Tonight was a great night for the McCain campaign because tonight sealed the deal that John McCain will be the next Republican nominee for President. Tonight is about miracles, because that is the only word that can describe John McCain's comeback from oblivion 6 months ago. I too was worried about McCain in the Summer and was not happy to see a man I so deeply respected become relegated to the back of the line. Well, no more! He is now the Republican standard bearer.
Yes, there was a Tsunami Tuesday and Romney was the one swept out to sea. After spending so many of his own millions to falsely portray himself as the heir to the Reagan revolution, though as Gov. Huckabee noted, the man only reached Conservative puberty at 60, all Romney had to show for tonight were a handful of delegates and states that he once lived in. Romney will now have to dig very deep into his pockets to challenge McCain. What a futile effort when the time now is to come together. I have to say that I doubt very much that Romney is man enough to do just that.
The real losers, besides Romney, are the ultra-conservative talk-radio blow-hards Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and the rest of them. Their power and influence has been shown to be quite puny and they as mere paper tigers. It turns out that their audiences listen to them not for inspiration or instruction, but for entertainment...man, that's gotta hurt. For the first time in almost ten years, I'm going to listen to Rush tomorrow to see if he pops a valve--I wanna be there when he does. Maybe I'll call in and rub McCain's victories like salt into the wound to help things along.
If someone other than McCain was a winner tonight, it has to be Gov. Huckabee. He swept the Southern states. His campaign has been, and he promises it will remain, positive. He is a testament that people can live by the faith and the Word and still be successful. While I admire Huckabee, I do not believe he is the best person for the job--my guy is--but he is a man of honor and an example to future politicians.
I wish I could have been either in DC or AZ to see the returns along with those whom I was proud to work with. For almost a month, I got to work with great people for a cause that can only be termed inspiring. And I only worked as a volunteer for a month while those like Christian, Bo, Mike, Davis, Grissom and others worked like crazed beings for months. Some even became quite unpopular at home because of all of their time on the road. But the hard work paid-off!
What an amazing and...well, life-changing experience my time with the McCain campaign has been. When this is all over, and it will end in November 2008 with McCain's election to the White House, I will miss so very much the campaign and working for victory for a great leader. Anyone reading this, before it's too late, go work for a campaign, for something bigger than yourself and your immediate needs. It will change you. I promise.
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Florida--We Won!
It's 1:37 AM here in West Palm Beach and I just returned from the Miami Victory party--boy, was that fun and...not sure what word to use--I'm really tired--so I'm going to simply write, fulfilling.
Many conservatives had speculated that McCain would loose in Florida because the primary here is a closed one, denying him his traditional allies', the Reagan Dems and Independents, votes that have carried him strong in New Hampshire and South Carolina. But the victory tonight in Florida was complete. Romney did not have any clear victories in Florida that his camp can point to for hope in defeating John McCain in future primaries. And in running so far right, under the guise of the inheritor of the Reagan mantel, Romney denied himself California and New York--a collassal screw-up. Surprisingly, in Florida, McCain won, or very nearly won, the right-to-life vote and the good 'ol boy vote, along the I-4 corridor. And in Orange County, Romney needed to trounce McCain but instead only won by a couple of hundred votes. Naturally, McCain carried by extremely wide margins the more moderate Republican areas. Miami-Dade, for example, was so lopsided as to be meaningless for Romney.
In all likelihood now, John McCain will be the Republican nominee for President and will very likely be inaugurated on January 20th, 2009 as our 44th President.
I'm glad I could be a part of this before the New Hampshire victory to the Florida pounce. I stood by my guy, good or bad, and along with all of the other volunteers and the few staffers we won and won big.
For me, Florida was personal as I believed that it would be important in such a close race--that's what all of us in the campaign thought it would be--that those from Orlando through to Brevard County, which is the Space Coast, know that John McCain was a friend of space exploration. And you know, maybe it only added a few hundred votes. But now the issue is there in our campaign and my work is done for the time-being.
I am so very much more tired than I have ever been before. This campaign has drained me in a way that nothing before ever has. I am really looking forward to some down-time. Christian, Bo, Mark, and Buzz, just to name a few, will only have a couple of days before they head out for the big wins to come in California, New Jersey, and New York. Where things go from here is anyone's guess. But for now, I have things to do and a wife to relieve of the duties she's had to bear alone.
Night all, from the great state of Florida, newly made "McCain Country".
Many conservatives had speculated that McCain would loose in Florida because the primary here is a closed one, denying him his traditional allies', the Reagan Dems and Independents, votes that have carried him strong in New Hampshire and South Carolina. But the victory tonight in Florida was complete. Romney did not have any clear victories in Florida that his camp can point to for hope in defeating John McCain in future primaries. And in running so far right, under the guise of the inheritor of the Reagan mantel, Romney denied himself California and New York--a collassal screw-up. Surprisingly, in Florida, McCain won, or very nearly won, the right-to-life vote and the good 'ol boy vote, along the I-4 corridor. And in Orange County, Romney needed to trounce McCain but instead only won by a couple of hundred votes. Naturally, McCain carried by extremely wide margins the more moderate Republican areas. Miami-Dade, for example, was so lopsided as to be meaningless for Romney.
In all likelihood now, John McCain will be the Republican nominee for President and will very likely be inaugurated on January 20th, 2009 as our 44th President.
I'm glad I could be a part of this before the New Hampshire victory to the Florida pounce. I stood by my guy, good or bad, and along with all of the other volunteers and the few staffers we won and won big.
For me, Florida was personal as I believed that it would be important in such a close race--that's what all of us in the campaign thought it would be--that those from Orlando through to Brevard County, which is the Space Coast, know that John McCain was a friend of space exploration. And you know, maybe it only added a few hundred votes. But now the issue is there in our campaign and my work is done for the time-being.
I am so very much more tired than I have ever been before. This campaign has drained me in a way that nothing before ever has. I am really looking forward to some down-time. Christian, Bo, Mark, and Buzz, just to name a few, will only have a couple of days before they head out for the big wins to come in California, New Jersey, and New York. Where things go from here is anyone's guess. But for now, I have things to do and a wife to relieve of the duties she's had to bear alone.
Night all, from the great state of Florida, newly made "McCain Country".
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Florida
I've been working for the past 4 days with Warren Hendriks and Ellen Cahill in the surrogate office. It's been an interesting change from the War Room. The WR was a constant bang-bang-bang environment with a let-up only when you went home. The surrogate office is much more like a real job...mostly boring but interrupted by moments of sheer panic.
On Tuesday (1/22) we had a big surrogate, someone who was supposed to represent the campaign at an AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) event, "Divided We Fail" that was to be held in Tampa. Well, our surrogate, let's call him Boy'O, he decided with less than 24 hours to go, that he simply could not make it, so sorry and all of that. I had just called his assistant to confirm Boy'O's flight info so that one of our drivers could meet him when arrived and his secretary, with sunshine full in her voice, said he wasn't coming...ummm...hold on for Warren.
But these old bulls, such as Warren and Stan, they are magicians and before long Boy'O was back on, though at another event. In the meantime, we had to scramble to get someone to the AARP event and make sure that their travel arrangements were squared up.
On Tuesday (1/22) we had a big surrogate, someone who was supposed to represent the campaign at an AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) event, "Divided We Fail" that was to be held in Tampa. Well, our surrogate, let's call him Boy'O, he decided with less than 24 hours to go, that he simply could not make it, so sorry and all of that. I had just called his assistant to confirm Boy'O's flight info so that one of our drivers could meet him when arrived and his secretary, with sunshine full in her voice, said he wasn't coming...ummm...hold on for Warren.
But these old bulls, such as Warren and Stan, they are magicians and before long Boy'O was back on, though at another event. In the meantime, we had to scramble to get someone to the AARP event and make sure that their travel arrangements were squared up.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Starting A New Chapter In DC
The day after victory day, I was at the New Hampshire HQ cleaning up and helping to put things away when Bill Bloomfield, national head of volunteers for the McCain campaign, called Mary to ask if she had 4 volunteers she could recommend, the only requirement being that they have a heartbeat and maybe, but not necessarily, a brain wave. I qualified!
Bill was looking for people ASAP to work in the War Room. Honestly, how could I not jump at that? I mean, working on the New Hampshire campaign was like being introduced to the coolest drug in the world and then, on Wednesday, being asked to work where the stuff is made. I just had to do it.
I told Bill that, after spending some time with my wife, I would fly up to DC from Austin on Monday, the 14th. However, since Austin is still, in many respects, a small town, I couldn't get an early-AM flight that would get me into DC before 11 AM, which is for a campaign that promises 18-hour days, a bit late. So I chose to come up Sunday night and start early on Monday. So, here I am, at the Hyatt in Crystal City. Great hotel, btw.
But I'm not sure how much Bill and the War Room crew will take to me. For starters, Bill was less than enthusiastic when I mentioned that I would like to be able to go back home on weekends so that I could spend a bit of time with my wife. No, that definitely did not illicit a positive response. So I'm pretty sure my tenure in the War Room will be a bit less than lengthy, even though I'm more than willing to work the 18-hour day for 5-days. Mei and I have talked about me working 2 weeks and then taking a weekend off. But my feeling is that, since all the WR does is scour the web and TV for news, I can do my job either here at the headquarters or on the road. All I need is a new Eye-TV and Internet and I'm good to go.
Bill was looking for people ASAP to work in the War Room. Honestly, how could I not jump at that? I mean, working on the New Hampshire campaign was like being introduced to the coolest drug in the world and then, on Wednesday, being asked to work where the stuff is made. I just had to do it.
I told Bill that, after spending some time with my wife, I would fly up to DC from Austin on Monday, the 14th. However, since Austin is still, in many respects, a small town, I couldn't get an early-AM flight that would get me into DC before 11 AM, which is for a campaign that promises 18-hour days, a bit late. So I chose to come up Sunday night and start early on Monday. So, here I am, at the Hyatt in Crystal City. Great hotel, btw.
But I'm not sure how much Bill and the War Room crew will take to me. For starters, Bill was less than enthusiastic when I mentioned that I would like to be able to go back home on weekends so that I could spend a bit of time with my wife. No, that definitely did not illicit a positive response. So I'm pretty sure my tenure in the War Room will be a bit less than lengthy, even though I'm more than willing to work the 18-hour day for 5-days. Mei and I have talked about me working 2 weeks and then taking a weekend off. But my feeling is that, since all the WR does is scour the web and TV for news, I can do my job either here at the headquarters or on the road. All I need is a new Eye-TV and Internet and I'm good to go.
Victory Day
As most of you know, Tuesday, January 8th, was a big day for Senator McCain. His victory over Gov. Mitt Romney was resounding with a 6% spread. For all of us at the headquarters, it was a time to celebrate and we did that down in Nashua.
I took a lot of pictures of the celebration and would have posted them except...well, I lost my camera. I'm really disappointed about loosing my Canon PowerShot 900 since there was a picture of my that Rebecca took that shows me actually working, on top of a recording I did of the Senator's victory speech.
On victory night, I ended up being interviewed by an AP reporter and camera-woman. Later that night, a crew from a local DC channel interviewed me, Ian, and another volunteer about McCain's victory and what it meant both for the campaign and for us. All of this was very fun.
However, after 4 days, I was exhausted. I'm not used to working a 16-hour day and, after hearing the Senator's victory speech, I drove back to my hotel room in Manchester and crashed.
I took a lot of pictures of the celebration and would have posted them except...well, I lost my camera. I'm really disappointed about loosing my Canon PowerShot 900 since there was a picture of my that Rebecca took that shows me actually working, on top of a recording I did of the Senator's victory speech.
On victory night, I ended up being interviewed by an AP reporter and camera-woman. Later that night, a crew from a local DC channel interviewed me, Ian, and another volunteer about McCain's victory and what it meant both for the campaign and for us. All of this was very fun.
However, after 4 days, I was exhausted. I'm not used to working a 16-hour day and, after hearing the Senator's victory speech, I drove back to my hotel room in Manchester and crashed.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Day Four
I thought yesterday was a long day, but today made that one look short. Yesterday, the stack of caller info was a couple of inches thick--today we did twice that for each of us. And the folks in back who love to analyze this stuff are wanting more tomorrow. Like Bo said, data is like heroin, the more you get, the more you want.
I'm too tired to write more. On my way back to hotel to sleep. Have to be up at 6 AM to meet at 7:30 AM with data guys. Today's photos have been uploaded.
Night all!
I'm too tired to write more. On my way back to hotel to sleep. Have to be up at 6 AM to meet at 7:30 AM with data guys. Today's photos have been uploaded.
Night all!
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Day Three
Today was a long one at 14 hours but now is over at 2:25 AM.
I was up until 6 AM trouble-shooting a video broadcast issue that was not resolved. Seems the issues that QuickTime Player had before the 7.3.1 still persist making it impossible to check the feed for quality, so I had to give up.
Because I set my iPhone's alarm clock to the wrong day--I thought today would be Friday, not Saturday, I woke up at 11 AM and didn't get in until 12:30 PM. Once I got in, it seemed that the order for the day was data entry. Why is that so important?
When Senator McCain's campaign re-aligned last Summer, one of the things it did was cut costs dramatically. That meant that allot of the work is done by people. Unlike Romney's campaign, every single voter who is called has a human voice from the McCain campaign on the other end. Others use machines to filter out their calls, but we do it by hand. Literally.
Each volunteer caller, some of whom have been Representative Christopher Shays, among other members of Congress, fills out a call sheet indicating whether the call went through, the person answering is or is not a McCain supporter, and whether that household needs a ride to the polls, wants a sign, etc. Once that info is written down by the caller, we take that info and put into the campaign's database. By hand.
I typed in about 2,000 names today.
Slow work. Yup, very slow.
But necessary since this is the one of the important ways that the campaign tracks how voters are thinking about Senator McCain and getting those who need help to the polls so that they can exercise their right and cast a vote. Granite State residents take this right very seriously and I think it's great that all of the campaigns here are trying their best make sure voters have zero hinderance in exercising that right.
Later in the day, I designed the Press Credential badges. As far as New Hampshire is concerned, that's probably the last design work I'll do since the primary is on Tuesday, January 8th.
Well, that's it for me--I'm tired and a bit delirious. Night all.
I was up until 6 AM trouble-shooting a video broadcast issue that was not resolved. Seems the issues that QuickTime Player had before the 7.3.1 still persist making it impossible to check the feed for quality, so I had to give up.
Because I set my iPhone's alarm clock to the wrong day--I thought today would be Friday, not Saturday, I woke up at 11 AM and didn't get in until 12:30 PM. Once I got in, it seemed that the order for the day was data entry. Why is that so important?
When Senator McCain's campaign re-aligned last Summer, one of the things it did was cut costs dramatically. That meant that allot of the work is done by people. Unlike Romney's campaign, every single voter who is called has a human voice from the McCain campaign on the other end. Others use machines to filter out their calls, but we do it by hand. Literally.
Each volunteer caller, some of whom have been Representative Christopher Shays, among other members of Congress, fills out a call sheet indicating whether the call went through, the person answering is or is not a McCain supporter, and whether that household needs a ride to the polls, wants a sign, etc. Once that info is written down by the caller, we take that info and put into the campaign's database. By hand.
I typed in about 2,000 names today.
Slow work. Yup, very slow.
But necessary since this is the one of the important ways that the campaign tracks how voters are thinking about Senator McCain and getting those who need help to the polls so that they can exercise their right and cast a vote. Granite State residents take this right very seriously and I think it's great that all of the campaigns here are trying their best make sure voters have zero hinderance in exercising that right.
Later in the day, I designed the Press Credential badges. As far as New Hampshire is concerned, that's probably the last design work I'll do since the primary is on Tuesday, January 8th.
Well, that's it for me--I'm tired and a bit delirious. Night all.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Day Two
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was asked to design the credentials for those lucky enough to travel with Senator McCain on his "Mac is Back" tour through New Hampshire. And I also wrote that I chose to use Apple's Pages i-App instead of InDesign, Quark Express, or any other high-end graphics and page-layout application.
Choosing Pages proved to be a really good decision because, as it turned out, almost 200 people will be on the "Mac is Back" tour. Had I used those "better" apps, I am not sure how I would have embedded all the names, though I'm sure there is a way. But Pages supports linking text implementing that is real easy. So, embedding names onto each card was reduced to copying the whole names text list and pasting on the first text field on the first badge and watching as all of the info cascaded into all of the other badges. Wow! That was easy.
Still, as easy as getting the attendee info onto the cards, something I thought would take the most time, it was the several designs and redesigns of the badges that ended up taking up all of my second day of volunteer work.
Tomorrow, I am going to try to finish the Quicktime Streaming video feed so that everyone can see a live video feed of the McCain New Hampshire HQ and the constant effort that goes into reaching out to voters.
But now, it's time for sleep...
Choosing Pages proved to be a really good decision because, as it turned out, almost 200 people will be on the "Mac is Back" tour. Had I used those "better" apps, I am not sure how I would have embedded all the names, though I'm sure there is a way. But Pages supports linking text implementing that is real easy. So, embedding names onto each card was reduced to copying the whole names text list and pasting on the first text field on the first badge and watching as all of the info cascaded into all of the other badges. Wow! That was easy.
Still, as easy as getting the attendee info onto the cards, something I thought would take the most time, it was the several designs and redesigns of the badges that ended up taking up all of my second day of volunteer work.
Tomorrow, I am going to try to finish the Quicktime Streaming video feed so that everyone can see a live video feed of the McCain New Hampshire HQ and the constant effort that goes into reaching out to voters.
But now, it's time for sleep...
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