how are we doing?

yesterday morning i went into a campaign channel (the way i do every morning) and i said "anyone have any clue how we're going to do in USVI?"

and it struck me as a singular thing, because sometimes we watch sports teams and we say "we", as if WE did something to help the red sox win, or as if WE should have played a different quarterback and we confuse ourselves with the enterprise on the field.

we talk about "us" even though all we have done in this game or election is to watch and maybe post a few tweets and maybe, if we're conscientious, we MIGHT get up and vote.

but this time it's different.

Bernie Sanders keeps talking at his rallies (which by the way you mostly don't see on teevee, because the establishment media narrative is that there is not real campaign here)- anyway, he keeps talking about "us" and "we" at his rallies and he tells us it's about US and not about HIM, and we KNOW that to make him win or even to keep him in the race thousands upon thousands of us have to work hard, every day, to subvert the dominant paradigm and we know the dominant paradigm does not like being subverted.

nothing is more effective in getting out the word and getting out the vote than talking to people live.

doorknocking is actually the most effective, followed by phone calls. not robocalls. live callers who listen as well as speak.

but for all of those people to make calls or knock doors, there have to be data lists and from data lists come phone lists with accurate polling information. canvassers need lists of whose doors to knock, and maps of how to find those homes.

behind the ground forces is a small army of people who manage the lists, draw the maps, call the clerks to confirm the polling places, and even keep the phone numbers clicking through for the callers.

a lot of days we have more people than we need just cooling our heels because we know some days it's ALL HANDS ON DECK and a team might work twenty hours a day for a couple of days until the project is finished.

each and every one of us knows that if we do not do the work, it does not get done.

so for the first time in my life when i ask "how are we doing?" about a campaign, i am asking HOW ARE WE DOING? because i very much have a hand in it.

i'm not special that way, but i click those numbers through. i confirm those polling places. i make those maps for the canvassers. not just me. my team. my teams. we all pull. we all work.

calls get made. doors get knocked.

this is how we're doing it.