At Kerry-Edwards headquarters last week, the seniors were sadly shaking their heads because an absentee ballot had not reached the man in hospice care in time. His dying wish was to cast a vote against President Bush, and if only he had signed the ballot before he died, it would have counted.
God forbid that should happen to one of them.
So they stream by the hundreds into the office here, volunteers in their seventies and eighties, die-hard Democrats, many of them Jewish, still irritated about the famous Palm Beach County butterfly ballot of 2000. Some estimate that the confusing ballot caused a couple thousand of their comrades to vote for Pat Buchanan when they meant to support their Joey, vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, and they are out to avenge all that has happened since. They tick off the war, the economy, Social Security, prescription drug benefits, homeland security, education and the man in the Oval Office, whom they regard with suspicion for a perceived lack of intellectual rigor. They don't talk that much about John Kerry.
Victor Villandre, 65, a retired high school physics teacher from Long Island, is the office's volunteer coordinator. "Those people," he says, waving a hand at the dozens of gray heads huddled over television tray tables, making calls, "are the patriots. They really love their country, and they are afraid that this is their last chance to take it back."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49755-2004Oct20.htmlI don't know why, but this article really cheered me up. I am feeling tired from all the GOTV work, but if people in their 90's can hang tough, then I guess I can, too.
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