Leah's Blog

But holy shit, we just WON THE WORLD SERIES and I think if the team that hasn't won since 1918 can vanquish the Cardinals in 4 swift games, the least Kerry can do is take New Hampshire.

WE. JUST. WON. THE. WORLD. SERIES.

there are powerful inferences to be drawn here--when the world's most epic struggle of free will against the tyranny of oppresion, bad luck and Babe Ruth has been won, you can't help but wax philosophical about the implications for the world's 2nd most epic struggle that will play itself out in just 5 short days. You begin to feel, undeniably, that the fate of John F. Kerry and the fate of the Boston Red Sox are inextricably linked. There is a deeply profound metaphor in here somewhere. But it's 2am in the morning, I've had too much whiskey, and I've waited too long for the sweet, sweet satisfaction of this moment. I'm going to bed.

GO RED SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pennsylvania’s voter registration closed this past Monday, October 4—but not before a record number of DV volunteers poured into Philly from all over the Northeast to register new voters. By the end of the weekend, 125 volunteers from Boston, New York, New Jersey, Philly and Baltimore had hit the streets to canvas in Philly and its surrounding swing suburbs, registering...832 voters! Kirby, our Philly captain, outdid herself by training all these volunteers –72 volunteers in one sitting!

We met up at the ACORN office Sunday evening to turn in our last forms, get a final count, and talk with Wes, ACORN’s PA director for Project Vote. It was a year ago this weekend that Wes started ACORN's voter registration campaign for PA—a campaign that has since registered 130,000 new PA voters (overwhelmingly Democratic) by the time the deadline closed on October 4. Take a moment, if you will, and consider this number: one hundred thirty thousand. Roughly 2 million PA Democrats voted for Gore in 2000. ACORN’s efforts alone could give the Dems a 15% boost this year.

If they all vote.

Yes, said Wes, he was thrilled that so many new voter registration forms had poured into the office before the deadline. Yes, the numbers of new voters have exceeded everyone’s expectations—but voter registration forms aren’t ballots against Bush. To ensure victory on Election Day, Wes stressed, we have to make sure that every registered voter gets to the polls and votes. And that is going to be a hell of a lot of work. In swing states like Ohio and Florida, Democratic groups like Driving Votes have out-registered the Republicans 10 to 1. In PA, Board of Elections offices were overwhelmed on the deadline with new registrations. If we can get all these voters to turn out on election day, we’ll win—it’s just that simple. And we won’t just get victory--we’ll send Bush out with a message his administration can’t deny, bury, spin, or hide: AMERICA WANTS CHANGE.

That’s what GOTV work is all about—and it’s the most critical phase of our campaign so far. From now until Election Day, DV will be in Philly, New Hampshire and West Virginia every weekend, having face-to-face contact with voters and ensuring that on November 2nd, they get to the polls and vote for change in unprecedented numbers.

Go forth, DV Northeast!

Our Boston/Providence crew prepares to head for home after turning in our 832 forms to ACORN

Amy of Boston poses with Kirby, Driving Votes’ Philly Captain Extraordinaire.

In July, Dave challenged us to register 1776 Philly voters. This weekend we cleared 2000. By a lot.

Joe from ACT prepares a crew to do a persuasion canvas in Horsham, a key swing suburb in Montgomery county.

Leah receives a message from God, via the Philadelphia Weekly.

Kansas registers a voter at the Dunkin Donuts across the street from ACORN

When a simple “Kerry/Edwards” sign is not enough.

Yarrow counts our 832 completed forms in the ACORN office at the end of Sunday.

We were even at the Vote for Change Concert this weekend. Here Dean ponders America under a Springsteen adminstration.

We’re not sure how they got Driving Votes Director Leighton Woodhouse’s car to the Vote for Change concert. But they did.

I love my car. She is a bright red volvo wagon, a scarlet Swedish brick, as trusty, dependable and comely as a big-boned barmaid. A ruby rectangular silhouette, a reinforced steel framed battle-axe, a broad-hipped reassuring matron that seems to say "why ever clean out your car when my trunk is so big?"

and now she is gone.

Pulling into Boston this weekend from a trip to Maine, she suddenly began shuddering, sputtering, and losing power. Not in the way she usually shudders, sputters and loses power. In a different way. In a way that made me know she would not make it home, and pray she could make it to my mechanic Jim at the Gulf Station around the block from my apartment. In the lot at the Gulf Station, I popped her beautiful, broad crimson hood and beheld a gruesome scene--oil sprayed all over the underside of the hood, dripping from the engine block, hissing from valves, pooling on the pavement. This being Sunday, the station was closed--so I left her parked there and slipped the key through the mail slot in the shop door as I do every few weeks when some obscure and expensive Swedish part of her breaks. No need to leave a note; Jim would call me in the morning.

I didn't hear from Jim until almost noon the next day. "I put off calling you for 3 hours," he began. My heart sank. "It's not good news." Apparently, she had leaks everywhere she had seals or valves, and they could be fixed, but the real problem was the engine--it was building up too much pressure, and would just bust the seals as fast as they could be fixed. "Age," was what Jim said. A new engine was also what Jim said. A repair that would cost more than what the car was worth.

So that sealed it. I was in a daze, muttering to Jim about how I'd walk down later that day and take her off the lot, when he asked "hey can I take one of those packets in your back seat?" What packets, I asked..."Those drive against Bush packets"--and herein lies the advantage of never ever cleaning out my car, that I had a stack of 30 Driving Votes press packets that had been there since a DNC press conference--"I got roped into my town's Democratic committee, and they wanna take a trip to New Hampshire. Last night I was up until 3 in the morning thinking about how that guy is running our country into the ground. Can we work with you guys?"

And so my car knew exactly what she was doing. With her last dying gasps, she made a desperate bid to ensure that her life would not be in vain, and the work of DV members she could no longer drive to swing states would continue unchecked through the work of one man who knew her far better than I ever could.

My mechanic is against you, George W. Bush. You have no chance. Because he can fix anything, and he's gonna fix your ass.