Political Candidate Promoters

[Guest Recluse]

So today I'm sitting on the couch, writing in the cool quiet...and a shadow crosses the glass inlay of my front door.

I am now paying attention.

After moment of hovering at the glass, the shape begins fiddling with the doorknob. My hair is raising.

Is someone trying to break in?

Two days ago, a neighbor a few houses down shot and killed a man trying to invade her home.

Maybe I'm a little on edge about that.

My revolver is always in my purse, and I have it now, held next to my thigh. I love the .38 special, there's no safety, there's no external hammer, it's just point and click. My heart is pounding, I can feel it in my neck, in my temples, and I've started to shake. The guy is still fiddling with the doorknob, and I don't want to confront him, but I'd rather try to avoid shooting someone by scaring them off.

In half a breath, the deadbolt is slipped, the knob is squeezed and the door is open. The pistol is out of view, between my thigh and the door frame, easy to lift it and shoot from the hip if I have to.

"Something on your mind?" I ask, a little louder, a little angrier than I wanted.

A middle-aged man, white, somewhat portly, is stumbling backward, dropping a handful of political advertisement knob-hangers. He reaches to cling to the pillar outside the front door to steady himself, the faces of his old white-guy candidate strewn and grinning around his old-lady tennis shoes. He quickly rights himself and peers at me...I am not a normal-looking, pretty woman...and so he immediately frowns, but glosses over with a fake smile a seconds later.

"I...uh...I'm walking the neighborhood, letting people know about [candidate] and what he intends to do for you."

"Surely you saw the sign that reads 'No Solicitation - Leave No Fliers', yes?" I ask, there's acid in my tone.

"Guess I didn't see it." He answers, but he's not looking at me, he's busy gathering up the fallen door-hangers. I can see his sensible white cotton briefs over the muffin-lip of his back fat. Without looking up, he asks, "If you don't mind my askin', how do you intend on voting on November 2nd?"

"I *do* mind you asking, and it's a rude question. Ballots in the US are anonymous for a fucking reason. You have no right to ask anyone how they intend on voting."

For a moment, he straightens, looking stunned. Had he never thought about this?

"But since you asked, your candidate is conservative, clearly you can see by looking at me that I'm at the very least, a moderate swing-voter, and at the very worst, a pro-gay, leftist libertarian with a love for letting women have abortions on medicare and letting gay people get married and serve openly in the military now - get the fuck off my porch, you knew you weren't wanted the second I opened the door."

He looks like a fish. A little gape, his face is reddening. He's looking down at my hand.

I hadn't realized I'd taken a step toward him.

The pistol is now in partial view, hanging at my side.

Oops. I'm a little embarrassed. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now.

He leaves.

I hate door-to-door political advertisements. I hate getting phone calls, I hate seeing the stupid fucking attack ads. They should all be fucking illegal. I know that's probably going to twinge people in regard to the 1st Amendment, and for that I'm sorry, but the candidates should just cite their views on topics and ship them out in the mail...once. No shit-slinging, no drama, no bothering people in their homes, no emotional bribery, just say what they think about hot-button topics and shut the fuck up until November 2nd.

/end snarl

[AnneMarie]

Oh, but we have the absolutely bestest attack ads eveh going on here. Dear Meg, former EBay CEO, paid herself $100 million then laid off 10% of the workforce has already invested $100M of her own money. Dear Carly, former HP CEO and owner of 4-5 jets, paid herself over $100M while shipping off a significant number of jobs overseas. At least she has not personally invested what is a national GNP for some countries in her attempt to buy an office. Yeah, politics. Gotta love it. Gotta love the Republicans.

Who the fuck needs to earn $100M in a lifetime, let alone a single year?

The political process was slung a severe blow the day that the Supreme Court ruled that the dollar represented opinion covered by the 1st Amendment. But, hey, I'm still pissed about Reagan allowing multimedia megamonopolies.

And, I'm off topic ranting.

I don't care for the political door knockers. I care less for the religious ones.

Really sucks that the dweeb rattled your knob and got you scared. I would have answered with a bat, my bestest weapon eveh, followed by a Klonopin.

[Velvet Elvis]

The more organized candidates have lists of doors to knock on, voters who have voted a particular way in the past and they focus they effort on making sure that registered democrats and republicans remember to vote. Campaigns who know what they are doing pretty much take it for granted that 95% of people know how they are going to vote 3 weeks before an election and driving turnout is the goal, not changing minds.

I did a lot of that for OFA last cycle but I've been feeling too shitty to do much this time around.

[isis]

my great grandmother changed all her voicemail messages to french and german so that people would stop ringing her asking her to donate to their party. seems to have worked. note to self: learn another language.

[december_brigette]

Stacia:

you have that shit memorized!!!

OT: i had a dream i was at meg whitman's birthday party. wtf?

db