I spent yesterday evening at a phone bank calling Republican voters in my precinct to invite them to next Tuesday's party caucus.
The last time I worked a phone bank was in 1988 when I was living in Palo Alto, CA and made calls reminding local Democrats to get out and vote for Michael Dukakis. No, really.
Last night was a slightly different experience. I'm in Washington's 43rd Legislative District, which is so unassailably Democratic there hasn't even been a Republican on the ballot in any of the last 5 legislative races. My call list was composed of likely Republican voters, not bullet-proof certain ones. Even then there were only a few dozen people on the list. Every time I introduced myself with "I'm calling from the local Republican party", I braced myself for the worst invective. But I only got a few responses along the lines of "Give me a break" and "There's absolutely no way I would ever vote for someone like a George W Bush". Nobody was abusive.
A few people were even glad to hear from me, but most of these were too old and infirm to make it to the caucus. The best moment was when I reached a gentleman who said "Wow, I didn't even know there were any other Republicans around here." It almost sounded like there were tears in his eyes, as if he felt like he was the last Jew in Afghanistan and then one day discovered there was a local minyan after all.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 05, 2004 12:47 PMGood on ya Stefan. I'm venturing out next Tuesday to see if there are more than three Rs up here in my precinct. Not that I'm 100% in accord with the Party, but they are miles ahead of the opposition in most departments. Particularly in Seattle. Dump McDermott!
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on March 6, 2004 09:34 AMSince we both live in Green Lake, does that mean I'm in the 43rd too? I could probably show up. Getting tired of all the Kucinich signs in our neighborhood.
Posted by: Greg Piper on March 6, 2004 04:19 PMWhere will the caucus be held?
Posted by: wilinsky on March 7, 2004 03:15 PMFunny you should say that, Shark. Back in 1972 I was in Afghanistan, and once upon a Friday afternoon I became aware that there was a aynagogue in the vicinity. It was in a village called Balkh, about 10 miles from where I was, in Mazar-I-Sharif.
I made it for Friday night services, and, since they could muster only a half dozen congregants, and I brought a friend, we were a bit short of a minyan. But a good time was had by all anyway, once their natural suspicion of strangers was allayed.
So, it is just possible that I davened with the last Jew in Afghanistan, in what turned out to be a very historic shul with about a thousand years of history (the building didn't look that old at all) in the Afghan-Jewish community of Balkh. Less than a year later the country was taken over by Mohammad Daoud, a fundamentalist, who kicked out the King, and me, as well as those last few Jews in that benighted country.
Posted by: Michael Gersh on March 7, 2004 04:34 PM