Back in the day, when I was young and exuberant for politics, I decided to find a campaign and help out in whatever way I could.

The first campaign I looked into was the party I wanted to help, but the candidate was just not to my liking.

I was actually kind of discouraged.

That had been a US House race, so I decided to go a little lower down the food chain.

I ended up finding a State Senate candidate I could get behind.

She was in her late 30’s/early 40’s and this was her first big campaign. Her district was large, but her core base was at the opposite end of the district from me so she really didn’t have many volunteers in my area.

I was involved in the final two months of the campaign.

I never made any phone calls, but I did knock on several thousand doors.

Repeatedly.

If a person wasn’t home then you would go back and back and back until you spoke to the person.

I spent hours and hours doing it.

Most of the time I was alone.

It was always easier if you were with someone, but there were not enough people helping to the point where they could afford to send us out in pairs.

When I say, “they” it was the local party office rather than a campaign manager for the candidate.

When you go door to door you really don’t know what the reaction will be.

The thing that struck me the most was that there was very little name recognition.

I don’t think her opponent had very much name recognition either.

I remember this rally that several “big name” politicians were set to speak.

They were from in and out of the state.

All I remember from that day was that it rained nonstop; no one came out; and I ended up eating about 100 tamales and drinking beer that was supposed to be for the crowd that never showed.

I remember that about once a week the candidate would show up and thank everyone for working.

A genuine thank you.

She would bring food.

She would always invite us to her house and cook for us.

I don’t remember hearing about any polls or anything like that.

I doubt they even polled anyone.

It was just knock and knock.

Others called and called.

The entire volunteer force was probably 10 and there were only 3 or 4 of us who were doing it almost full-time.

I remember on election day we called people and called more people and kept calling them until they told us they went and voted.

We went to polling places to try and get preliminary numbers.

Our candidate couldn’t really afford any kind of election night party so we all went to a party being hosted by someone higher on the food chain.

Our candidate didn’t come with us and no one really expected to hear the results of her race until late that night.

Two days later they finished counting.

She won by 39 votes.

Whenever someone says their vote doesn’t matter, I tell my story.

It is easy sometimes in California to be blase about some voting because many of the results are preordained.

But in the down ballot races where the total votes and margins between candidates is so small, every vote does count.

As for the candidate?

All of these years later she is in the same job and has never really been challenged since.

All it took was that first election.

All those doors and all those calls.

It was the only time I really ever felt like I made a tangible difference.

I don’t know if would have felt that way if she won by thousands of votes.

Because the margin was so narrow though, you go back and think about the people that you actually talked to or bugged enough until they went and voted.

The tamales were really good too.

Homemade.

I think it was the first time I had eaten a tamale.

Have never gone a week or two without eating them since.

Oh, one other thing.

The “big name” candidates brought in were basically a-holes.

One of the people brought in ran for President a couple of times but was in Congress and never did really well running for President.

Anyway, I specifically remember him coming in and asking who the candidate was and the name and then five minutes later giving a speech talking about how they had known her for years and blah blah.

Then he finished and asked what city they were going to next and what the candidate’s name was.

I’m just not sure it really does a whole lot of good.

Judith Zaffirini – first Mexican American woman elected to the Texas Senate
E.L. was born in Texas

Source: http://www.crazydaysandnights.net

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