The Crossed Pond

Hi.

We arrived in New Hampshire last night, after a very very hectic last week of last minute brushfires (some bonfires) that needed putting out, including a lot of freakouts on all our parts. Volunteers have been trickling into New Hampshire for over a month now; the last two days has been more or less like some political God shot a starter pistol over our heads. We were not just expecting that, we were hoping for it, but the sudden swell of volunteers appearing still seemed to take us all by surprise. Raw numbers are at this point impossible to come by. My little organization (Kari and I, this one) brought in two or three hundred directly or indirectly, almost all of whom appear to be solely interested in working for Dr. Paul; the larger organizational effort I’m a part of brought in double or triple that. But on the whole, the number of out-of-state volunteers coming in working for the Ron Paul campaign full time already has to be counted in the thousands. By this weekend it will be just silly.

I thank Christ that I confined myself to bringing people here, not with organizing their activities once arrived. Say a small prayer for those folks, whose brains will likely turn to quivvering masses of green jello by Sunday. They have a cadre of terrific, incredibly competent folk: James Forsythe, Vijay Boypati, Roxi Collinson, Chris Lawless, just to name a few. And those are just the ones doing this purely on a volunteer basis, just the ones I know well.

New Hampshire at this time of year is already thick with political signage for all candidates, mostly lots of small yard signs on road medians and in front of most of the houses (I see a lot of McCain and Obama). The difference is, for every single road sign of EVERY candidate, there is a small group of 2-3 Ron Paul supporters holding a 15 foot sign. The streets and highways here are positively littered with every kind of Ron Paulmobile imaginable. At the time of this writing, you cannot cross Concord without there being a Ron Paul supporter (very visible), usually a small handful of them, every twenty yards, no shit. For miles. At least in this neck of the woods, I cannot concieve that there is ANY resident who does not encounter the name a hundred times a day.

Campaign headquarters will make your head spin. It’s difficult to get in; ever see that crappy comedy scene done a thousand times of too many people trying to get in a door and all of them getting stuck? That’s campaign HQ, literally. It takes five minutes to walk in the door. Once you’re in, it’s shoulder to shoulder in a relatively cramped office space. Rows and rows of phones being manned by supporters, organizers grabbing small parties of stragglers, forming units out of them like they were soldiers separated from their companies in a war zone, and sending them somewhere to do this thing or that. I spent about 20 minutes inside and had to flee to get some fresh (8 degrees Farenheit) air (have to stand in two feet of snow to get it though). If there is a New Hampshire resident that doesn’t get a personal phone call from the campaign, I will be surprised. If there is a likely Republican or Undeclared voter who does not get their door knocked on I will be surprised.

The campaign could have hired 300 paid staff members for New Hampshire alone and it would not have been money wasted.

And every supporter I’ve met so far is—as has been impressing Rojas—smart, dedicated, willing to do whatever they’re told, and most surprising to me, by now, seasoned. Everybody is working as ambassadors. Admittedly, with this big of a last minute drive, there is a very strong sense of it being a barely controlled clusterfuck (controlled just the same!), but right now, everybody is patient, everybody is happy, everybody is polite, and everybody is working their asses off.

No clue what all this nets us, but it’s a sight to behold. The volunteer army for Ron Paul out here dwarves any of the other campaigns, and to a person, there is simply no matching their enthusiasm, not even close.