Precinct walking.

Today I walked two precincts in Bernalillo County. Home of one of those hotly contested (ho-hum) so called "swing" seats, where the incumbent US House of Representatives Republican (Heather Wilson) is scrambling to give back to various charities all the (five-grand plus) money she gladly accepted without question from admitted internet pædophile, child molestor, and chair-of-the-Missing-and-Exploited-Children's-Caucus Mark Foley (R) in Congress.

The first precinct -- precinct 150, I believe -- is out in a drop-dead GORGEOUS recent "close-in" suburban development (over Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo land grant land right beside the river I believe) in the North Valley where apparently the residents were unaccustomed to being visited by canvassers at all, no doubt because the streets are so damn loopy -- literally -- that it's hard to walk 'em halfway sensibly. ("Time to head back", we agree, as we spend half an hour walking back to the car which at the point where we say it, is actually one half block away.) Just told most of 'em that "early voting started yesterday" and got thanked profusely with zero reservations and no exceptions by people who were glad from the depths of their hearts that we cared enough to even let 'em know.

*Everyone* we visited there seemed genuinely delighted and grateful that we bothered to show up st all and make sure that they knew where to go for early voting, and many had already voted. Lots of goofy loops and cul-de-sacs, but no problem. We covered the majority of that particular precinct, with a respectable (if not watertight) margin of error, and moved on.

But we *need* to go back to 150 and finish it up. It might mean the difference between winning or losing.

You want to know what campaign strategizing comes down to? Walk a precinct sometime with a partner. "Did we get enough, can we safely move on?"/"If we move on, will we be neglecting this precinct?"/"But isn't the next one completely saturated, might not our time be better spent here, 'mopping up'?" Questions like this back and forth sitting in our cars after walking around a crazy neighbourhood, deciding whether to move on or not. I have no doubt that some of the decisions that win or lose races are made all around the country in just such little meetings as this between two people not working for either candidate. Ultimately that's what it's all about.

I hate to think the race is *so* tight that it might be decided by the big barking dog running around protecting "his corner" who my walking partner managed with matchless grace to let us pass. She's one of those smallish women that big men like me tend to dismiss, yet who have powers we can not hope ever to display. In this case, she literally negotiated the territory with this dog that finally allowed us to go on, while I stood by completely motionless and impotent.

The other precinct, number 352, was in the heart of Nob Hill where we had to walk respectfully with very quiet steps, because the vast majority of people who live there, right by the University, have been so relentlessly innundateded by canvassers of all stripes over the last few weeks that for the most part they knew we were coming long before we ever came, and when we rang the bell, knew just to pretend they weren't home -- even if we saw them lounging around through their windows, in which case we respectfully put the flyer with the (*cough*corrupt*ahhem*)Bernalillo County Clerk's Office number (to find out early voting locations) between their screen doors and the frames of the screens, or on tables on their patios. Walking that neighbourhood with a clipboard in hand wasn't dangerous, by any means, but it wasn't exactly easy, either, however many houses we "hit". They just knew to avoid us. Lots of people got marked "not home" when in fact we knew they were just plain ignoring us to avoid wasting our time, just as well as theirs.

Too bad there wasn't an option on the lists we were looking at for "conspicuously ignoring". In 352 we got ignored sympathetically so often it hurts me to think EQNM will waste more money still on covering the area. Yet again. It's *already* been covered. A dozen times over.

EQNM has my kudos for coming up with a workable list of probable supportive voters, though in the spirit of constructive criticism, the next right thing to do might be to put more effort into precincts less intensely saturated than 352, than splitting things by pure statistics and time allotted to the task between precincts with *very* different demographics. We spent more time in 150 hitting fewer houses, but I have no doubt whatever that it did more good than covering *all* of 352, save perhaps one or two houses, by sheer luck.

Pecinct 150 was clearly more "parents of queers" with a handful of "retired queers" sprinkled in for good measure than "current active and already engaged queers". Being a step removed from the issues at hand, they were downright *grateful*, without exception, that we bothered showing up at all.

One super-elderly lady at the dead-end of a cul-de-sac had a Heather Wilson sign in her yard, and even a button on her dress when she answered the door, but still appreciated our coming by to talk about queer issues in the most general (and discrete) possible sort of way -- "vote for fairness" and all of that. I can only suspect she's from a family that's voted Republican since Lincoln, which just happened to have a much-beloved son turn out queer and therefore got onto EQNM's list somehow or other. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if she touted Heather publicly while quietly voting for Patsy Madrid. Such is the understated power of gay mens' mothers. Maybe we didn't change her mind. I have no illusions about that. But she *definitely* appreciated our bothering to visit her and make sure she knew where to vote.

In 352, on the other hand, we were walking the same day as someone from the Sierra Club, and found lots of Democratic Party literature already shoved into doors, and so I have no doubt we were the *third* bunch of mostly sympathetic canvassers visiting that very day. They already know how they're voting and will definitely vote, so let's leave 'em alone and concentrate our limited resources on outlying areas, like 150, where outcomes are not quite so certain and our presence is actively welcomed by *everyone*, given the sheer quality of the lists we're working with. Making one elderly Wilson voter see that we're not all sex-crazed monsters and really truly don't want to waste her time may be worth more, in the long run, than pestering all the faggots who vote anyway in all their tastefully-painted and eccentrically-landscaped bungalows in town.

"Yes, we give a rat's ass, thank you so much for voting", versus "yes, we're just yet another group trying to get you out to do something we know you're going to do already and please don't hate us enough for bothering you yet again that you don't bother voting at all".

I'd rather know damn well that the persons at 3502 Whatever Blvd. would vote for equal rights for queers even if they quietly lounge in the living room and can't be bothered in front of me pretending I'm not there than just hit random neighbourhoods. But trust me, I've been on the receiving end, and after a point, you're just wasting your time talking to people with signs in their yard for the candidates that you prefer from the top to the bottom of the ticket.

But good god, I almost felt downright Republican, we got so many positive responses, and so *very* few bad ones. And what few "bad" responses we got (all in 352) were so sympathetic to the underlying cause itself that their responses to us personally hardly mattered. They all sat on the board of EQNM or had already voted. But still, let's face it, we have got some kinks to iron out in terms of strategizing. We do not have the power of megachurches. We can't afford to waste our time.

In precinct 150, I have *no* doubt we made one valuable connection after another.

In precinct 352 I honestly believe we mostly wasted time covering already well-covered territory.

Worst case scenario? "Leave it there, we'll read it." Typically on a bench, and only in Precinct 352, where all the literature sitting there was for Democratic candidates, anyway.

There's only one third-party candidate on the ticket this election. David Bacon, for Public Regulation Commissioner.

That means "insurance stuff". I work in mental health billing. Lucky for me. I can, for once, still be all about third parties without undermining the least-worst candidates upticket. I can literally "vote my pocketbook" and "vote my conscience" at the same time, without flinching. David Bacon has my complete and total support.

For upticket races it's all two party bullshit. Wish it weren't so, but for the moment it makes my job a little easier (and a *lot* less distasteful -- if we had a *real* queer rights third-party candidates running upticket, I would *never* do this).

So the incumbent Heather Wilson (R) is apparently some sort of thinly closeted overgrown tomboy turned lipstick lesbian (forgive my crudeness, but I am nowhere near as well versed in the taxonomy of dykes as I seem to be with the infinite zoology of faggotry, doubtless in large part 'cause I never want to sleep with women). If this sounds evil on my part, again, I apologize. But more importantly, she *doesn't* respond to constituents' letters, emails, or calls, as a rule. She votes with Governor Bush something like 99% of the time, and has a *zero* rating on queer issues.

Meanwhile challenger Patsy Madrid (D) is the same fine human being who acting as Attorney General for the State of New Mexico blocked the same-sex marriages that started to happen in Santa Fe following what happened in San Francisco. She's been scrambling these past few months to put herself forth, ironically enough, as some sort of erstwhile champion of gay rights.

I wonder how many white candidates won widespread support from black voters in the south in the 'sixties who'd previously blocked their equal access to the polls under "Jim Crow" before running for higher office. I know it's not a perfect analogy but put the notion out there for consideration, imperfect as it is.

But Madrid is the lesser of two evils, and let's face it: it's *all* evil versus evil this election season, upticket.

Attorney General Madrid also failed to show up to an event this weekend at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (where I buy cigarettes) and thus flat-out lost the endorsement of the All-Pueblo Indian Council. Her loss.

It's not an easy choice, by any means. I'm *very* tempted to vote a blank ballot in the first congressional district, this year. But ultimately it's more about Iraq than anything else. Representative Wilson supports Governor Bush wholeheartedly in whatever he does. Attorney General Madrid seems at least to have some vaguely inept inkling that things in Iraq aren't going completely and totally right. And I'd rather have someone in congress with a mixed record (at best) on issues I care about, who might respond to constituents' letters, than someone who's downright infamous for being inaccessible.

Since there's no third party candidate in the race this season, it seems I have little choice but to literally hold my nose.