Politics is all about the ground game, especially at the state and local levels. It's all about getting out, meeting your voters and mobilizing supporters to do the same. Many of the technological advances are only useful insofar as they can recruit and inspire supporters and volunteers to walk, phone bank and talk to their friends and neighbors.
I spent most of the last three days helping the attempt to get Suzette LaGrange on the ballot for the Las Vegas City Council special election. Suzette is a friend of mine and a conservative who would have been a great addition to the Council, which currently contains just one Republican, Stavros Anthony. This is one more Republican than the Clark County Commission has, however.
Participating in the political ground game can be an illuminating and, um, interesting experience. To say the least.
Who is John Galt? The mysterious John Galt is central to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. While I didn't run into him I did happen to discover a similarly-named person registered to vote at a nonexistent address.
In fact, I discovered a few voters registered at nonexistent addresses. There were also several homes that had clearly been abandoned or were vacant, having been taken over by lenders but where voters were registered.
This doesn't necessarily mean anything untoward is going on. There could be perfectly legitimate reasons - typos, data entry errors, etc. - but it wouldn't be impossibly difficult for unethical people wishing to sway a close election to take advantage of this.
An encounter with the tolerant left. One of the people I spoke with was a committed member of the loony left. And I say that with all due respect.
He started off with a reference to the incumbent, not the candidate I was helping, the only part of which I can print here is "scumbag."
He then explained how he called Republicans "righttards" and "teatards," with additional adjectives added for emphasis, and proceeded to tell me we needed to "put people before profits," that we "don't need profits." When I mentioned that profits drove people to produce the products and technology that improved the quality and length of life, including the iPhone he was holding, he insisted that would have all happened anyway, employing a plethora of F-bombs to help illuminate his points.
This "compassionate" leftist was one of the most vulgar, vicious and hateful people I've ever met. Apparently the message about the need for civility in politics escaped him. Or, more likely, he believes in it only as a means to shut his opponents up.
There's nothing wrong with discussing issues with people whose views are opposed to yours. But it's not normally a good idea to engage people who are so vehemently opposed to your candidate or cause - you're not going to change their minds and you can waste precious time that could be spent reaching out to those who might help or support you. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to get into a confrontation. So at the very first opportunity I continued on my way, leaving him to simmer in the stew of his own venom.
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