This last Saturday I volunteered for an event sponsored by MoveOn.org and AmericaVotes.org. I was one of 600 volunteers who canvassed door-to-door in Portland helping people register to vote.

The highlight of the day for me was getting to see and hear one of my favorite authors/activists, former California gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington. She gave a rousing speech about getting out the vote, and how Kerry’s best chance in November is not to play the “swing vote” strategy, trying to get the votes of the 2%-3% of people who haven’t made up their minds, but rather to play to the 50% of eligible voters who don’t bother to vote anymore.

I agree.

It was an interesting day. I’ve never been on that side of the door. I knocked on 67 doors in the span of 90 minutes. I didn’t sign up one new voter. I was disappointed in that, but my wife Iva got two new voters. Most the people I met were already registered, so I guess that’s a good thing. But I was alarmed at those I met who hadn’t registered and didn’t care. In almost every case, they were the people that most needed to vote: the young, poor, and disabled. Hmm, I wonder why that segment of the population always gets screwed by the politicians?

Arianna’s best line? “I’m Greek. We gave you democracy… and you’ve screwed it all up!”

    ____________________________________________________________________

   |                                                                    

_  | "RADICAL" RUSS BELVILLE | Read More at http://radicalruss.net/blog/  

  | Portland, Oregon U.S.A. | Permission is granted for reprint of this      

  | © 2004 by Russ Belville | post, as long as this footer is included.