Ride Board: Cal Bears Beat Bush Round III - Archived Entry

I remember a month ago I laughed at the idea of going to Reno on a one-day trip, leaving at 5AM and returning 11PM. But this last time, three courageous passengers and I decided to venture out in the AM. I woke up at 3, left at 3:30 to get Vivianne from Hayward (I later learned that my roommate came HOME right after I had left, how sad is that?), came up to Piedmont, picked up two awesome high school girls, Paula and Julia, who came on Cal Bears Beat Bush Round II and are stoked to get others to vote because they can’t yet. We were on the I-80 East by 5.

We pulled into Reno at 8:30 and met up with the others who had the luck of leaving Friday night and staying at a hotel that I heard served them great breakfast. Grrr…

HOWEVER – once I got in my precinct I did not care at all. I was completely overwhelmed by the people I talked to this time around. Last time in Reno, I got excited because someone offered me her raincoat when it started raining; this time I got excited because *everyone* I talked to said they were going to either 1) vote early or 2) vote absentee now. I realized that if Reno was so enthusiastic to elect Kerry, Las Vegas must be uber-enthusiastic. And if both Reno and Las Vegas are in on Kerry… hell yeah Nevada is going Blue! The rudest response I got the entire day was a woman saying “I just got out of the shower! I’m voting Monday morning – go Kerry… now don’t come back!”

All the volunteers that canvassed in Reno before – I thank you so much for doing what you did. ACT’s walk sheets this time around were terrific – only one person had moved and all the information was correct – no non-addresses and no accidental Bush-supporters. The walk sheets were great because on the past few trips we filtered out all the wrong houses to make sure no time would be wasted during GOTV. I’m glad to say all that time we put in during the past few months paid off on Saturday.

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Meera Garud, Berkeley, CA

See Meera's Driving Votes' blog here: http://www.drivingvotes.org/blogs/meera/