock at night. A bit nostagically, I chose to wear my Election Day 2002 t-shirt as an undershirt.

It’s a great shirt — purple with the slogan “Democratic Women Make the Difference” on back, and “Democrats United 2002 Vote November 5th” on front. The party didn’t make a lot these shirts, and I had to work really hard to impress the female receptionist in charge of handing them out to campaign workers. (In fact, I didn’t convince her I was good enough until two days before the 2002 election.)

Women like this shirt a lot. Many of them tell me to take it off and give it to them. A shirt that makes women want to undress me. It’s like a magic t-shirt!

(CNN has just formally declared Ohio as “too close to call” — they’re making it a “green state” because of the outstanding provisional and military ballots. Jeez.)

And long underwear. Yes, I’m wearing long underwear.

I walked down to City Hall to vote (it’s too short a trip to bother driving, and I wanted to see if my outfit was warm enough). Picked up a slate card (a listing of Democratic and Democratic-favored candidates) from a the Democratic representative, and stuck it in my pocket. (Remember that — it’s important later.)

CNN just reported that the Iowa secretary of state has announced that his state’s results will not be available until tomorrow morning. Dammit it to hell!

Inside the Trenton City Hall lobby, the poll worker made me take my John Kerry campaign button off my jacket before I voted. (Her exact words? “He’s a great guy, but I need you to take that off.”) I went into the voting booth, closed the curtains, pulled the slate card out of my pocket, and spent a few fminutes figuring out which levers to flip. Trenton still uses mechanical level machines, which I had to squat so I could reach the levers at the bottom of the slate. I wonder how people with impaired mobility vote for judges?

As soon as I got home, I jumped in the truck and drove to Heritage Park to meet up with Katie, Marie Jo, Alan, Chris, and the rest of the Downriver Democratic Organization canvassing team. It was big canvass time, and my plan was to help set things up, then go on the canvass. I like canvassing, and I could use an extra 40 bucks, you know?

My plans never work.

Katie said she was short people to prep the canvassers, so I agreed to help Chris train the canvassers, then jump in the van with the last team. (I’ve trained canvassers before, but I really with I’d had some time to prepare bullet points or something.) Then the swarm of canvassers arrived, and boy were they a pain in the ass.

The Democrats had taken the usual step of renting dozens of mini-vans, so we were trying to create six-person canvassing teams. This was never a problem in Arizona. There, I could grab six people, tell them “Get in the van if you want your money”, and they got in the van. That doesn’t work so well in Michigan. Here, we kept getting groups of friends that were either too small or too big, and none of them wanted to work with strangers. I think I spent more time cajoling them into vans than I actually did training them.

We actually had more canvassers than we had rented vans for, so I didn’t get to canvass after all. After dispatching the last band of canvassers, I helped clean up the sign-up desks, and hid in a RV rented to keep us from freezing to death. Like any good RV, it had a television over the dashboad, so we were able to watch some of the early evening news (mostly bad news from Detroit) while we laid out some plans for the rest of the night, and scarfed our take-out dinner, and laughed at the crazy things our van drivers said over their Nextel walkie-talkies.

Then the van drivers revolted.

Everyone signed a simple contract, saying they were working until eight o’clock, but some van drivers tried to come back as early as six o’clock. (In fact, the first van to try that was the last one we sent out. The guy tried to cut his comittment from five hours to two.) They had all sorts of excuses. “It’s cold.” “It’s dark out.” “The walkers are scared of the neighborhood.” “We ran out of campaign literature.” “The road is too muddy.”

Jeez. I’ve canvassed in towns that have no paved roads or street lights. I’ve canvassed in neighborhoods where nobody spoke English. I’ve canvassed in neighborhoods so run down that some houses didn’t have front doors. I’ve been attacked by dogs. I’ve been called a communist, a collectivest, and a god-hater. None of it bother me. But these people are afraid of mud.

The bosses briefly debated just letting the losers go with a reduced paycheck, but they eventually decided to make it all-or-nothing: We told the drivers to go back to canvassing, or not get paid. Yeah, that was fun.

Around seven-thirty we had to a huge line of early arrivals, and the bosses decided to let them back in. It took almost two hours of retrieiving supplies, paperwork, and garbage before we got the canvassers paid and sent home. For the record, my outfit turned out to be too, so I had to take off my jacket for nearly an hour. This made everyone think I was tough, an mistaken impression I’m happy to live with.

Finally! CNN gives Michigan to Kerry! I didn’t completely waste the last four days after all!

We immediately decamped to the regional UAW hall for the official Downriver Victory Party. The DDO crew and I hung around until midnight waiting for those Michigan results, but eventually gave up and went our separate ways. I also got increasing despondent about Ohio trending towards Bush.

Apparently, I looked despondent, too. So despondent, a congressman felt obligated to give me a reassuring pat on the back. And he wasn’t even my congressman.

And getting back to that slate card in my pocket. Talking to a guy named Dennis (who happens to be a drinking buddy of my dad’s, and a member of the Trenton Democratic Club), I found out that Trenton’s pollworkers had been taking slate cards away from voters all day. Maybe it’s time to call the ACLU.

On a final positive note, the Downriver Democrats decided to pay me for the canvassing I didn’t get to do, and made me promise to get involved in future campaigns, which is a lot better outcome than the last campaign I worked on.

There’s a little town in New Hampshire called Hart’s Location that opens the polls at midnight so it can be the first town in America to report its presidential election results. The results are in, and the Bush/Kerry/Nader tally was 15/15/1.

Is is wrong that I want to drive to Hart’s Location and slap that Nader voter?

I took my retiree parents to a John Kerry rally in Detroit today. It was like having two twelve year old children with me — half the time, they were standing six inches behind me asking stupid questions, and the other half of the time, they were wandering reading useless signs on the walls. And then there was a whole thing about riding the People Mover and finding a bus stop that I really don’t want to get into. Suffice it say, it was a lot a pain for a rally that even Kerry’s people say wasn’t that important, and I’m never taking my parents to the city again.

I didn’t get back to Trenton until almost ten o’clock but I decided I still had time to help the Downriver Democrats with the last-minute preparations for tomorrow’s canvass. I spent four hours doing nothing but little odd jobs (like attaching small flashlight to necklace-style holders), so I think my most noteworthy accomplishment tonight was not getting another papercut. Hurray for not bleeding!

Today, I sleep for a few hours, then vote, then canvass, then maybe go to the victory party, then sleep all day tomorrow.

I stayed up much too late Saturday night trying to fix some problems with this blog. With only five hours of sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and drove over to the Downriver Democrats Organization again for another day of exciting political work.

If I get any more papercuts, I may pass out from blood loss.

I think I spent the first four or five hours sorting walklists (the list of registered voters used by canvassers). Sliced open the web of skin between my thumb and forefinger badly enough I needed a paper towel to soak up the blood. I did similar work in Arizona (with significantly less bloodshed — is becoming a more prolific bleeder a normal sign of aging?), but the only remotely-interesting observation I can make about it is that the Arizona list has more Spanish names surnames, and the Michigan list more Polish names. Even I don’t care about that one.

I sorted some miscellaneous canvassing supplies (clipboards, scripts, duct tape, and so forth), then spent a few more hours phonebanking to round up paid canvassers for election day. After a three straight days of phonebanking, I’ve pretty much thrown out the phone script the Democrats gave me and replaced with it a high-speed salespitch ending and you get your forty bucks at the end of the night. Sound like a good deal? The pitch was working pretty well. I guess I still have a little salesman left in me after all.

I realized today that Chris, the other guy who’s been volunteering all weekend, is the teenage Howard Dean organizer a local paper profiled last year. The kid still has to have his mom drive him to and from headquarters, but he already makes me look like a total slacker.

Speaking of slacking, one of the office coordinators, Katie, tried to talk me into working at a canvassing site this Tuesday, but I decided I’d rather just canvass. I tried working at a organizing site in 2002, and it didn’t go well. There were police involved. And lots of screaming. I got disinvited from the campaign victory party over that one.

I like that I’m only working on the little stuff this campaign. It’s less stressful. People give me work, I do the work, people thank me, I drive home at the end of the night. Simple as that.

Although, I should probably mention that I got pulled over by a cop driving home this time. Apparently, I was so exhausted that I forgot to turn on my headlights. (In my defense, there are lots of streetlamps in the neighborhood, so it’s not like I was seriously endangering anybody’s life.) He let me off with a warning. Apparently, I just can’t get a through a campaign without involving the police.

I tried to go straight to bed when I got home, but my youngest brother (the sailor) called to ask for homework advice. (He’s taking his freshman composition class. His current paper is about the electoral college, which he’s decided he doesn’t like. Welcome to the club, pal.) Finally got to bed, but woke up after five hours anyway. Argh. So, I’ve been awake two hours (the sun is rising as I type), I already feel tired again, and I have two more whole days of campaigning ahead of me. Why am I doing this again?

Today, I got up bright and early planning to volunteer at the DDO, but developed a stomach ache immediately after breakfast. So I downed some Pepto Bismol, waited a few hours, then drove to the office. I’m still not sure if the pain was caused by the cheap bagel I had for breakfast, or free-floating anxiety about the election.

I spent another four hours phonebanking. This time I called would-be canvassers and would-be drivers. (Apparently, I’m considered a very good phonebanker at this office, and two or three people thanked me for that. If I’d known that’s all it took to impress people, I’d have volunteered weeks ago.) While I was there, I snagged three tickets to an upcoming John Kerry rally in Detroit, because my retired parents want me to take them. Of course, my retired parents asking me for a ride, then ditching me is what got into the Trenton Democratic Club, so I can’t count on them actually following through.

After that, several people headed over to local UAW hall to bundle campaign literature, so I joined them. When I worked in Arizona, “bundling literature” meant sitting down with boxes of three to five different boxes of literature (including voter registration forms) and using rubber bands to create individual bundles. Here, it means taking a box of 1800 identical door-hangers and splitting it into bundles of 100. After an hour (and three paper cuts, including an annoying one on my mouse-clicking finger), I resorted to a box-at-a-time method: dumping an entire box onto the table and moving the door-hangers around until I had 18 similarly-sized piles. That was pretty much the height of my creativity today.

On the positive side, I actually talked to people enough today to let them know this isn’t my first campaign work. On the negative, I had to leave disappointing early (home by 11) to check up on my retiree parents. I really have got to get a grown-up life again….

So I’m sitting around my house, umemployed, bored, and freaking out from pre-election anxiety, when I finally get angry enough (at myself; I accomplish a lot more when I’m angry) to go volunteer with the local Democratic “organization”. I take a quick shower, shave, and throw on some clothes. Just as I’m about to leave, Osama bin Laden appears on CNN. What?

It was a curiously formal speech, more like he was running for office. Maybe he sees a symbolic void with Arafat near death. Or maybe he’s just trying to annoy President Bush. I’m not in the mood to think about it too hard.

The Downriver Democratic Organization (who, by the way, have now surpassed the Trenton Democratic Club as owners of the Worst Website in Politics) had been asking for phonebankers, so I called them and asked if they needed more. When I showed up an hour later they seemed really confused, because nobody was phonebanking at the time.

Somebody (who, as is the norm around here, didn’t bother to introduce herself until the end of the day) eventually gave me a phone and list of people to call. As it turns out, the local Democrats are recruiting paid canvassers for election day, for the exact same pay I used to get in Arizona (forty dollars and a bottle of water). I spent four or five hours calling potential workers and telling them where to show up on election day. Or rather, I told their answering machines, because nobody is home on Friday night. (It was always a slow day in the 2002 Arizona campaign, too. We didn’t even bother canvassing most Fridays.)

Most of the college students I talked to tonight sounded stoned to me. This may be a sign that I’m finally, officially old.

I took a small break to listen to a boilerworker describe Republicans harassing a Democratic office in Southgate. Apparently the business owner next store is a crazy Republican who’s taken to wearing a George Bush mask while he harasses the little old ladies who run the office, and even crazier Republicans have started picketing there. You heard it hear first folks: Republicans hate little old ladies. Apparently, there’s been enough harassment at Democratic offices in Michigan that people were semi-seriously discussing sleeping at the offices to make sure Republicans don’t vandalize the offices.

At the end of the night, I actually told them I might come back tomorrow, then drove home through a wall of fog. (Living in Arizona for four years, I’d kind of forgotten about fog.) I’m even considering signing myself up for the forty-dollar canvass. I like actually canvassing. Also, I haven’t had a paying writing job in a month, so I could really use the forty dollars.