11.02.04 - 1:21 p.m.

John Greenleaf Whittier's "The Poor Voter on Election Day."

To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

We are going to win this election. We are going to win it today - in the polls - and tomorrow, at the bar. We cannot allow the White House to be stolen again. It's not going to happen. Every other... fifteen minutes or so, I get distracted and start trolling for interesting election tidbits, and then I find some testimonial from another Kerry supporter - their experience at the polls - and I start getting misty eyed and wish that I hadn't voted early, I wish I could go to the polls today and vote, damnit.

Though, that would've cut into my time, otherwise. I was up at 5 a.m., and the sky outside my bedroom window was velvet dark. Morning Edition blared on the radio - and I rolled over, furiously searching for a few more minutes of sleep. I didn't sleep well last night - I tossed and turned, anxiety percolating in my limbs. Over and over: flop flop flop, until - not even morning, but pre-morning - I woke up, showered, and headed out for a day of last-minute campaigning and distracted work.

It was a gorgeous morning: not quite sunrise, clear, with a saturated blue sky and the moon a glowing pendant in the southwest. The sun rose - or, crept over the horizon. In hilly country like this, sunrise is often sneaky if you're in the shadow of a valley. Atop the hill - where I live - the horizon glowed like fire, but I didn't see the sunrise.

The KE staffers this morning claimed to have internal polls showing Kerry with a 1 point lead in West Virginia - and we have had heavy early voting turnout. I voted weeks ago, but my confidential informants tell me that there have been long lines at many local polling places - this despite 7000+ early votes cast in the county.

This morning I was up hours and hours before I'm usually up, and we spent much of the morning waving signs on the corner of a major intersection in town, which is also host to a local elementary school that functions as a polling place. In WV, you cannot campaign within 300 feet of a polling place, and it was our understanding that the corner of the intersection closest to the polling place was off limits, while the other three corners were allowed. There were several signs for Republican candidates on one of the three corners.

Around 8:15-8:30 - when most of us (including me) were ready to go and start GOTV or go back to work (me - back to work) - a Sheriff's deputy pulled up and told us that the county clerk's office had had complaints that we were too close to the polling place. We referred him to the "campaign limit" sign on the opposite corner, and asked that he go talk to the poll workers. It took him a LONG TIME to go talk to the poll workers because he had to walk half-way around the school. When he returned, around 8:45, he told us that we had to move because the 300 feet started from the nearest corner of the school, not from the entrance to the polling place - allegedly according to the poll workers.

I asked if he was going to remove the signs that were within 300 feet of the polling station, but he said that he was not going to do that, that it was the responsibility of the poll workers. The folks at headquarters encouraged us to remain where we were because they were checking the letter of the law, but I had to get to work - as did most of the rest of us - and we couldn't stay. The deputy was quite nice, but I think both he and the poll workers were wrong.

Note that were there not because the polling place was there, but rather because it is a major intersection that hundreds of people pass every morning. The school has its own parking lot, and most people voting there park there. Only two people who were walking to vote there passed us to get there. We were catty-corner, across two major, four-lane streets from the school.

We moved a large sign for the Democratic candidate for county commissioner to an empty lot, which had to satisfy the 300 feet requirement since it was filled with signs. We did not touch the Republican campaign signs, which were closer to the school than we were.

We did have a great response from many drivers - people in pick-up trucks, and people in little old buckets, and people in SUVs, people in BMWs. We're going to win this campaign.

We're going to win it if I have to drag every last voter out of every last nook and cranny. WVa polls are open until 7:30, and I'm leaving work at 4:30 to finish out the day GOTV.