Campaign Reality Warp

Wherever you go....there you are.

I helped with the official opening of Karen Rockwell's campaign office today. I got there early to help set up and was sent off on errands (find blue and orange plastic tablecloths, a red ribbon for the ribbon cutting ceremony and coffee cups that are not styrofoam). So now I have officially helped in a helpful way. Tomorrow I'm going out with Karen to knock on doors in my neighbourhood. It's interesting to see how the campaign is put together, but even more interesting to find out who's there.

As more volunteers arrived (mostly constituency exec people) I introduced myself to each one. Pretty soon I realised I knew or had at least already met about half the people there. This continued as guests arrived for the opening. There were neighbours, and a friend from church, and my mother-in-law's good friend, and a bunch of city politicians who I have spoken to about school issues and several Consortium 43 friends. Dave Barrett was there too. First time I've met him - he was dynamite! And Jim Sinclair, who's always at the BCTF Conferences. All in all there were about 100 people, and I already knew or had met about 30 of them. So now my comfort level is increasing, especially after I met some intriguing and good new people. There was a man there who must be about 80 years old who ran for the CCF in Manitoba, and was a compatriot of Tommy Douglas when he was elected in Saskatchewan. In fact, there were a few people who knew Tommy and talked about the old days. It wasn't all old-timers though. There were a few young parent aged people with small kids. Still the over 40's predominated. What a wealth of experience and energy and positive intention in one room. Karen was very happy. The speeches were strong and short. There were hot dogs and home made cookies. It was a good party. I signed up to become a member of the BC NDP and told Karen and the campaign manager that I'll help whenever I can, throughout the next 6 weeks until election day.

I have read that if only women voted in BC, we'd have an NDP government. If only men voted, it would be Liberal again. Also, if even a fraction of the 25 yrs and under population could be convinced to vote, we'd have more NDP elected.

Question: How do we get people to vote?

mompoet - pinning on a campaign button