Michael Bauser Is Losing His Mind

This weekend, the local Democrats decided it was time to drop off literature in Brownstown Township, one of those confusing municipalities that refuses to be contiguous. I actually lived in Brownstown for two years in the 1970s, so I volunteered for today’s literature walk with the vague idea that maybe I would walk around my old neigborhood. It probably would have helped if I knew where to find my old neigborhood on the map, but like I said, Brownstown is confusing.

Today’s staging area was the office of Downriver Democratic Organization which apparently does… Democratic stuff… Downriver. (For those of you reading this from elsewhere in the world, “Downriver” is somewhat vague term used in Michigan to refer to the suburbs south of Detroit. It includes parts of at least three congressional districts and a couple of dozen municipalities. Really, the biggest unifying characterisitic of the area is that it’s not Detroit.) The Anonymous Guy-In-Charge today was the same Guy-In-Charge when I walked in Allen Park, which led him to describe me as “a regular”. Wow. Two whole encounters makes me a regular. People Downriver set the bar for sucess very low, don’t they?

Today, they were giving volunteers campaign buttons, instead of selling them to us. I already have a button, but I took a free one anyway for my mother. I’m trying to keep her involved in the real world.

Unable to find my old neighborhood, I got assigned a neighborhood directly next to the office, so I drove over, parked the truck, and wandered around handing out campaign literature. Unlike my previous volunteer adventures, they actually gave me a realistic amount of turf to cover, and I visited every house on my map in two hours. (Of course, the map was wrong about where one street was, but one can’t have everying perfect.) Although Brownstown is in the process of rapidly urbanized, this neighborhood still looked pretty rural. The roads were unpaved, the trucks were rusty, and the sidewalks were only partially installed. (Seriously — some houses had sidewalks in front of them, and some didn’t. It was like a crazy person was pouring the concrete.)

No deep conversations with the voters, although a few rural types gave me the evil eye. Somebody’s cat followed me for a block. It started raining towards the end of my walk, but fortunately, I had my trusty collapsable umbrella in my trusty bookbag. It was next to the trusty sunscreen that I didn’t really need, but packed anyway because I’m a dork.

No hotdogs after the walk! Yay! We had pizza. I talked to some of the people in the Downriver Democrats’ office to find out how they pick which neighborhoods to drop literature in. As it turns out, they don’t do any demographic targeting at all — they just spend one day in every town, then move on. Okay….

As is turns out, Brownstown is the next-to-last town on their list, and I won’t be able to make it to next week’s walk, so this is it for me this year. On the other hand, I now know where the office is, I’m considering doing some more volunteering there. It turns out that I really missed this stuff. Besides, I’m a regular now, so I’m almost obligated to show up.

I got a postcard (union-printed, on recycled paper, with soy ink, even) today from a former employer, Clean Water Action asking me to join their campaign to tell people about the Bush Administration attacks on public health and environmental protections. Judging by the rest of the card, CLA considers me alumni, which I consider very charitable of them. After all, they had to fire me because I’m a lousy fundraiser.

I probably won’t be calling them.

Another group I probably shouldn’t be hanging out with, but I am anyway: The Trenton Democratic Club. Despite my negative assessment of their September meeting, I went to their October meeting tonight. I had a headache whent I entered. I had a migraine when I left.

Things started going downhill almost immediately. As soon as I signed in and grabbed a cup of coffee, and elderly gentlemen tried to introduce himself. The conversation went like this:

Hi. Mike Bauser.

Mike from Romania?

Uh, no.

Mike from Wayne State?

Uh, no.

Where do you live?

Down by the park…

And then he wanders off, leaving me to wonder if there’s going to be a long-haired Romanian named Mike showing up tonight. As it turns out, the guy (also named Mike) spent the night asking everybody those questions. I eventually figured out Crazy Mike was asking where people lived because he’s a precint captain; the purpose of the other two questions remains a mystery. He asked a lot of pointless questions actually, and appeared to often forget the answers he received.

Tonight’s speakers were Ed Nykiel, a candidate for 33rd District Court Judge, and Raymond Andary, husband of Lynn Pearce, candidate for Wayne County circuit judge. Apparently, neither one of them is aware of the Odd Job Rule.

The Odd Job Rule: When you’re running for one of the odd jobs (anything with the words “county”, “district”, “circuit”, “commission”, or “inspector” in the job title), you have to make sure people know what the job does! Put a paragraph at the beginning of your speech explaining what the job is, and why it’s important enough to vote on!

Neither speaker was very clear about what their courts deal with, or what the physical jurisdictions are. By the end of the second speaker’s question-and-answer period, it was pretty clear that some people thought the candidates were running for the same job. In fact, things got so confusing, nobody asked Nykiel about this political affiliation until after he sat down. Turns out he’s… a moderate Republican… from Grosse Ile.

But I probably have to vote for him anyway, because the incumbent he’s “running against” has announced plans to retire immediately before the election, and Michigan doesn’t have a system for replacing retired judges between elections. If the incumbent wins, this district may be saddled with an empty courtroom for six years, or the state could eliminate the position entirely. This has caused some confusion.

Against my better judgement, I paid five bucks to join the club and receive their newletter. Remeber how checks used to have a “19__” on them for writing the year? My membership card has a “198_” on it for the date. Also, it has no signature from a club officer, because the treasurer taking dues wasn’t sure he was authorized to sign the cards he was handing out. Huh?

I took a Lynn Pearce sign home with me and put it on the front lawn. I’m putting out lawn signs for pro-life Democrats. No wonder my head hurts.

Today was the day the local Democrats decided to waste two hours handing out campaign literature door-to-door in the town I live in. (Notice that I avoid the use of the word “hometown”, because I still don’t like thinking of Trenton as home.) I didn’t really enjoy my experience meeting the Trenton Democratic Club or dropping literature Downriver, so agreeing to a lit-drop with the Trenton Democratic Club was probably a really dumb idea. Did I let that stop me? Of course not.

So I head to the same activies center the Club used for all it meeting. (I drove by a street fair I wasn’t expecting — Dammit, it’s the Scarecrow Festival again!) This time, the Trenton Dems had numbered the tables, but nobody bothers to explain what the numbers are for. I sit down at table Number Five, just because its empty, and I hate people. Turns out, I’d volunteered to deliver campaign literature in Precint Five. I live in Precint One. I had no idea where Precint Five is. In fact, I didn’t think Trenton was big enough to need that many precincts. Shows what I know.

Some older women sat down after I did, accidentally volunteering themselves for Precinct Five. Yeah, whatever. After Christine, doyenne of the Democratic Club give a bunch of maps of the pricinct, I let the ladies choose what areas they wanted to walk. (This was less a matter of chivalry, and more a matter of apathy. I walk where the party needs me to walk.) After getting my map, I realize that I’ve (completely by accident) volunteered to walk the neighborhood where my high-school buddy Ian lives, so I have been there once.

The Trenton Democrats apparently underestimated their turnout (again), so Christine gave me a disturbingly small stack of campaign literature, and told me I could come back if I ran out. What?

I started on the street my buddy lives on, thinking that I could stop by and demand he give me a soda as thanks for my selfless committment to our political process. But all I heard when I got to his porch was his wife yelling at the kids, so I decided not to interupt. They’re probably Republicans anyway — everybody else in our hometown was.

Anyway, when you’ve done a lot of door-to-door work live I have (two political campaigns, two fundraising jobs, one security job, and a candy bar sale in grade school), you begin to notice that many neighboorhoods have strange quirks that set them off from other neighborhoods in town. In one neighborhood, every house might the same stupid sidewalk tiles. In another neighborhood, everyone has bought the same welcome mat. The quirk in this neighborhood? A lot of houses have vinyl-covered porches. The problem with that quirk? Vinyl porches are slippery when they’re wet. I went flying right off a porch that had been slicked by a garden sprinkler, and landed ass-first in some nearby petunias. (I’m anything but a horticultural expert, but the homeowners had helpfully placed a small plastic “Petunias” sign next to the flowers, so that I would know exactly what I had flattened.) I don’t feel too bad about it, though, because that house had a George Bush sign in its yard.

I did run out of campaign literature, forcing me to drive back to the staging area (cursing all the way) to get more. Unlike the last lit-drop I worked, I actually did get to talk to one human being, mostly because she wanted to see what her dog was barking at. (At the time she came out of her house, I was doing the canvasser/dog dance — that’s where you take a step forward, then a step sideways, then maybe a step back, then another step sidways, while trying to figure out if it’s safe to try to walk around a barking dog.) She seemed interested in how I thought “the young voters” were going to vote.

After finishing most of my designated turf in my two designated hours, I drove to the rec center (again). Although it was a short drive, I decided to turn on the radio in my parent’s truck. Normally, they have the radio set to a bad country station, but today it was set to a bad oldies station. The first song I heard was “For What’s It Worth”, the song which haunted me the entire day I volunteered in Allen Park. If I believed in higher powers, that might be creepy.

Again, they served hot dogs to the volunteers. (We used to get pizza and Mexican food in Arizona.) The older ladies who also walked in Precint Five asked me how the young voters are going to vote this year. Apparently, I’ve become the designated representative of the young voter in Trenton. I’m 33. Jeez, how old do I have to be before I’m not the youngest Democrat in Trenton?

My bank called me at home today as part of a customer satisfaction survey. Just like the survey two months ago, this survey was only one question long. Man, I have really got to find out how to get that job.

Another tiny blast from my past: Salon.com published an article yesterday about Republican women in Arizona voting for John Kerry. Among other things, they pointed out that Arionza Governor Janet Napolitano’s narrow win in 2002 depended, in part, on Republican women voting against creepy conservative Republican Matt Salmon. I can vouch for that being true, because I was a Democrat ballot-chaser in 2002, and I met quite a few of those crossover voters during my canvassing.

In fact, come to think of it, Napolitano could be in trouble in the Republicans wise up and run a moderate against her next time. Fortunately for her, the Arizona Republican Party has been busy hunting down and destroying its moderates, so they’re unlikely to have good one available come next election.

So, President Bush is in the Rose Garden yesterday, trying to convince reporters that the situation in Iraq isn’t as bad as they think it is. His great statement?

I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America. It’s pretty darn strong. I mean, the people see a better future.

Jeez, if they like your work so much, Mr. Bush, maybe you should be running for office over there.

I actually got involved in politics by a combination of necessity and accident. Back in 2002, I was living in Arizona, and just beginning a job teaching for The Princeton Review. It was only a part-time job to start, so I decided I needed another part-time job to balance out my budget. (Not that I’ve ever actually balanced my budget, but at least I was trying.) Fortunately for me, the Arizona Democratic Party was hiring, and they’ll take anybody.

So I spent almost two months campaigning door-to-door for the Democratic Party, before they decided I was too smart for canvassing and moved me into the office for the tail end of the campaign. (Sometimes, I wished they’d kept me on the streets. I like the ground-level stuff, and I get in less trouble there.) Like many political jobs, that job ended on election day. When I moved back to Michigan in 2003, I sat out politics for a year.

Today, I decided to get back in the game for real. I woke up with the lyrics to Buffalo Springfield’s “For What’s It Worth” running through my head, believe it or not, and decided to help the local Democrats do some door-to-door work in Allen Park. I threw on an old campaign t-shirt from my Arizona days, tossed a bottle of water and an umbrella in my bookbag (I forgot sunscreen, dammit! Always pack sunscreen!), and headed out to Allen Park.

I was a little late arriving at the city park used as a staging area because, once again, my parents gave me bad directions. (Note to self: Stop getting directions from stroke victims!) As seems to be the norm with Democrats around here, the person in charge didn’t bother introducing himself or asking if I’d done this job before. (Not only have I done this job before, I’ve done his job before. I tell you, it’s like amateur hour out here. How do we keep winning Michigan with operations like this?) He gave me a stack of campaign literature, a hastily drawn (and overly-optimistic) map of territory to canvass, and told me to come back in two hours.

It’s generous to call what I did canvassing, because all we really did was leave campaign literature on people’s doorsteps. I ran into another volunteer on the edge of my designated territory, probably because Anonymous-Guy-In-Charge didn’t explain he was drawing edge-to-edge maps. The other volunteer (whom I greeted with “Friend or foe?” when I saw he was delivering literature) and I agreed to share the street — he did one side and I did the other.

After my designated two hours of literature delivery (which covered less than three of the six extremely long streets I’d been assigned), I returned to the staging area, which was now being used for a Democratic hot dog roast. Some old guy complimented me on my “Democrats United” t-shirt, and then started lecturing me about political history like I was twelve. A couple of redneck volunteers had a discussion about how Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton weren’t good leaders for the black community, but that they liked John Conyers. (They better like him. He’s the congressman for half this area.)

Somebody put a tape of John Kerry speeches on a boombox. (Did I just type “boombox?”) The music accompanying the lectures was “For What’s It Worth”. I finished my hot dog, bought a John Kerry campaign button (never had to pay for buttons in Arizona, dammit), and went home. The worst part? I still have that song stuck in my head.

Last week, a flier announcing the September meeting of the Trenton Democratic Club showed up in my mailbox. Although I count myself as a Democrat (I even worked for them in 2002), I never been real enthusiastic about local political clubs. In my experience, they tend to be full of grumpy old men who want to canvass neighborhoods the Democrats are going to lose anyway. I’d rather work directly for the party or the candidate.

Unfortunately for me, my mother announced she wanted me to take her to this meeting so she could get a John Kerry sign for the front yard. Then she changed her mind at the last minute, but told me to go anyway so she could still have a sign.

Tonight, I met the Trenton Democractic Club, even though I wish I hadn’t.

The meeting (mostly old people, like I predicted), opened with the club leaders apologizing for being disorganized and not having enough lawn signs, which they blamed on a television crew keeping them busy at campaign headquarters. Apparently, they sent the meeting announcment to everybody in Trenton who voted in the Democratic caucus, but didn’t expect so many people to turn up. (I did manage to grab a sign before they ran out.)

They also recommmended people put bumper stickers in their windows so they would last longer. Huh? I’ve got two-year old stickers that still look new on mine. Here’s the secret to good bumperstickering:

Wait until dark to put the sticker on! Bumpers (especially the plastic ones) expand in the heat. If you put a sticker on a hot bumper during the day, the contraction of the bumper at night ruins the bumper. Cleaning the bumper beforehand also helps.

But I digress.

The club leaders passed around some sign-up sheets for upcoming volunteer events (including a literature drop this weekend I might go to), led us in Republican-bashing for a while (like I needed a special meeting for that), and let some judicial candidate get up and ramble for a while. I’ve already forgotten the guy’s name, but his platform consisted mostly of telling us how close he’s come to winning in previous races, and reminding us that he’s a good Christian. He asked us to pray for him.

And remember, this is the Democratic club.

Political Tip of the Day: When you’ve got a crowd of newbies at a meeting of a political group, Tell them what the group does. The leaders of the Trenton Democratic Club didn’t really do that, other than to mention that the local Democrats sponsor bingo games. (Did I mention all the old people?) Without a clear idea of why the group exists, people aren’t going to keep coming back.

After that, the meeting devolved to random chit chat. I got tired of old ladies saying how happy they were to see a young person involved in politics, so I left. I took the lawn sign home and left in my parent’s living room.