by Larry 9 Replies latest jw friends
I'm helping a friend run for state senate and we are starting to gather petitions in order for him to be on the ballot. I start tonight, but I can't help think how this is going to be similar to field service :-(
Anyway, what are the up's and downs of gathering petitions.
Thanks - Larry :)
Larry, when you participated in field service it was not by choice. I think that is a big difference.
Blondie
Back in 63 I worked on a political campaign as an assigment for a Political Science class in college. I gathered signatures for a conservative Democrat who eventually went on to win the election. It was a lot of fun. Had no problem asking people to sign even if they were republicans. They weren't asked to vote for my man, just realize that should their candidate loose, they would know that someone of good quality was serving. Worked 99% of the time, but then being a handsome young devil, the housewives couldn't resist....:-}
carm
lol my hubby a jws, just did a political "thing". he signed a petition so we can try again to vote our town "wet" instead of 'dry", which it has always been thank u very much to the baptist church.When it comes to beer he can suddenly become political.
Behind the scenes, I used to edit/draft speeches. That was an experience. It made me realize what went on behnd the scenes when a candidate steps up to speak. More than their words and ideas are coming out of their mouth.
To me it seems the next step up from voting. I am especially impressed with the congressional rep in my area. Who knows what the future holds for this faded JW.
Blondie
I didn't know that they had a congressional represtative for Cornwall,England!
It is amazing, you can take a citizen out of the US, and no matter where they live they are still represented in the US. A good example are people in the military.
Getting signatures wasn't as bad as I thought. I started working on getting signature for the past couple of nights. I went out with the candidate, shook hands and got signatures. But the real test was this morning (6:00am) at the ferry terminal where thousands of commuters board the ferry. It started out slow, but it picked up by 7:40am. My wife and the other women got double the amount of signatures us males got - Hmmm I wonder why :) I saw a few JDubs in the process, my wife even went up to a few and said hi - Of course they wouldn't dare speak to me.
We passed our goal for the morning and are ahead of schedule. But at times I felt like I was in street work, disturbing people's little personal space before they get to work. Oh well, that's the only way to gather signatures, and the candidate that works the hardest usually wins.
Peace - LL :)
So far, about the most I've done politically is write lots of letters. Next month I'll be helping staff a booth for Planned Parenthood during a street fair in our area. Besides handing out information we'll be registering voters. This may out me as an apostate!
Emma
I worked for the local "eeeeeeeeeeeeevil" Republican in my fomer district. It was during this time that a latino college kid and member of MeCHA called me a "traitor of la raza" (la raza means the people or the race in Spanish). My response is for another time and place.
Needless to say the candidate was elected and holds a very high post in the Republican leadership in Congress.
Now living in L.A. proper I simply won't do any work for the Republican candidtaes because they don't have a chance to win (heavily Democratic district).
However, I did gather signatures to recall Gov. Davis. That was easy, because most of the people wanted him out in order to vote for Cruz Bustamonte.
LABD
