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This may be the last time I post until Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Until then, if you want to keep up with what I'll be doing, you can go to www.fairwisconsin.com and click on blog. Since that is my life until after election day, anything on there will relate to everything I'm doing.
Today, after work, I have to speed home and clean the room up a bit. Not because I'm trying to impress anyone, and not because Nick's coming to town, but because I need to free up some room to make t-shirts for my team on Tuesday (more on that later).
After that, back to the office to set everything up for this weekend. Then, tonight, Nick and Mike come to town, and we may end up going to the bar and having a drink or two, if I leave the office before midnight.
Saturday the fun starts. Training, calling, going door-to-door, mischief, mayhem, soap. All day and all night. Then, off to the bar with Nick (again, if I'm out of the office before midnight).
Sunday, wash, rinse, repeat.
Monday, I'm going to work at my actual job, so I may be able to post an update from there. Then, driving back to the office and phoning until 9, wrapping up afterward, and finishing up the stuff for my team.
Tuesday is the big day. Working starts at 7. I have to get to the polls and make sure the machines are functioning. Then, back to the office for some more work. My work most of the day will be organizing my team of volunteers, and making sure they hit up all the houses on their list once per shift. I also have to go to the polls and check the voter turnout. In areas that have a high concentration of people on our side ('No Voters' as they're called, since they're voting No), we have to make sure voter turnout is high. If not, we reassign teams to hit up those doors and make sure the voters get out there.
I'll be making shirts for my team, as well as giving them rewards. For every 10 houses they hit, they get a piece of candy (you know, like halloween candy). If they finish their list, they get a candy bar. The goal is for me to give out a lot of candy bars because we really need to finish all those lists.
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And now for an educational break:
For a mid-term election (for regular elections, too, but especially mid-term [mid-term means the elections between presidential elections]), the goal is to focus on voters that don't normally vote on mid-term elections. With a low voter turn-out, especially when the polls are close, like in our situation, it's anyone's game. So, if you can get the non-mid-term voters out there to vote with your side, you can drastically affect the results. The weather plays a big part, too. Super-conservatives will vote no matter what the weather. Everyone else is a bit more apathetic when it's cold outside, or rainy, or whatever, since they don't want to stand in line in the cold (and some places, the lines end up outside and around the block). The weather for Tuesday is projected to be partly cloudy (ok, not too bad), and 45-ish (super awesome).
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This all wraps up at 8, where we meet back at the staging location and await the results. There'll be a party of some sort, and a TV with the news on.
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I decided it would be awesome to get Jamie a card, and on election day, to get as many volunteers to sign the card as I can manage, while still working (I may do some of this on the days leading up to the election). I was trying to figure out what I wanted the card to say. Then, sitting on top of my TV, I saw this card I had bought a month ago, at an art fair in Wausau, when Jamie and I were doing outreach. It says "May the road rise to meet you, may the wind always be at your back." I was originally going to hang it up in my office to inspire me, but never got around to it. Probably a good thing. Cindy thinks it's a great idea, and that I'm a genius.
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I've been hearing that a lot the past couple of days. The biggest one was for printing out/sorting walk-lists. A walk-list, for those interested, is a list of, in this case, is a list of 'No Voters' that has all their names and addresses. It started off as a 350 page document, in alphabetical order by street name. This then has to be split up into voting wards, teams (each team gets ~120 voters), then evens and odds (one person does even, the other does odd). We have 4 walk-lists for this weekend (one for the whole weekend, and 3 for Tuesday [one for each shift]). We printed out one, and were waiting for Cindy to show up and make copies of it, then we'd sort the 4 copies (I'm sure you can see where this is going). Well, some volunteers showed up and needed something to do. Here, sort this walk-list. Well, what are we going to give Cindy to copy when she shows up? Ok, I'll print another list for her. Well, they finish sorting (as well as highlighting maps, and stapling) and need something else to do. Here, sort this second one. They start sorting. Cindy shows up. Genius strikes. Why don't we just sort this, then copy it, then when we make copies, we don't have to sort the other two, because they'll already be sorted!
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People keep asking me what I'm going to do after the election. I have no idea, really. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and haven't figured anything out. The best I can say is maybe rent and watch some movies (I have to catch up), probably read a few books, and maybe write some letters to people (like actual letters, not email).