Results Rolling In

First off, this is an amazing day! As a people, Americans have made the first step towards change, and now it is all of our responsibility to stay active and make sure that we get the change that we elected. Obama's speech was amazing. He's no longer rallying; he's leading.
Now, onto Oregon and my own vested interests!
Oregon Live!
As i write this, every single race that PolitiCorps '08 worked on is being led by the candidate that we worked for!! Check them out and i'll keep my fingers crossed that the few that haven't been called work out in our favor:
OR HD 18 - Jim Gilbert (too close to call)
OR HD 26 - Jessica Adamson (too close)
OR HD 29 - Chuck Riley
OR HD 30 - David Edwards
OR HD 37 - Michele Eberle (Emily Kintzer is her campaign manager, but it is still too close to call)
OR HD 49 - Nick Kahl!!!!!111!!!1!!!!!11!1!! Fuck yeah!!!11!!!!
OR HD 50 - Greg Matthews, yeah, he's a firefighter.
OR HD 51 - Brent Barton
OR HD 52 - Suzanne VanOrman
OR HD 54 - Judy Steigler
Furthermore, we helped out with the Partnership for Safety and Justice's Yes/No campaign on Ballot Measure 57 (Yes) and Measure 61 (No). They both passed, but Measure 57 has passed with a larger vote total which means that it will become the law and the other will not. Another victory!!
As long as Jeff Merkeley wins (which PC didn't work on), Oregon is in great shape moving forward. With what looks to be a 41 seat majority (of 60) the Dems will be able to pass budget legislation that will potentially allow them to make great change.
I'm so very excited today. I love everyone that i worked with this summer, and i'm so proud of us as a group. A special congratulation and bit of pride goes out to Drew who went on to be Nick Kahl's Field Director.
Dani went on to be the Field Organizer for the No on Prop 8 campaign in San Francisco. It's not looking good right now, but i'll be up for awhile awaiting the results. This could be the one big disappointment of this election cycle. This is by no means a reflection on Dani. That campaign is so lucky ot have had her. She's amazingly hard working and inteligent. I hope that someday we'll get over our bigotry and homophobia, but for today the message is of progressive change. It's a big step. We'll keep fighting for the rest.

Graffiti to Graduate School

More photos starting with the Brooklyn Bridge.

This is a Banksy that we just stumbled upon in SoHo, and i believe it was later in the same day that we saw Frida and Dali. A very good day.
Myself, Dan, and Kristen at Pinkberry.

Pinkberry is pretty good. It's an acclaimed frozen yogurt place that i'm pretty sure started out in Los Angeles, but i'm not sure that anything could live up to its hype.

Meanwhile, back in Kansas, i have my thesis idea in hand and i sent out a book review yesterday that should be my first publication ever. Things are going well. 

Farewell for Today

I just walked home in the rain to let the Northwest seep into me, as if it hadn't already.

My new shoes are finally broken in enough that i can wear them without socks.

Our evaluation retreat was amazing. I breathed a cloud at the timberline of Mt. Hood! On Thursday, we spent a lot of time together and just hung out talking about what was going to happen after we all go our separate ways. It was a high quality experience. Plus, we got some great feed back about what we've been working on all summer. I was told i complain too much, but that i'm a teacher and a uniter of people. I worked hard at being able to go between what became subgroups of Fellows and trying to relate with everyone. I'm glad it paid off.

Graduation was fun. There are so many pictures of us all lookin' steeze-tastic. It's almost ridiculous. I'll see what i can do to get as many of them online as humanly possible. Governor Kitzhaber was there though he wasn't as well-dressed as any one of the Fellows. He has a tendency to wear jeans and cowboy boots everywhere. He came to christen the new bus before it left for the DNC in Denver. After the governor left an intentional dent on the rear as a tribute to the accidental denting of the original bus during its christening, his son got the first crack with the champagne bottle. Little Kitzhaber took a shot at it a couple of times to no avail. The governor stepped in and beat on the rear hub until a piece of steel broke off. I'm not sure if anyone bought that part, but it looks like we will be asking for a donation to pay for the replacement. Then we all partied for the rest of the night and took even more self-promoting pictures of our beautiful faces.

I miss my friends already. Miles leaving was tough because he's the most outspoken of our group and one of my favorite people. Tonight i had to say goodbye to Mollie who grew on me so much over the course of the summer. I love her. Some people left Friday night's party assuming we'd see each other in the past couple of days, but some of them haven't seen me. I kind of like those goodbyes. They're easier. Leaving Noah and Drew tomorrow is going to be really hard too. I love our group, but some are going to be more noticeably absent from my day-to-day life. The LQ will be missed greatly.

I'm already working on getting brought out for Trick or Vote.

It's been one of the two greatest summers of my life.

P.S. Rumor has it Joe Biden is VP. har har

More Blue Oregon

Someone at Blue Oregon posted another blog about the Bus Project. There's even a cool video of our Bus Trip from last weekend. I'm pretty sure that i'm in that video, but that's not so much the point as is the fact that the Bus Project is getting love.

The Most Meaningful Week

I probably should start out by saying that i wrote this first part the day that this actually happened (8/4/08):

Today’s morning discussion may have been one of the most meaningful experiences of my time here in Portland.
Jefferson Smith started the Bus Project, and he is now a presumptive Representative elect for the Oregon House of Representative. He won both the Democratic and Republican nomination in his district’s primary several months ago.
This morning Jeff comes in to talk to us about Multi-Issue Politics (we barely spoke about this). He started out by posing a scenario where we were supposed to decide whether or not a candidate should take PAC (Political Action Committee) money. I know a lot more about PACs after being here than i did before.

I write this in hindsight:

PACs are not always the evil slimy things that i previously considered them to be. There are plenty of PACs that support good causes and good candidates. In fact, this is one way in which people with little room for financial expenditures pool together resources and have a positive effect on the political process. The Bus Project has its own PAC.

Okay, all of that said, we had a discussion about this scenario. First we were given a set of conditions, then allowed to ask questions about the potential PAC donations, and finally, we were told advice that was given by different people (i.e. the only person in the House to not take PAC money, a former governor, and the campaign staff).  

As we were having our discussion with Jeff, it became more and more obvious that we were talking about him and his campaign. It then became one of the most meaningful discussions that we've had all summer. I argued against taking the PAC money. Ben Cannon (the only person in the House to not take the cash) suggested taking it because he felt like it damaged his credibility within the caucus and his ability to pay his caucus dues. My point was that if Jeff didn't take the money then there would be two instead of one, and that maybe opens the door for number three and four to do so sooner than later. We voted on the idea and the tally was 17-7 in favor of taking the money and using it to establish a "Robin Hood" PAC that redistributes the money. Jeff seemed to really be making the decision with us and our opinions seemed to really matter to him. It was great. It's very likely he's going to take the PAC scratch, but he told us that he would continue to fight for campaign finance reform and do his best to help Ben and his marginalized status.

This is how our entire week went. The following day (Tuesday, 8/5) we met with Kate Brown who is the presumptive Secretary of State elect and she had a very interesting conversation with us about electoral reform and how we would try and increase youth voter turnout as well as the likelihood that young people would actually run for office. The recurring theme that kept coming up was creating citizenry through service. Some people suggested student loan repayment, but i was rather partial to the idea of mandatory terms of service in the military or some other citizen building organization like AmeriCorps or the PeaceCorps.

It has been a very good week and i'm happy to say that i reached my goal of registering 100 voters, and i have already knocked on more than 500 doors for several candidates this summer. 

I'm starting to prepare myself for my return to Kansas. I need to get a few more ducks in a row, but the summer is quickly coming to an end. I'm kind of sad that i have to leave, but i'm excited about seeing everyone in Manhattan. 

Oreback

Midsummer retreat survived! I didn't get eaten by a black bear or a mountain lion, but had i been attacked i would have stayed big and fought back because that's what the informative black bear and mountain lion pamphlets told me to do. Ah, nature.

It was absolutely beautiful up in the mountains. We went up there to complain at one another about inefficiencies in our program (irony?). The rest of the time, which was a good amount of time, we played touch football, ultimate frisbee, swam, watched Predator starring not one, but two future governors, and ate some delicious and free food!

I'm sure some good things came out of our bickering - including a small scuffle - but more importantly is a story from our football playing. I was on a team with some faster guys who didn't realize that the big boy mustard could roll, so for the most part they were busy playing catch with each other while i played D and made big sacks (you know how we do!). There was one play where i was tossed the ball on a dump because whoever was playing quarterback was getting their skinny as run. Needless to say, i start rumbling down field. Hannah - who is a better athlete than most of the guys, and can throw a spiral like nobody's business - squares up with me in a two-hand touch game, and not even thinking i dropped my shoulder and bowled her ass over without being phased. Had it not been a touch game it would have been the most bad ass play because i could have strolled to the endzone, but as it was i felt really bad. She bounced up and we took a slight bit of a penalty for that move even though i'm not sure what the rules are. I thought you weren't supposed to tackle on defense, but this wasn't me on defense and she didn't tackle me. That became the story of the last couple days. 

Yesterday, we had to do a "trust exercise" and we were blind folded and led through the woods. Guess who my leader was. Just guess. Yep, Hannah. I was so convinced she was gonna run my ass off a cliff or face first into a tree, but she did no such thing and was an excellent leader of cult-looking blindfolded people.

NOI Training - Day 1

NOI training is about as much fun as it sounds. End.

However, they did give us free breakfast and lunch! As Shannon pointed out in her comment, free food tastes better than paid for food, but is especially delicious when you're poor and living with two/three other dudes who have little-to-no interest in cooking. Some fellows have host families who cook all kinds of goodies for them and Nate and i are extremely jealous of those people. Nate just said, "I could not be more jealous." Some fellows also have host peoples who do their laundry, and this makes some of them uncomfortable. However, again, it makes Nate and i full of envy. Aunt Mary, i could not miss you more. I love you.

Tonight we did some canvassing for Brent Barton. Our turf had already been stomped out once (maybe twice) before, so it seemed super redundant and most of my contacts (60%) were "hostile" and refused to talk to me. Kind of a drag. The good news is that it made things go quick, so Jake (a fellow i was canvassing with - he's from Long Island and a super cool and slightly misunderstood dude) and i hit up a pub, drank beer/RC cola, and played a little bit of pool while we waited for our pick-up.

I have to wear long sleeves on turf . . . shower time!