Every little bit counts. We just knocked 50 doors today and only a handful even answered.
Yeah, I'll give them money. I've been thinking about San Antonio a lot lately because of my summer-long family history project. I still feel like I fundamentally don't get Texas (but should).
Oh hey, lurid, I thought you might be interested in this.
Thank you, teo! I am!
Much less uplifting: this article about Amber Wyatt and Arlington, TX, which has left me lost in dark thoughts.
There were personal reasons, too, for my investigation. I wanted to understand why it had to be as bad as it was -- why she wasn't just doubted but hated, not simply mocked but exiled -- and why it had always lingered on my conscience like an article of unfinished business, something I had meant to do but hadn't. I wanted to look directly at the dark things that are revealed when episodes of brutality unfold and all pretense of civilization temporarily fades, and I wanted to understand them completely. . . .
But the veneer of civility painted over modern life has paradoxically revealed a certain contempt for victims and the condition of victimhood. And perhaps, lurking in all the complaints about our putative culture of victimhood, there is something uglier than generalized contempt: a disdain for the weak.
"Perhaps"? This is utterly basic to my understanding of the world.
Have you ever seen 406,594 Dallas voters from a DC-9 at night?
Are they also in a swing House district?
That's a good question. It depends on whether any of the UTSA campuses are in the western district from San Antonio to El Paso, I would guess. They are working UT and some Houston schools, but my guess is that they're encouraging students to register at their local address, and not in their home district which could be the swing districts to the north of Austin and just east of Houston. So probably not significant overlap with swing districts.
Although given that that republican guy just won in San Antonio for the first time in decades, we might be underestimating which districts might swing in the wrong direction.
Ugh, what happened in San Antonio? I know I could Google but this generates comments
Where I grew up and my parents still are is in the heavily gerrymandered 21st district, which they seem to hold little hope of changing; it's an open seat with a Cruz acolyte running, but the Republican won by 20 points in 2016; 538 rates it "likely R" and predicts a 6-point margin. So maybe a flip in case of a huge wave.
it's an open seat with a Cruz acolyte running
Would you be dungeon master for our game. The current guy doesn't have monsters as good as you create.
No seat is safe if folks don't turn out.
I think he's saying you have to keep knocking doors, heebs.
Yep.
I'm driven nearly round the bend by people measuring the effects of collective action by only the demonstrable effects of their own individual contribution. [a million analogies thought of but not described]
14: The problem - at least for me, operating in a fair amount of isolation - is a lack of information about the scale of the operation. How many people in Texas are doing this? Is it enough? Do we need to double our operation or merely ramp it up by 10%? I hate doing this so goddamn much that I get preoccupied with the details.
(I also hate that an extroverted friend of mine loves to chime in with how much he enjoys blockwalking because of all the great conversations he gets to have and yet never seems to manage to connect the dots that he ought to then do it.)
Maybe if you put it on a spreadsheet?
Offer to go together, so you can enter data into the minivan (or take notes, if they're doing it on paper) leaving his hands free to gesticulate while interacting.
17 is what I do. Sometimes data entry, sometimes just holding the flyers. (Sometimes nothing but providing company.)
We did 50 more doors today with similar results to yesterday. It's moose season, so I suspect a lot of people are out hunting.
The problem - at least for me, operating in a fair amount of isolation - is a lack of information about the scale of the operation. How many people in Texas are doing this? Is it enough? Do we need to double our operation or merely ramp it up by 10%? I hate doing this so goddamn much that I get preoccupied with the details.
Surely there is someone who knows the answers to these questions. Who got you into doing this in the first place?
@Heebie the people you're getting by door knocking are unreachable by other means. Keep going!
Students are easy voter registration prey.
19: I'm in touch with the local Democratic party, but they're mostly blockwalking for Beto and other specific candidates, and I wanted to do this instead, because I have a suspicion that for this neighborhood, it's better if everyone sees your face for something neutral and civic-minded once first before you come back again plugging specific candidates. Also my precinct lacks a precinct chair, so I'm not really coordinating with anyone. The person that is one notch higher than precinct chair is texting me about every 7-10 days, which I very much appreciate because it keeps me from feeling completely untethered.
Also my precinct lacks a precinct chair, so I'm not really coordinating with anyone.
Sounds like they could use someone civic-minded and concerned about organization and coordination in that position.
Yeah, I'm the extrovert in my canvassing duo, with a good clipboard and navigation partner. It is working out, for the couple times we've gone. I haven't done anything nearly as ambitious as heebie's effort.
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Megan, that farming podcast is really very excellent. Thanks.
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Well, her Twitter feed is good. I haven't listened to the podcast myself. Glad you like it.
(Dr. Sarah Taber. Perhaps the podcast is something like 'Farm to Taber', if anyone else is interested.)
Sounds like they could use someone civic-minded and concerned about organization and coordination in that position.
I'll keep an eye out!
(I also hate that an extroverted friend of mine loves to chime in with how much he enjoys blockwalking because of all the great conversations he gets to have and yet never seems to manage to connect the dots that he ought to then do it.)
I spent a little while trying to do this stuff for elections and never stopped thinking "This can't possibly be working". Then much later realized there are some people who actually like doing it.
Let me tell you, whoever was coordinating Pittsburgh volunteers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign was not doing a good job.
I just e-mailed a link to vote.org to all of my students, and told them I'd give extra credit to anyone who could provide evidence (picture of polling place or ballot mailing envelope, "I voted" sticker) that they voted.
8/9: I looked it up.
"Come November, no Democrat can sit on the sidelines and no campaign can take any vote for granted. We need to make sure that every voter understands what's at stake," Hinojosa said.
Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist, said Democrats failed a significant test of their ability to mobilize voters, particularly party leaders in San Antonio, the population center of a far-flung district that was supposed to provide Gallego with enough support to win.
Alternate version with extra bitterness.