Wrapped Up In Books

As anticipated yesterday, I had no way of getting over to Brandon. Fortunately, John, an Obama campaign staffer working on data processing - who moved into Susan’s house ‘for a few days’ in June and has been there ever since! – was able to give me a lift to ‘Jimmie’.

Seeing as the Jimmie B Keel Public Library is not just a polling place but a public library (the clue’s in the name), lots of people walking towards the building are not there to vote but to return books or DVDs – this makes them quite easy to spot. However, ‘Mrs McCain’ (pictured above) doesn’t discriminate. Everyone who passes - even wearing an Obama T-shirt and walking away from the polls - is greeted with ‘Thank you for your vote for John McCain’. One of my favourite moments along these lines occurred this morning, when she approached a gentleman who was walking away from the library, carrying a book, and asked: ‘Would you like some literature?’ In response to this, he pointed to his book and said: ‘Already got some.’

We were a bit short at the polling station this morning as a few volunteers hadn’t turned up and others had been diverted to the Chris Rock event at Citrus Park. However, when a few more people arrived, Susan gave me a lift down the road to the Obama campaign office and I was teamed up with a young lady called Dana. She and her (ex-military) husband run an IT training business.

The round we were given was some way out of town and turned out to be more spread out than any I’ve done so far. We ended up effectively driving from house to house! This was also an area of contrasts, with estates consisting pretty much of mud roads and mobile homes just a street or two away from gated communities of huge mansions.

Many of these estates have drainage ponds – a necessity because the land is so flat and they need somewhere for rainwater to go. The downside of this is that in the hot weather, they dry up, leaving little pools of stagnant water – a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Annoyingly, I’ve picked up a few bites. Another thing I’ve noticed is that everyone here seems to have a dog – so far, no really aggressive ones though.

Just as we finished our round of canvassing (after which Dana was due to go ‘off duty’), Harry rang to ask where I was. We returned our canvass sheets to the office, where I met Harry and we went out to do some more canvassing. It's starting to get dark earlier and earlier, and we went off duty at about 17.30.

This was the last day of early voting. We’re hearing that 3 million people have voted early, and that of those more are Democrats than Republicans. Which is promising but doesn’t ‘seal the deal’ – three more days of hard work to go.