Wisconsin volunteering!!! (1 of 2): The highpoints.

So on Saturday I went up to Kenosha to volunteer for a Wisconsin Dem who the GOP was able to file recall papers on. Highpoints:

1) The best campaign office food ever – it was like a church social with everybody brining something! In the morning, there was a plate of beautifully sliced home-made loaves of banana and blueberry bread laid out on plates next to the shitty coffeemaker-made coffee, and for lunch there was a coldcuts tray and huge bowls of homemade pasta salad (one bowl of which had halved cherry tomatoes in it). After my second shift at 5pm I was about to head back towards the commuter rail station to kill some time, and the County Treasurer showed up with a crockpot of pulled pork for sandwiches, and a big bowl of cole slaw.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come volunteer tomorrow?”, she was like. “I’m making lasagna for dinner!”

2) The most interesting people were volunteering – tons of locals, tons of residents from across the state, and local and county officials. The state Dems even sent down a guy responsible for organizing north Milwaukee to help things out for the weekend.

For the morning shift, I did some turf far out, so I caught a ride with a (white) (late 40s) (female) volunteer. A big storm front began to move through right as I was finishing up my shift, and I met her at a nearby diner in a minimall – where she bought me my bowl of (homemade stuffed pepper) soup as a thank-you for volunteering.

As I expected, some local volunteers seemed hesitant when I admitted I wasn’t from the state, but I had come up with a line for that: “If David Koch can live in California and come up here and interfere with your politics, I figure what’s wrong with [my first and last names] coming up here to volunteer a little bit for the other side?”

“I never thought of that that way before,” one older (white) woman was like. “You’re right!”

And, as I told the volunteer I shared the morning shift with, “Heck, I’m just trying to help reclaim one little corner of the Midwest for the Powers of Good.”

She ate that shit up.

3) You know how local polling places are tucked away at different places, usually township halls and churches? For my first shift, the polling place was at the Moose Lodge.

So, since I was expected to remind all the voters of the poll times and locations, even if they were impatient, I’d have conversations like this:

“So do you know the poll times on Tuesday?”, I’d be like.

“Yes,” they’d say impatiently in their Wisconsin accents, “Seven a.m. to eight p.m.”

“And your poll location?”

“Yes,” they’d say impatiently, gesturing with a hitchhiker thumb towards the Moose Lodge, “The Moose Lodge...”

“Sweet!”, I’d be like, and at that I’d thank them for their time and support, and we’d wish each other a good weekend.

4) At one point the State Senator came in – and he was one of the Wisconsin 14 who fled the state to temporarily halt the anti-union legislation. I was in the same room with him! I wanted to go up and shake his hand, but I didn’t.

5) Everyone had the low-down on the Republicans. People were saying there were a ton of fake signatures on the recall petitions (dead people, page after page of signatures in the same handwriting; the GOP had to use paid signature gatherers, but the Dems didn’t), and that in the Darling election there was a ton of robocalls and fliers giving out wrong poll information. A lot of people were claiming that that one clerk from Waukesha county waited till the last minute with votes again, and she is definitely doing something fraudulent.

“The government accountability is supposedly looking into this,” one (middle-aged) (white) guy was like, “But have we heard anything? No.”

A campaign volunteer from the town also was telling me how the GOP guy running in the local election had only lived in Wisconsin 4 years, and for 2 of those he worked in London, and for the other 2 he’s gone daily to Chicago to work.

“He lives just across the border,” she was like, “As close to Illinois as you can get. We say, Bob [the current Dem state senator] was in Illinois for 2 weeks, but Steitz [the GOP opponent] goes there every day!”

She also said he was a corporate lawyer, and so he’s devoted to helping the rich get richer any way they can.

She also said he hadn’t paid his taxes one year, and that he has a rental property that had been rented out to a non-registered sex offender.

6) After the 2nd shift, I wanted to go the Kenosha tiki bar to get a Polynesian drink and a buzz on for the train home.

“You know that that was the first bar in Kenosha to go non-smoking, even before the statewide ban?”, the County Treasurer said. “They were afraid someone would set all the hanging grass stuff on fire.”

Unfortunately, it didn’t open till later, so I biked downtown (I had taken my bike up by commuter rail) and got an ice cream cone instead.

After that, at one four-way stop intersection I coasted in to a halt just after this big white Caddie with two old (white) women did, but the driver (who had her window rolled down), just stuck her hand out and waved me to go through.

“Please, dearie!”, she was like. “I’m just thinking.”