Wednesday, August 04, 2004

I guess I've gotten to cynical in my idealism. Still idealistic, but I see much of what I believe to be truth to not become evident in my lifetime. I had inklings of that long ago, and I guess that adolescent wisdom has come back around. I never expected Amendment 2 to be defeated. We just had to do the best we could with a bad situation. The almost giddy expectation that some folks I'm sure were feeling probably paralleled folk's moods around the Wheat Senate campaign in 1994. I don't think there was any doubt in anyone's minds that Ashcroft would win, barring someone discovering pictures of Ashcroft and Jimmy Swaggart making out in the Crystal Cathedral. And yet you want so badly to believe that what you're doing is making a difference in the short term, even in the immediacy of this lifetime. I like to look at how far we've come on GLBT issues, with some backslide, and keep looking to the future, but not get so tied up in the present. The scary piece for me is the defacto condoning of discrimination against those who love members of the same sex. Not just people who have sex with people of the same sex, specifically, people who love members of the same sex. Love doesn't discriminate that way. It never has. It doesn't discriminate in nature. It doesn't discriminate in humans. We love those we love. For the state to say that some loves are more beloved than others is a futile law, a law of little minded people, that defies the laws of nature, that defies the laws of God. Regardless of the outcome of the election, Jeff Smith is an amazing man. I think the thing that almost turned me, and this is the one race that I still waver on, even after having cast my vote for Russ, was seeing the shots of him playing basketball on his flier. He is really, really good. He really plays to win. It makes me less bothered by his shoe lifts, which I see more now as just a move to bring the game a little closer. Next time, I'll work his campaign, whatever he runs for, as if he were running against Satan himself. And he has done, regardless, what he needed to do - either win, or come so close that you make an enduring name for yourself. My earlier sense that he might potentially piss off the establishment was misguided, especially in the context of a crowded field. And he ran a fantastic campaign, an impossible campaign. Results aren't final yet, but if he loses by less than the number of his installed yard signs times 3, just using the cost basis of a yard sign versus a mail piece, I would argue that reallocating those wasted dollars could have brought him the election. Yard signs don't vote. Yard signs don't influence. Volunteers installing yard signs aren't doing voter contact. Everyone who has done the most basic of political training understands this, and yet, election after election, yard signs. Drives me up the wall. Drove me crazy with Phyllis' campaign. AND they distract the campaign staff and leadership. I love the story, I forget what campaign, where staff would go ahead of the candidate to put up yard signs along whatever known route he or she was taking, just to create comfort for the candidate that lots of people had yardsigns up. 12:55:47 AM