Whew... Its Over, But Just Gettin Started, too

It seems like its been forever since I last posted in here and then I look at the date of my last post and realize that yeah, it has been. I think part of the reason I haven't written much is I just got tired of politics. I'd been satiated and saturated; in short, I was so done with it all, but I still managed to get involved and then became rapid with it again a few days before the election came to close.

I got involved by volunteering for the Mitch Daniels for Govenor campaign.

mymanmitch.com. I walked precincts on Monday. And let me tell you that hurt after a while. I walked up and down streets knocking on doors and ringing doorbells getting out the vote. When I was done my feet hurt, my knee throbbed and I was exhausted, but I felt good, real good. I felt confident my candidate was going to win. On the local level I knew the Republicans were going to have a good night and I knew that George W. was going to carry Indiana. That was confirmed by 6:30 Tuesday night. MyManMitch won and won big. He beat incumbent Joe Kernan by almost seven or eight points. It was a good night for Indiana Republicans on many fronts. Sadly, though we weren'e able to get rid of Evan Bayh (pronounced Buy). Which is something I don't quite understand. Here's Gary Varvel's take on it:
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Here's the thing about Marvin Scott that I really don't understand: he lost. If you look at the poll data from Indiana, and I'll tell you what it says: the state is solidly "red" except for Marion County, which is where Indianapolis is located and some of the northern counties and a couple of the counties to the west that border Illinois, they tend to be "blue" counties. How could Marvin Scott lose? Answer? The Indiana GOP seemed to ignore his candiacy. Hell, I didn't even know he was running against Evan Bayh until about three weeks ago when he was mentioned in an editorial in the Indianapolis Star. I thought that was a horrible disgrace. Mitch Daniels pretty much swept Indiana, George Bush took something close to 60 percent of the vote from the Hoosier state, but Marvin Scott? I think he broke 30 percent. I think. That's a shame. Marvin Scott didn't have any name recognition. He was poorly funded and, as I said earlier, I think he may have been ignored by the GOP of Indiana. Or maybe the Indiana Republican Party just decided they couldn't beat the goliath named Bayh. Sadly, if there is such a thing as First Familes of Indiana then Bayh is one of them. My dad said recently that Evan Bayh was identified more then a Democrat; he has achieved the status of The Hoosier.

As a result of the work I did I met some politicians. Most were on the state level and county level. But I did meet Steve Buyer, well I shook his hand and had a short chat. I doubt he'd remember me if he met me on the street. He won his race handily, be the way.

On Tuesday, election day, or D-day, I volunteered again. This time I did some running for "wagon books" those basically voter registration rolls. What they do is this: a voter comes and votes and the poll admistrator marks their name off. What I and my partner did was go to a couple of polling spots and pick up the lists, took them back to the Mitch Daniels for Govenor HQ hand them off top the phone bank workers and they started calling the people that had not been checked off to 1. remind them to vote, 2. ask them to vote for Mitch Daniels, 3. Inform them that the polls close at 6 pm and ask if they knew where they voted and if they didn't get that information to them and then, 4. Find out if they needed a ride to the polls and if they did we would get one for them. It was all quite exciting and fun. It was fun to be with fellow Republicans and meeting new people. It was hard work, but good work. I'm going to drop by the Indiana State GOP office someday soon and find out how I stay in contact with them. I'll be attending Johnson County Republican luncheons every now and again, too.

Oh, yeah, I voted on Tuesday, too. It took me an hour and I waited in the rain and got good and wet, but I voted and it felt damn good, too. There is something about voting and taking part that really makes me feel good to be an American.

So now what? On the State level Republicans hold both houses. Same on the national level. This is a double edged sword. We will have two years to do something. Two years to prove ourselves and then, we'll have the dreaded "mid-term elections." Those mid-term elections are, in my humble estamation, sometimes even more important then "regular elections." Those mid-term elections are like progress reports. We have control of both houses on the state and national level, but if things go badly Republicans have no one to blame, but themselves and the electorate will let them know. I'm not being a fatalist here, I'm not saying that the Republicans will screw up, matter of fact I'm hoping and praying that we can do good things and get this country started again, but I am being a realist. We have work to do.