They may be flooded, but the phone probably still works.

I'm dumb and forgot to tell... anyone at the office that I was in MN and not CR.  Whoops.  Pottsie just called (using his suavest phone voice) to make sure I was alive.  

New Rule: Always call before leaving town... no matter how early that would get someone that information.  Otherwise, I'll forget. 

On the plus side, I thought of tons of questions for Obama, should I ever have the opportunity to ask them.  I was listening to a podcast about the economy and the vast and growing inequality in the U.S. while I was waiting for my car to get fixed today.  The factoid burned on my brain:  

After being adjusted for inflation, the average worker in the U.S. in the 1960s earned $9.88 per hour.  Today that rate is $5.80.  Whoa.  That's an issue, especially considering worker productivity has skyrocketed in that time.  More work for less pay. A lot less pay.

Water, water, everywhere

I haven't been in the office since last Wednesday. Cedar Rapids flooded and I got sent home at about noon on Wednesday so I could get back to the west side of the river before the bridges closed. I called on Thursday and they told me to stay home... And check in on Sunday.

After pulling my hair out and watching the same episode of L&O: Criminal Intent three times over four days, I went home today to shower and do laundry, since I couldn't in Cedar Rapids. It was pretty fun to surprise my family for Father's Day and it was a great ride with KTB. Took us a bit of extra time to skirt the flood waters, but we made it. We also both felt kinda bad ditching our current home when it needed able-bodied volunteers, but we also both were going crazy... It was the first time I had been able to venture to the east side of the river since Wednesday.

These floods are so devistating. It's terrible. I don't know how the state is going to recover. Between tornados and floods... The state party postponed the state Democratic Convention. It was supposed to be yesterday, and I don't know when they'll hold it instead. Because really, a couple weeks isn't going to make much difference for people. Many of the festivals and parades we were going to campaign at are also cancelled or postponed. It's suddenly looking like a rough summer.

What follows here is an email I recieved from Democratic Senator (seeking reelection) Tom Harkin:

"Dear Heather :

"My thoughts and prayers go out to the tens of thousands of Iowans around the state who have had to evacuate their homes and businesses due to the severe weather damage and record flooding in communities and neighborhoods across our state. In addition, my heart and my sincere sympathies go out to the victims, families and friends of the boy scouts who were affected by the tornado that swept through the Little Sioux Scout Ranch near Turin.

"The news that we lost four young boy scouts was both shocking and heartbreaking. My thoughts and prayers are with the families who are grieving for their children. The teamwork and the swift disaster preparedness skills deployed by the boy scouts and local officials responding to the incident helped lessen the impact of that disaster, and for that I am grateful.

"Since the tornado hit Little Sioux Scout Ranch, large parts of Iowa have experienced immense flooding that has forced communities in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines to evacuate. My thoughts and prayers are also with these Iowans and I hope that their displacement is not prolonged and that they are able to return with their homes and businesses largely intact.

"I am touring our state with our Congressional Delegation and with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Administration to help coordinate relief efforts and I am confident that Iowa will emerge from this natural disaster stronger than ever. I know this because I have seen the strength of our communities as they have banded together to endure the devastation. Soon the waters will recede and we will begin the process of rebuilding and I will make sure that the federal government plays a robust role to help Iowans recover and rebuild.

"Iowans affected by recent tornadoes and floods are urged to call the 24-hour Iowa Concern Hotline for financial and emotional assistance at (800) 447-1985.

"Citizens who want to donate monetarily to help the victims of the storms can do so through service organizations including, but not limited to: Red Cross, United Way, and the Salvation Army.

"Due to the immense flooding and storm damage in Iowa, I have postponed the voting deadline for the final round of our "Building Blue " contest for Iowa State House and State Senate candidates. The contest - and the final round of balloting - will now run through the end of the month.

"Please keep our fellow Iowans in your thoughts and prayers and please support them if you are able. I know Iowa will emerge from the floods of 2008 stronger than ever.

"Senator Tom Harkin"


For more information on Building Blue, visit www.tomharkin.com/action/building-blue (Candidates Gretchen Lawyer and Swati Dandekar have their campaigns based in my office).

And I'm here... why?

I've been feeling guilty, like I haven't been getting enough done, so I haven't been taking time to post lately.  Problem is, I'm not really sure what to do anymore.  Now that Semi-Colin and JKR are here and working as Field Organizers, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do besides answer the phone and smile at people as they walk in.  I've also gotten really possessive of the office supplies and their organization, trying to keep my claim over some of my other duties.  

D still hasn't shared the Google Doc with me, so for the last two days I've been recreating and updating the spreadsheet from my computer.  I finished it this morning and emailed it to Semi-Colin so he could update the Google Doc for me.  And when I say "he could update it for me" I mean so I could update it from his log-in because that child doesn't know his way around a computer at all.  I guess that's one thing Coe or Hill taught me - how to be resourceful around a computer.  Infer that if one program or OS or whatever works one way, other ones are likely to work similarly.  And, surprisingly enough, it means that I almost have earned my office tech-goddess title.  I'm also just really frustrated that D hasn't gotten me access to that document for... almost a week now. Oh well. I suppose it's my own fault for using two email addresses simultaneously. 

Along with twiddling my thumbs, I've been helping JKR with her phone calls.  We've called seniors to talk about issues and who they're thinking about voting for.  We've called past volunteers to ask them to volunteer again.  It reminds me a bit of telecounseling.  But I might just like telecounseling more.  For one thing, at TC, the supervisor doesn't try to make me change my script mid-call or ask me to lie to the people on the other line.  JKR tried to do both.  We are not the Obama office.  We're the everything office.  So, yes, we work for Obama, but we don't have a campaign staffer here or even one that stays in semi-regular contact with us. I'm not going to tell people on the phone that I'm calling with the Obama campaign, just because they've previously volunteered for him.  When we ask someone to volunteer it's not just for Obama, it's for everyone.  Oh well... idk. I just say whatever the hell I feel is right and let JKR and Semi-Colin call the stubborn people back.  That's all you'd get from a volunteer.  And maybe I just need to feel more able to talk about Obama in order to say I work for him.  I know very little about his campaign, because I wasn't originally a supporter.  JKR (and D, and most of our canvass team) worked for him before the canvass, so they know a lot about who he is as a candidate and his platform and such.  They can talk about him if people ask questions.  

Yesterday, I spent most of the day out of the office.  I taught the canvass team leaders how to deal with Absentee Ballot Requests (ABRs) and Voter Registration Forms (VRegs) and drove them to the Auditor's Office so they can help take those in if we need them to.  (More things being taken out of my jurisdiction...)  A little while after I got back, Nymphadora's friend (who's managing Larry's campaign south of us) called because he got a flat tire and didn't know how to change it.  So I got to ride in Nymphadora's yellow truck and change Larry's CM's tire out on Hwy 380.  Nymphadora called me a badass a lot.  Then I came back and worked on spreadsheets and tranferring data from one sheet to another.  Today, I feel like a glorified baby-sitter. I've spent much of the time making sure one of our candidate's children are entertained so she can call and meet with people and be undistracted.  

Here's the story of a lovely campaign...And that's how we all became the Linn Dems Bunch.

Yeah.  We're that cool.  Nymphadora is taking all the day staffs' pictures and making a Brady Bunch themed, meet-the-office display.  It's gonna be fantastic.  

Our canvassers started yesterday.  I realized (to my dismay) that one of the canvassers who I go to school with still won't talk to me due to campus drama.  That's fun.  An exercise in professionalism I guess. I really hope we can at least move towards a working relationship again. D was joking about holding a reconciliation event for the two of us at the same time we hold one for all the Clinton and Obama people. 

Yesterday I organized the list of people who came to the Obama meeting on Monday and filled out the contact list so it was actually useful for our field team.  I'm impressed at my online resourcefulness.  I'm getting way good at finding all sorts of information and exploring websites. 

Yesterday I also had two more interviews for paid employment.  The first went horribly, but the manager I interviewed with also said that they were more looking for people who could be around over the winter holidays, rather than summer workers.  So I'm okay that didn't go well, even if I'm annoyed that I wasted my time interviewing and applying.  The second interview, the manager seemed checked out of, but she hired me with the warning of "you're a lot more mature than most of the other people who work here."  Didn't really know what to do with that, but I've got a job starting next week, I've just got to find some black tops and buy another pair of jeans. 

I put my online researching skills to the test again today and finished the College Report.  I'm actually really impressed that I found course listings for all the schools.  I mean, Coe hides those inside the student only section of our website, but I found ways to get at it on the other sites.  

Now I'm not sure what to do with myself.  D's training the canvassers and thus can't give me a new job, but I finished my to-do list.  I still need to rearrange the conference room, but the canvassers are in there.  I could work on more updates to the "God List," but technology thwarts me there too - D put the spreadsheet on Google Docs, but I can't access it yet, because he forgot to share it with me.  So I'm a little bored.  Hence the post.  

Hmm... How're those goals coming?  

I think I'm learning a lot about party structure and function and how campaigns work at a basic level.  I know I have a better understanding of how the party is organized, at least here in this county.  Something that baffles me is the lack of overall organization.  See, each county in this state has it's own Democratic party.  Then, the state party has also divided the state into regions for the field campaign - D is the regional field director for region 4; I'm the region 4 intern.  Thing is, not all the precinct that R4 covers are completely contained within R4 - one of the state senators J is overseeing has a precinct that extends into the county and region to the south of us.  So we're overlapping staff there. Also, the national party and the Obama campaign has divided up the territory differently too.  So today we had an Obama volunteer here at our office, looking for the Obama staffer, but he's in Iowa City.  It seems like it would be beneficial to somehow divide the territory in a uniform way - at least so the Coordinated Campaign is working with all the same people and has everyone in a common office with satellites if need be.  

I haven't done any data entry recently, so I'm not sure if I'm getting faster all that quickly.  I am getting better at researching and creating those spreadsheets that are so all-important.

The cool thing about our office is that D, M (aka JKR), JR (aka Semi-Colin) and I are all working on the same projects a lot of the time, but we prioritize them differently.  For me, the needs list is a pretty important thing, while the Master List is more important to JKR and Semi-Colin.  So, if I'm needing a new task and updating the needs list and checking on the Master List are both important, I know JKR and Semi-Colin are on the Master List, so I should update and republish the needs list.  It breaks down the tasks one more time; keeps our eyes on the prize...

Other exciting developments this week:

- Obama has basically clinched the nomination, so we've gotten back to decorating the office with Obama paraphernalia, now that we are free to do so.  D spent a good twenty minutes making sure a huge wooden Obama logo was centered and stable in the window this morning, running in and out the door, slightly repositioning the circle, checking it, re-repositioning it, until it was just perfect. 

- Federal House Democrats started the LGBT Equality caucus as a part of the party in that body.  

- We're ten days away from state convention!

- All of the incumbents won their primary races, so we in the office can officially endorse them too. 

Update

A notorious Coe Grad just came from the Obama meeting and stopped by my desk on the way out.  He handed me some buttons that say "Drinking Liberally" on them.  I'm not surprised.  But being curious, check out the website... I kinda love it!  Visit www.drinkingliberally.com and read the About section.  Cute idea.  Way to Go, famed and reputed long-term-Coe-Student-recently-turned-Grad, in starting a CR chapter of such an illustrious organization.  

hehehe.

I am Networking Queen

It's only Monday, and already I have accomplished a great deal this week.  Foremost among these achievements, I got one of my friends an internship, and hopefully a place to stay this summer. Because I rock like that.  Pottsie wanted an intern, so I hooked him up with PFenner, and she'll start tomorrow.  Now S (henceforth known as Nyphadora), is jealous and wants her own intern.  So I'm trying to get M to come intern too.  We're flooding the office with Kohawks!  Woot!

Today D was in Des Moines (again) with our field organizers for their training.  He might still be there tomorrow too.  (Hmmm...) I coped with this complete lack of direction as best as I could (which was fine) and worked on finishing a couple of reports he wanted me to do.  The one I spent the most time on was the "College Report" which entailed gathering info about the four local colleges - things like Poli Sci professors, campus maps, student contacts, enrollment... you know, good, useful volunteer-finding information.  I also kind of attempted filling in more contact info in the R4 List of All-Important Knowledge (that's my cool, excessive name for it today), but I was having a hard time concentrating on scouring the internet for labor unions in the CR area.  

This afternoon I had my first interview for a real job (one that pays me money, not just experience).  It was at Applebee's by my house.  I filled out a REDICULOUS "personality" survey.  Definately meant to weed out depressed and aggressive types.  A little discriminating against those with mental health problems I think.  Tomorrow I get to interview there again and at Express.  Not sure which I want more right now.  Probably will come down to flexible hours (to work around the campaign) and which pays more. 

Tonight, I stayed late at the office to be around while the Obama campaign met in our conference room.  This is definitely inspiring some rearranging of furniture.  And the updating of the needs list to emphasize "Folding Chairs!!!!" because we need those that bad.  It's totes true.