X-Tra Rant

I am so, so busy. Work has me in vbscript training the past three days. I’ll try to post about the Iowa caucuses result (not the end of the world by a long shot) and the SOTU address from last night (athletes and steroids are worth mentioning?!?!) tonight or tomorrow if i have a chance.

Wil Wheaton (yes that Wil Wheaton) addresses the supposed retraction by Paul O’Neill of his statements earlier far better than I. I guess that’s why he’s a professional writer and I am a professional software tester. A little taste:

And Wil links to another article that I find very interesting. I guess that other officials coming forward to confirm O’Neill’s recollection of early Bush cabinet meetings must be lying too?

Or the ex White House official that said that Bush’s policies were pushed by rove and that the political arm overrode the policy arm in everything. Of course, after some harsh words from the White House I remember him backing off too. (I’m forgetting who it was. I’ll try to do some searching if I have free time after lunch).

Anyway, I’m just saying that even if O’Neill is ‘backing off’ I’m seeing a pattern. Ex-White House official says something damning about Bush/Rove/Cheney/Whoever. We on the left FINALLY feel a little bit of success in finally seeing into the most secretive, closed and ideology driven administration in ages. The White House makes ad hominem attacks on the ex-official and/or opens investigations into said ex-official. Ex-Official suddenly backs off statements and makes an ambiguous statement about “bad wording” or “taken out of context” without actually retracting everything they said.

Just sayin’.

Since I’ve had a few emails about it, gonna address this real quick. Comments are still down and will be indefinitely until I A) Find time to work on it outside of work and B) Use that time to try and get a security plugin for MT comments working

I’m not doing it to stifle comments on here. I just don’t want to deal with 7500+ spam comments in one short evening again. Who knows if I’m still a target of that incredibly wonderful script kiddie, but I’d rather not find out and have to clean it up.

(In case you’re new here or haven’t been by in awhile, I’m talking about this and this.)

Aren’t moronic little script kiddies just so darn… annoying? I’m sure he thinks he’s a real hacker, just like Angelina Jolie

I’m super excited and can’t wait to see the game, but one thought:

Does anyone else have the sinking feeling that this will be a repeat of the Vikings in the 1998 NFC Championship game? Offense on a roll. Streaky but okay (enough) defense. Kicker who hasn’t missed a kick all year. Then the kicker misses, opponent ties and then wins in OT.

I hope to God and/or Peyton Manning that I’m not right, but I’m an eternal pessimist about the Colts (too many 3 and under win season will do that to you).

Just don’t let me near any sharp objects if Vandy shanks one with the game on the line.

Well here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for I’m sure. The recap of our trip to Iowa.

We (Myself, Kelly and fellow Indianapolis Dean volunteer Andy) left my apartment at 8am Friday morning headed to Burlington, IA (I found out during the weekend that it was named after Burlington, Vermont the original home of the first settlers to the area). It was a 5 hour trip and quite uneventful. We pulled into the Burlington HQ early afternoon and were given our first assignment: Canvassing Burlington’s 11th precinct!

So we head out with a bag full of Dean Times “newspapers” chock full of information and caucus info as well as fliers for Saturday morning’s big event - a visit by former Vice President (and currently elected President, just not allowed to hold office) Al Gore!

Since it was a weekday afternoon not alot of people weren’t home but we identified probably 5 or 6 strong Dean supporters, a few leaning and a number of undecideds. We found out later that those were pretty good numbers. The funniest moment of canvassing that day came when we stopped at a gas station and asked where some fast food was. The lady behind the counter pointed to their freezer and the hot dog rack and said “We got hawtdawgs, saawsages, cheeseburgers and double cheeseburgers right back there”. Yeahhhhhhh.

So anyway we get back to Burlington HQ and start phone canvassing - basically cold calling undecided Dems and Independents. Uncomfortable at first but I got into the swing of it. But they told us “Make sure to mention the Harkin announcement!” We were like what Harkin announcement? We had missed the news in our travels that Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a very influential voice, had endorsed Gov. Dean. It was surprising because many reports had him staying neutral due to pressure from Gephardt and his supporting industrial labor unions. But Harkin had the guts to call it as he sees it and throw his weight behind the Dean campaign. Thanks for joining us, Senator!

So we did some phone banking for awhile and then headed off for dinner with the New Orleans crowd at this great place along the river. They had these wonderful little chicken pieces that were coated in a spicy sauce, kinda like Buffalo sauce but a bit sweeter maybe, and plenty spicy. Afterwards we went with the rest of the volunteers staying in the provided housing to the lodge. It was about 45 minutes west of Burlington near a little town called Lockridge (not Lockwood as I wrote in a quick update from my Blackberry that night). Let me tell you, you know you’re in the boonies when your cell phone is getting one bar of analog reception! But it was a nice place and the 30 or 40 of us there (including groups from New Orleans, St. Louis and a few individuals from places such as Arkansas, California and more) talked for a bit before heading off to our bunks.

The next morning saw us up bright and early and headed back to Burlington for the highlight of the weekend - a speech by Al Gore!! When we got there, they had a special area set up for the Iowa Perfect Storm volunteers. I’m proud to say that the four of us from Indiana (Steve drove separately and stayed in a hotel in Burlington) were in the front row!! It was a packed house and when Gore finally came out he got a standing ovation (as well as shook hands with people all around, including myself, Kelly and Andy!) He gave a wonderful speech and all the talk in 2000 about how he was stiff and not funny is hogwash. He’s very funny and very engaging. He wrapped up his speech with his own take on the “you have the power theme” telling the crowd that we can win back the White House by working together and standing behind Gov. Dean! What an ovation! Afterwards, the three of us each individually got our pictures taken with him (I’ll scan and post pictures once I get them developed).

The most interesting part of that was the elderly woman from Burlington seated next to me. We chatted quite a bit. She’s still undecided (although I could tell she really liked Kucinich). I gave my take on Kucinich (I love what he has to say but it’s too bad the country isn’t ready for that in the general election) and Dean (he’s not your typical politician and he has a way of speaking straight that is far different from most. I love how he likes to say that any politician saying ‘elect me and I’ll solve all your problems’ is lying). By the end, when I helped her with her coat, she said “You better watch it or you’ll have me voting for Dean!” we laughed but I hope I got Dean to at least by #2 next to Kucinich.

Why #2? Well the way the caucus works there is that you go to your gathering place in your precinct and stand in a group for your candidate. If your candidate isn’t viable (<15%) you either have to leave or choose a new candidate. Therefore if we can get supporters of non-viable candidates to choose Dean 2nd, that’s a very good thing. And Kucinich is very non-viable (except for certain parts of Des Moines, Iowa City and maybe Ames too).

The rest of that day was spent in Ottumwa, IA doing more canvassing. This time Andy and I teamed with people from St. Louis and a couple New Orleansers for some large scale canvassing. Ottumwa was tougher than Burlington, with more industrial labor support for Gephardt. But we found a few more Dean supporters and leaners for the campaign to remember. At the same time, Kelly stayed back at Ottumwa HQ and did a bunch of phone canvassing (one and a half precincts!), even convincing one woman who had NEVER been to caucus before to go out and caucus for Dean! Go Kelly!
We came back to Ottumwa HQ, picked up Kelly, dropped off the New Orleans people and went back out a part of a precinct that was, how should I say, on the wrong side of the tracks. It was dark out, it was cold, and it was a little creepy. But it was all fun. Even a few non-existent roads that were listed but nowhere to be found. No one was home for the streets I canvassed though. :\ But then we ate at a great little family cooking type diner called Nester’s there in Ottumwa. GREAT food. all for $5.50 I got mashed potatoes and gravy, two pieces of broasted chicken and some peaches (and these were big helpings). After we ate the *incredibly* nice ladies working there talked to some of us a bit - you know you have alot of work to do when there are people in Iowa who “haven’t heard much about Dean”. They said they kinda liked what they were hearing form us (especially the importance of the small donor instead of the $2000 donor in the Dean campaign) and we gave them some literature. The funny part is we got back to Ottumwa HQ and the guy there said Gephardt had held some sort of announcement there not long ago. So maybe the owners are Gephardt people, but the workers at Nesters still seemed quite undecided and open to Dean.
After another night at the lodge of some great conversation, jokes (and sleeping like a log) we got up and headed back to Burlington. Breakfast with Time from Oakland, CA and goodbyes to the Burlington Staff (James, the ‘firebase captain’ there, called us All Star Volunteers and a few pictures we headed back at about 1 our time. We left a bit early because we all had to be up kinda early the next morning. :\ But it was a great time and I’m considering going back this weekend for the actual caucuses if I can swing it with work (too bad we don’t have MLK Jr. Day off…..).

I feel like I’ve now had a DIRECT effect, no matter how small, ont he campaign. And we got to meet a bunch of great people. What more can you ask for?

Oh yeah, a Dean Victory!

Ouch.

Things are bad when Paul O’Neill starts revealing dirt about W. (The same Paul O’Neill that W was speaking about when he said “…and when he speaks, speaks with authority and conviction and knowledge. I found such a man in Paul O’Neill.”)

Well now it seems Mr. O’Neill thinks that George might be, how can I say it, full of shit. Besides being Treasury Secretary, O’Neill was also on the National Security Council.

I’ll be quoting a lot from this because it’s all just too important. But be sure to go read the whole thing.

Thanks to Blah3 for the heads up on this.

You can get the new book about Bush and Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind right here.

Hey all. We’re back from Iowa. We got back earlier this evening. I’ll post more details tomorrow. But quick summary, we met alot of great people from St. Louis, New Orleans, California and Arkansas. Ran into someone from Evansville, IN and an AFSCME worker from Richmond, IN. Handed out lots of fliers. Convinced a couple Iowans to caucus for Dean and had a great time. Oh yeah, also got to see Al Gore speak in Burlington, shake his hand and even get pictures with him. We’ll get the film developed ASAP and I’ll post scans.

More detail tomorrow.

Oh yeah, Go Colts!

Canvassing and phone banking. We spent slot of today canvassing in Burlington’s 11th precinct today. That was definitely new for me, knocking on strangers’ doors about Dean. Alot of people werent home since it was a weekday afternoon, but almost everyone we did talk to was either undecided but very receptive or politely interested. We met 5 or 6 strong dean supporters which is good. Met one gephardt fan, but she was nice and took our lit. Some people seemed genuinely amazed that so many people from all over would travel so far just to work one weekend in iowa. It’s been a great experience so fat. Then we did some phone banking and calling. Most people didnt answer. Had a few mean people but again found a few more strong in the dean camp. Now we’re at a lodge in the iowa boonies (near lockwood, ia) for the night. More sometime tomorrow!

We’re 45 minutes from iowa. On i-74 near galesburg, il. Uneventful so far. Clear weather but kinda cold, 25 degrees. Hopefully more soon from iowa!

We’re headed to Iowa in about an hour. Kelly and I as well as another one of our Indy Dean brethren are going to be in Burlington, IA doing door to door canvassing to try and get people to go out to their caucus. Should be a fun time. Even better, it’s gonna be in the 20’s-30’s with no snow or rain, so it won’t be so bad weather-wise.

I’ll try to do some updates via my Blackberry as time allows.