Registering Voters

Over Labour Day Weekend I went out to register voters and stump for the Obama campaign.My role in registering voters was standing on the side of a thoroughfare (preferably in the shade), holding a Register To Vote Here clipboard in one hand and an Obama sign in the other.

(N.B. Honestly, I’d have much rather registered voters without making a political statement since I think it’s important that everyone be registered & active voters, no matter their political views. Cursory googling didn’t bring up any opportunities to volunteer to register voters out of the goodness of your heart. All the listing were from political campaigns or shady-seeming businesses with market-research-approved cool names that paid you to register young voters. Enriching someone else while you register voters seemed much more reprehensible than shilling for a politician.)

So there I was, registering voters at the Bumbershoot Music Festival. I stood on a high-traffic spot between the EMP and the Space Needle with my clipboard and Obama sign. There were scads of people, and many were in a talkative mood.

Most of the crowds were vocal Obama supporters. There were also a number of people who said they were McCain voters, a few bitter Hillary backers, and one guy that said, “I’ve got two words for you: RON PAUL!” I didn’t ask anyone who they were voting for, these all came as responses to my sign or the question “Are you registered to vote?”

On a half-dozen occasions residents of other countries came up to talk about Obama’s policies. They all said that they’d vote for him if they could. The foreigners were the only people interested in discussing policy.

Those were nice interactions. Then there were a number of unpleasant ones. Here’s my unofficial tally:

People that told me to fuck myself: 2
“Fuck yourself.”
“Obama? Fuck yourself.”

People that called me a faggot: 4
“Faggot.” (x2)
“Oh, you faggot.”
“Hey! Hey! Why are you holding a sign that says, ‘I am a faggot’?”

People that told me to fuck myself and called me a faggot: 1
“Fuck you, faggot.”

People that brought up assassination: 1
Guy: “He won’t win, you know.”
Me: “Well, you have to try.”
Guy: “No, they won’t let him. Someone’ll kill him first.”
He didn’t seem like he was making a threat or excited about the idea. Just stating a fact. It was a really creepy and sort of sad moment.

The insane & bizarre: Countless. A representative example:
A clean-cut guy who looked in his early fifties walked by with three towheaded kids. As they breezed by he pointed at the Obama sign.
“You know, he may be the anti-Christ.” He smiled, so I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. I figured I’d give an ambiguous response with a smile.
“Well, anyone could be the anti-Christ.”
The guy stopped, stood in thought for a second, and then walked back to me.
“Yes, that’s very true. But he’s more likely to be the anti-Christ.”
He wasn’t smiling.

People that called me a communist: 3. Each of the people who called me a communist did so while walking by me very, very quickly.
Communism might have been on their mind since there actually was a communist group about 250 feet away from me, resplendent in red and selling copies of their newspaper and the Manifesto.
I found out about the communists from a really tall guy selling copies of his mix tape.
“Hey, brother, we need to talk. I study advertising and it’s important to get the first strike, you want to be the first person that people see.”
“Okay.”
“And down there, by the street, you got people holding up signs that say, ‘Obama: The Change You Believe In–And The Change You Get’. You gotta get down there and spread the good word. You gotta push the brand.”
“There isn’t woman from the campaign down there with a sign?”
“No. Just communists.”
“Thanks, I’ll move down there.”
“Here, take one of these with you.” He put one of his CD’s in my pocket and I started worrying that he’d put weed in with it.

It turned out the communists were from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, an honest-to-god Maoist organization run by Bob Avakian, whose hobbies are grasping for infamy and ignoring reality. (Example: Mr. Avakian believes that there wasn’t a famine in China after Mao’s idiotic Great Leap Forward. He also invests large amounts of time in making himself out to be a free speech martyr.) He operates with the same the megalomaniacal style and disregard for reason as Lyndon LaRouche and his proto-fascist nonsense or George Lincoln Rockwell’s silly American Nazism (of which the first component seemed to be corn cob pipes; one can only assume that was what made the movement “American”).

One of the Revolutionary Communists came over to talk me out of voting or registering voters. Voting, he told me, is a rigged game that can’t create change. He asked (rhetorically) if I could give one example of voters electing a leader that created radical (Marxist) change to a political system. I brought up Hugo Chávez. The guy didn’t want to talk to me anymore after that, although he did make a half-hearted attempt to argue Chávez isn’t actually a Marxist.

Anyway, working Bumbershoot was an interesting experience and I had the privilege of helping about two dozen voters get registered.
If you are not a registered voter or have moved recently, check out Google for information on voter registration in your State. In some States it still isn’t too late to register for the November elections. If you live or work abroad VoteFromAbroad.org can give you the information you need. Remember, if you’re a registered absentee voter in your home state you can have friends or family back home send your ballot to you. Even if you don’t buy into either of the major candidates, please vote. There are some really good alternative candidates out there that would love your support.

Postscript: The Obama sign that far and away got the most positive reactions was a crappy printout of Shepard Fairey’s “Progress” poster. Many, many people wanted to know who made the poster (you already know the answer) and where to buy “a big one like that” (answer: you can’t because they’re sold out). If you want to buy one, I think eBay is your only recourse, but an original sells for hundreds (if not thousands). Any print that’s unsigned is almost certainly a bootleg. Considering that Fairey printed the posters to support the campaign, it seems like bad sportsmanship to give a bunch of money to a third party for one. Instead, you can print out one of your own computer (official .pdf file) or buy stickers of the print and share your admiration of Sen. Obama with everyone.