Barn in the USA

Last night we attended the 'Get Out The Vote Rally' in a barn in Riverview. This was a really special occasion, with local candidates in attendance. There are lots of local elections being run in parallel with the Presidential election, and all the races are on the same ballot paper (more on this in a future blog entry). Each stood up and spoke in turn, delivering passionate speeches about why they're running for office. There was loads of food and drink for free, and campaign merchandise (t-shirts, yard signs, etc) on sale. It was a real community affair, and everyone was very friendly. We ought to hold more events like this in Britain.

The picture above shows Rav and myself with Susan Smith, our host, who's been a great help in organising every aspect of our trip from recommending hotels, airlines and car hire companies, to giving us information on the where we need to go and what we need to do. Behind us (and much taller than us!) is fellow British Labour party member, Harry, who's also out here to help with the campaign.

Today we went out canvassing again. Leaving aside the issue of whether I'm a bad map reader or the American road system is difficult to understand (I think the answer's both), we had another good day. It wasn't so hot but there were still loads of lizards around, and they scuttle across the paths as you walk along. Enough travelogue, back to politics: there are lots of Obama-Biden signs out, and quite a few McCain-Palin signs too. We've met some people who are voting for McCain, but not many. Generally, those that are breaking for McCain are very polite. One said to me today (in response to the question, 'Will you be supporting Senator Obama?'): 'I'm the diametric opposite of Senator Obama, but I appreciate what you're doing, and thank you.' At the other end of the scale was a couple I spoke to, who quoted some wild attacks on Obama they'd pick up from who-knows-where - according to them, he's a secret Muslim (as if - besides the fact that Obama is a practising Christian - being a Muslim would mean he couldn't be a good President), and he's also the fulfilment of a Nostradamus prophecy. We bid them good day and continued on our way.

On the same estate where the gentleman I mentioned above was so polite, we saw the car pictured above, plastered with McCain-Palin stickers and innovatively featuring the Republicans' attack lines on the rear windscreen. (I have pixellated the vehicle's license plate to protect the owner's identity.) As we were coming to the end of our work on the estate, one resident of the estate stopped his vehicle to ask what we were doing. When we told him, he said there was a 'no soliciting' sign at the gate, and we shouldn't be there. He then aggressively told us to leave and threatened to call the police. (Those weren't the exact words he used - they aren't suitable for publication on this blog!) We acted in accordance with his wishes and left the estate, as we still had work to do elsewhere. Subsequently, though, we've found that 'soliciting' means random calls - like door-to-door sales - and does not cover targeted approaches to registered supporters, which is what we were undertaking. So like the Terminator - we'll be back.

So, that's today in summary. We'll be out early tomorrow - not sure what we're doing yet, but we're due at Doug and Roz's for 9am. Later in the day there's a rally in New Port Richey (north of here) to promote early voting. Senator Joe Biden, Barack Obama's running-mate and hopefully the next Vice President of the United States, will be speaking, as will local community organisers. We're planning to go along - for both of us, it'll be our first time at a large scale political rally in the US, so we're rather excited. We'll post our observations tomorrow when we get back from the rally.