Would-be Man of Leisure

I suppose the short version is, I’m just another guy with a blog. One which I update based on no set schedule other than my inability to stifle a reaction to whatever ridiculous injustice seems to have befallen the land.

Yes, this was gin.

The shortest version I can give you?

Well, for a long time my involvement in politics primarily consisted of voting come November. That and suffering the same universal sense of helplessness we all feel every time another one of our elected officials leads the evening news for all the wrong reasons.

But in the summer of 2007, thanks to a somewhat boring job and a somewhat flexible schedule, I finally decided to see how difficult it was to get involved and have an impact. I volunteered alongside people I’d never met to help organize my community for the longshot presidential bid of Sen. Barack Obama.

Slowly but surely, a whole lot of us turned that campaign into not such of a longshot after all.

Like many, I was drawn in less by the candidate than by the collection of individual talents I was lucky enough to work with.  These weren’t paid political operatives, they were wives and mothers, fathers and sons, teachers, doctors, veterans, Democrats and Republicans.  Most of them were new to politics and the vast majority of them were donating time they didn’t have in the hopes of creating a better community for their families and a better America for us all.

I ended up spending the entirety of 2008 out in the field, working five different states nationwide (NV, CA, TX, WV, and NC).  And when it was all over the hardest thing to leave behind wasn’t the campaign itself or the near minimum wage salary you get being a ‘low level staffer.’  It was saying goodbye to everyone I worked with for so many long nights.  Everybody who gave more than they had physically, sometimes financially, in the hopes of electing someone they’ll probably never even meet.

Obviously my experience was limited, and I know that for every Democrat in North Carolina working a dark red county there was a Republican working just as hard in a deep blue county in Colorado, or Iowa, or Florida. And, honestly, as liberal as I am, I couldn’t be happier about that.

We all should get involved if we can. If we won’t stand up for the things we believe in I’m confident somebody else will and my guess is we won’t like the results much.

The most enlightening secret I can tell you from the 2008 campaign is that being involved may end up being some of the hardest work you’ll do, but there isn’t a magic trick to getting involved.  You just go do it.

I first got started by simply showing up day in and day out.  Eventually somebody put me on staff.  That was it, and my case was no where near unique.  It was possible to make a difference, it still is, and it’s this way for everybody.  But only if we want it to be.

In 2010 I continued doing what is arguably the best part of any campaign, going out into the country, talking to actual every day American voters.  I worked for both a non-partisan political startup creating viral video content (much of which I’ve collected here). I then worked the home stretch of the U.S. Senate race in Colorado.

Oddly enough, much like Obama in North Carolina two years earlier, that Senate race turned out to be the closest in the country as well.

As of now I’m out roaming the country. Mostly the in the western states, doing what I do, writing, talking to people, looking for what’s next.

Feel free to say hello if you see me, or better yet, follow me on Twitter and we can live vicariously through a virtual relationship with no strings attached.