Flipping the Tenth: The penultimate weekend

When I came home on Saturday after canvassing in Virginia's Tenth Congressional District, working to unseat two-term Congresswoman Barbara Comstock from this seat held by the GOP for four decades, I walked in my house to the news that the worst attack on Jews in American history had happened even while I was knocking on doors to put a check on Trump.  In this political climate of hatred and divisiveness driven by constant odious comments from the top, now realized in murderous actions by lunatics inspired by such rhetoric, I knew I had to go west to canvass in the tenth again on Sunday.

The campaign HQ of Comstock's democratic opponent, State Senator Jennifer Wexton, was humming.  Delegates Jennifer Boysko and Kathleen Murphy were there to knock on doors for the candidate.  I received a list of 43 houses with 60 voters to go contact in a subdivision full of closed end blocks emanating off a windy main road.

The block long neighborhoods were full of houses displaying American flags, vehicles sporting Tea Party license plates, and barking dogs in yards and houses signaling that a stranger was on the block.  I always went to the end of each cup-de-sac and then worked my way back towards my car, knocking on the designated doors as I backtracked.  I generally got a favorable response, as there were several voters in households on my list who were motivated to vote the democratic slate, seemingly as a negative reaction to the president with Comstock acting as his surrogate on the ballot.

The only overtly negative response I got was at one house where I was speaking with a 20 year-old listed voter when his father came to the porch and intervened, saying the household knew the positions of the candidates and he'd already voted in response to their positions on partial-birth abortions.  His glare told me that he was not a Wexton supporter and I asked his son if that was his position too.  The young man announced that he was not voting because of all the "noise" out there and I thanked them both for speaking with me and walked away, wondering if I had just started a war in that household or perhaps inadvertently put a vote, the son's, in the Comstock column when his hard-visaged father got through with him.

Vote on November 6th!

    

Flipping the Tenth in Virginia

Twice before I had gone far west on I-66 in Virginia to canvass for State Senator Jennifer Wexton, a democrat running against two-time republican incumbent Congresswoman Barbara Comstock in the Tenth Congressional District, a safe republican district for four decades that stretches from McLean to West Virginia, prompted by the sham Kavanaugh hearings and his bogus confirmation. Wexton is ahead in the polls, seemingly safely, due to anti-Trumpism that percolates through this educated and affluent district, especially in its furtherest east parts, but the polls have tightened, and the president's rhetoric, especially lately, has created a climate of hatred and division in the country, culminating in more than a dozen bombs being sent by an extreme Trumpite to journalists, Jews and democratic politicians, that has to be addressed by patriotic Americans, so I went down I-66 again on Saturday to knock on doors to ensure that the tenth flips and real change can begin.

I received a dedicated list of 41 doors to knock on in an large apartment complex of tall buildings encircling a central interior parking lot in Sterling, about 15 miles west of the beltway. The first thing I noticed as I walked alone into the inward facing series of long, fortress-like 4-story structures almost touching each other like a laager square, was the stairs I would be walking up on the outside of each building to reach the top floor--40. Two days later my calfs are still sore from walking up and down the equivalent of 108 flights of stairs but I knocked on every door except for those two or three designated doors in the two buildings that were clearly marked, No Solicitation.

The persons I spoke with in this complex were almost exclusively motivated to vote democratic, although some said they were undecided on the congrssional level because they did not know who Jennifer Wexton was, so I left behind with them a placard outing her positions. Some said their primary issues were education or health care, but surprisingly several said their main issue was immigration. This is an answer I heard more often when I was canvassing further west, in the predominantly republican sections of the state, in an exclusionary and fearful tone, but in this complex with many recent arrivals to the country, it was a different take on immigration, one that bespoke of welcoming those coming behind them and bringing their expertise and skills and drive to make America even greater, as the waves of preceding immigrants did.

I felt it was a 3-hour stint well done, and agreeably received, and I drove home blaring a Doors album on the CD player and happily went inside my house to turn on the news and relax. In my face again was the current state of America, a synagogue shot up in Pittsburgh, and I knew I would be heading west on the morrow again to try to make a difference in America beginning with adding a democratic seat to congress to start presenting a check on our wannabe strongman at top who is busy sowing division and discord and wrecking our country and its standing in the community of nations.

Why, how nice of you to call me, doctor...

The phone rang and although I didn't recognize the number, it was a Virginia area code so I answered it.  It was my eye doctor, an ophthalmologist, the one who is going to be operating on me next week to remove the oil from my eye which has finally healed from the two retina detachment surgeries I underwent in July and August.

I am anxiously looking forward to having that third operation, despite another potentially painful surgery and onerous recovery period, because my oil-filled eye is driving me crazy with its occasional white flare bursts inside it, the lack of clarity of vision from it and my inability to see much in very low-light situations where all distant lights, such as street lamps or approaching headlights, look like blurry kaleidoscopes.  But I was suspicious as the doctor and I exchanged phone pleasantries, and I waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Sir, I am sorry to tell you but I had an accident over the weekend and I broke my arm.  I must postpone your surgery for eight weeks or more until it heals, although this time period will not have a deleterious affect upon your eye in the lest."

I earnestly wished him a speedy and full recovery as we ended our call.  As I hit the call-end button, I suddenly became very depressed.

Trolling each other

The very last house I knocked at in my canvassing over the weekend was an interesting end to my two days of efforts.  On Sunday, after three hours of knocking on doors, I spent ten minutes trying to locate the very last last address on my dedicated list of houses given to me at the democratic HQ.

My tenacity in finding the house on a windy cut-de-sac was rewarded with this amusing interaction.  The man who answered listened to my standard spiel about Jennifer Wexton, the democrat running for congress against the republican incumbent Barbara Comstock and at the end of it said, "I'm not going to vote for Wexton but since you said she is interested in what issues are of concern to voters, tell her my primary concern is putting even more great justices on the supreme court like Brett Kavanaugh!"

I could tell by how intently he was watching my face as he spoke and the rising emphasis of his tone as he said great justices and Brett Kavanaugh that he was trolling me.  I think he was hoping to get a rise out of me with his statement of adoration for an alleged sexual assailant.

I dutifully wrote down his main issue in the space by his address on my list.  "So you like beer, then?" I asked.

How Republicans used to be

On Sunday when I was reaching out to 40 households in an affluent subdivision from a dedicated list handed to me at the Jennifer Wexton campaign HQ, I knocked on the door of a spacious house in the middle of my three-plus hour stint of canvassing alone in the Tenth Congressional District where State Senator Wexton is attempting to unseat incumbent Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, referred to as "Barbara Trumpstock" at more than one household I spoke with.  An elderly man came out of the garage and asked if he could help me.

I spoke with him in the driveway about Wexton as he surveyed the perspiration streaming down my face on the humid day.  When my initial spiel had run down, he said in a friendly tone, "I'm a pretty firm Republican, but I can offer you a glass of water or a cold soda."

I  was thunderstruck.  No one else at 70 households had offered me refreshment in the two days I had been canvassing.

I thanked him for his kind offer and for speaking with me and went on to the next address on my list.  That's how Republicans, and Democrats, used to be, kindly to each person they interacted with.

Violence

On Sunday I engaged in that hallowed and hoary American political tradition of canvassing, for State Senator Jennifer Wexton who is running to unseat incumbent Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock next month in Virginia's 10th Congressional District.  I knocked on 40 doors specified by a dedicated list handed to me by Wexton's campaign HQ in Sterling, and spoke with at least one passerby on the sidewalk and obtained a pledge card from him to vote in next month's election.

It was interesting in at least three ways, demonstrated by the response I received at three different doors, the first door I knocked on, at the most affluent-looking house in the middle of my three hour stint canvassing alone in that particular subdivision, and the very last door I knocked on after searching through the labyrinth of winding roads and culture-de-sacs for ten minutes at the end of my shift to find it.  The first door was the most memorable, bringing forth what's increasingly been wrong in America in the last two years as encouraged by the paramount rhetoric of the times using terms like "mob rule," "enemies of the people," and "evil democrats"--violence.

At the end of Falling Rock Terrace, for my first contact I walked up the driveway and walkway to a townhouse in a short row of cookie-cutter such residences, and knocked.  The door opened and a whisker-stubbled male face and torso protruded out.

"Hi, my name is . . .  ."  The door closed.  I continued, "I'll leave this card of information behind for you then."  The door exploded open and the man boiled out of the house and advanced on me

"What did you say, motherfucker?" he said in an elevated tone.  Before I could answer he said, his poking fingers jabbing to within a half-inch of my eyes, "Get off my property before I shoot you."

"I'm leaving, but watch your hands," I said.  I didn't want to get jabbed in my eyes or face or anywhere as I turned to leave.

"Bitch!" he called me as I turned away.  He punched me in the shoulder.

"You just assaulted me," I said, meaning of course that he had also committed battery upon me, but many people use the term assault to describe both the threat and the physical attack.

"Call the cops then!" he said as I walked away.  I didn't, because I had at least three hours of political work ahead of me that I was more energized than ever to complete and I didn't want to get bogged down in a he-said he-said matter for hours or weeks.  Later, at campaign HQ, I made sure to bring this particular address to the attention of the persons there and pointedly told them to remove the address from all of their lists because it was a dangerous, potentially lethal place to approach.

My heart racing, I walked across the parking square and continued my canvassing.  I got a better reaction at the townhouse across the square, where the man who answered chatted with me for a minute or two.  I thanked him for speaking with me and said that his was a better reception than the townhouse across the way, where the occupant had threatened to shoot me.  He asked, "You mean over there where the white van is in the driveway?"  "Yes, over there," I answered.

"It's good to know," he said.  "I always knew those were strange people."  My dedicated list had indicated that there was a female at that address, in addition to the man who assaulted me. " I've never been able to get a handle on them," he added.

I finished approaching my other 38 listed addresses on this hot and humid day, drove back to HQ and turned in my notes, which closely detailed especially my first contact.  Next post: A kindly encounter, like the way it used to be.

Columbus Day 2018

The Columbus Day holiday has a changing identity.  My neighbors are from Bolivia and they hate the holiday, as they blame Columbus for the destruction of the indigenous original culture of the Americas.  My sister in Columbu, Ohio, says that much of the city doesn't celebrate it and the city is considering removing the statue of Christopher Columbus at city hall.

Because it was a holiday, I went to my local gourmet pizzeria at noon for lunch.  It was crowded already, with no available tables, but I carefully looked through the entire restaurant for anyone I knew, or that might be of the right demographic of a male in his late twenties or early thirties, and no such prospects appeared unfortunately.  I was of course looking to see if any of my kids had come to start getting on with the rest of our lives after a decade and a half of total silence following the divorce, when, as young and malleable children, due to an aggressive and  naked case of classic Parental Alienation Syndrome, they took the side of their mother, who has every attribute of her mother, covert narcissism and extreme self-centeredness and selfishness.

I took a seat at the bar, where I could watch everyone entering the door, but after no service  for about fifteen minutes, due to the busyness at the business, I left.  I went to the grocery store, bought my favorite rising crust frozen pizza and an oil can of a beer, and thirty minutes later enjoyed a lunch of a 3-meat pizza and a beer.

It was delicious and enjoyable, far superior to dining with the empty chair at the restaurant, as I have on most holidays for coming up on a score of years.  I am sorry for each of those three young men (and the one wife I know about), as I can't conceive persons acting thusly, easily and freely casting a parent and entire families (my family) out in this short life with hardly an inward glance.  Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?  Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times times seven.  Matthew 18:21-22.

Flipping the Tenth

The GOP, led by Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, its soulless coldblooded undertaker, busily kept spading the Great Republic underground by putting on the Supreme Court a second sexual predator, making two on its male contingent of six, counterpoised by its three female justices all appointed by democrats, to go along with the faux justice the republicans added last year, occupier of the purloined seat stolen from the popularly elected President Obama the year before.  Depressing, yeah, but don't get mad, get even.  Into the breach, again.

So I drove 30 miles out to Manassas Park at noon to canvass for state senator Jennifer Wexton, who is running for Congress in the Tenth District opposing Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, a rare Republican incumbent in Northern Virginia.  After 5 minutes of group training, I was given a script, a tally sheet, a stack of campaign literature, and a dozen sheets of dedicated names and addresses of prospective democrats in a neighborhood.  An exclusive neighborhood full of half-million dollar homes 30 miles further west in Haymarket.  Future Congresswoman Wexton.

Finding the locale of winding roads and cul-de-sacs in this well-manicured neighborhood solely by dint of my car's Garmin, I spent about three hours canvassing the area alone, knocking on doors at about thirty specified addresses, finishing half my sheets.  The results were  surprising, especially given that this was definitely enemy territory for angry democrats.  Training.

Not so fast, this is what my limited sampling revealed to me at least, and it seems to me at least that the Donald's base is starting to fray, in educated, suburban coastal regions at least.  And I didn't experience anything but courteous encounters.  The target subdivision.

All tallies are approximate:

Knocks on doors:  30
No answer, whether somebody was home or not (left rolled-up literature on doorknob):  15
Self-declared Republicans definitely voting "independent" (for Wexton/Senator Tim Kaine):  3 (two of those households had couples who were both voting blue) (two of those households were minority occupants)
Household where the male was voting red and the female was voting blue:  1
Household where the male occupant was returning to a "straight party line vote" (blue) for the first time in a long time:  1
Definite No to Wexton:  1
The rest Undecided still, some asked for literature, many stated they would vote for Kaine at least.
Issues briefly discussed or stated as important:  Second Amendment, 3 (once strongly); Right to Life, 1; Local Traffic (it's horrible out there!), 1; coddling criminals (a smear campaign against Wexton, a former prosecutor), 1.

Some Notes:
The number of Undecideds for Wexton who stated they would vote for Kaine is probably due to two reasons--lack of knowledge about Wexton or her positions; and the ballot alternative to Democrat Tim Kaine is Republican Corey Stewart, a Stars and Bars waving faux-Confederate (he's from Minnesota) who is described in some circles as a racist.  The Rebel Heritage bit doesn't necessarily play well in Northern Virginia.
One passerby walking his dog signed a Pledge to Vote card after a discussion about traffic; guns; and criminal defendants.
I was going to engage from the sidewalk one man working in his driveway about Wexton reaching out to her constituents to see what issues were important to them, as an opener, till I saw the Comstock sticker on his parked BMW.  I walked on to my next listed address nearby instead.  It was the only openly partisan sign I saw in the subdivision.
Three persons reached out in a spontaneous handshake after our brief discussion.

Going forward

The Republicans have unconstitutionally packed the US Supreme Court via the soulless Mitch McConnell's cynical manipulations (Merrick Garland), with a big assist from the out-of-the-mainstream Federalist Society (which scrubs judge candidates till they're certain they're off the far right end of the political spectrum) and the Russians, who gave us our current faux president.  The GOP has delegitimized the high court for two generations or more; packing it with a lying, besotted, temperamentally unfit conspiracy theorist, a revenge-seeking partisan party hack accused of multiple sexual predation, Kavanaugh; a faux justice occupying a purloined seat (thanks, Uncle Mitch!), Gorsuch; and a serial sexual harasser, the weird silent sphinx, Thomas.  The right end of the bench is so heavily weighted down with illegitimate jurists that American jurisprudence has been sent back to the sordid days of Plessy v. Ferguson or even Dred Scott v. Sanford.

What am I going to do about the re-emergence of these sordid times dragging down our great nation?  A long time ago, I dropped out of college to work full-time on the George McGovern campaign against the criminal tenure of Richard Nixon for president, and McGovern, a fine man and a war hero, lost in an historical debacle.  Nixon resigned less than two years later in disgrace.

Two years ago, the choice between presidential candidates was so stark, one qualified and the other totally and obviously unfit as well as being a narcissistic fraud, that I worked long and hard for the Clinton campaign, just in case I ever had to say to my children or grandchildren--Don't blame me.  Thanks to FBI Director James Comey and the Russians, the failed businessman won over the Secretary of State and now he and his family mafia are driving the future of this country, and perhaps the world, into the ground in their drive to secure personal wealth and power.

Yesterday I donated money to the future opponent of Senator Susan Collins of Maine and to the current Libertarian opponent of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both of whom voted for Kavanaugh, and today I am going to Manassas to canvass for the democratic opponent to Republican incumbent Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, who is in the pocket of that GOP affiliate arm, the NRA.  Later I'll research donating to Senator Ted Cruz's opponent in Texas, to the Democratic senatorial candidate in Arizona, to the candidate opposing the odious Congressman Devin Nunnes, and further working for candidate Jennifer Wexton who is Comstock's opponent.  I want my country, and fairness, back.

Gloomy

The year is three-quarters over.  It's been a terrible year.

The country is broken and our Republic is dying.  The soulless Mitch McConnell, a democracy-destroying constitution-shredding republic-wrecker, is busy turning our country into a kleptocracy with conditions more akin to Louis XVI's France than to Eisenhower's America.  Read A Tale of Two Cities for what we are rapidly becoming, then read Lincoln's second inaugural address for what we still could be.

Fifty-one senators represent 18% of the American population, exposing a glaringly unrepresentative flaw in the Founding Father's vision.  This gives absolute power of governance to the Rasputin-like McConnell who impeded the popularly elected President Obama at every turn, has enabled the faux president Trump in all his corruption and monomania, and has stacked the Supreme Court unconstitutionally (remember Merrick Garland?) so that that formerly august body has been thrown, perhaps irretrievably, out of whack.  Women will lose control of their bodies to religious ideologies and pinch-faced men, corporations will further reign supreme, the environment will be even more ravaged, gerrymandering will run further rampant and the flood into politics of hidden money, both domestic and illegally by foreigners, such as the flow of money to the Trump campaign in 2016 from Russian oligarchs through the NRA, will so corrupt our republic that it will steal our democracy from the working stiffs, the rightful owners of it, along with their futures.

Things aren't any less bleak personally.  I've lost 20% of my retirement savings this year, and all anticipated travel has been postponed, perhaps permanently.  Worse, my eye surgeries have left me feeling almost out-of-body as I heal, with at least one more eye operation on the horizon.  I don't drive after dusk, it's so hard to see in the dark, and my vision out of my oil-filled eye isn't so clear, for sure.  The occasional sudden white flare bursts within that eye are driving me mad.

A cousin of mine died, another one suffered the same eye surgery I had, her husband suffered emergency organ removal surgery, both operations thankfully successful, a boyhood friend suffered lower spine fusion surgery even while he lives all alone in a new city following his recent divorce, a close friend suffered a fall and awaits surgery following it, a sister has lung cancer, and a brother sent me an unhinged effin-laced email screed which I perceived as a potentially lethal personal threat, and in which he unpleasantly and pointedly asked how my kids were (he knows I haven't heard from any of them in 15 years).  But he went to Yale from his elite prep school, and we all have seen recently what very special people those type of entitled, besotted Yale alumni are.

The last thing bothered me a lot, as my estrangement from my three sons, a result of The Divorce, is tragic and taught me that life is too short to act permanently and without measure upon petty personal grievances, no matter how great a slight a rational person might fancy them to be, then or now.

I'm getting on, and soon enough I'll be moving on, undoubtedly.  I hope to see any or all of my children before then, and even the daughter-in-law I know about, so that we can start living our familial life going forward, one day at a time.  I have always been available for them for all of their three decades of life.  Monday's a holiday, Columbus Day.  I'll be at the regular place for lunch then at noon.  ;-)

The District-Maryland-Virginia

Washington, besides being a swamp that needs to be "drained" (of money?), is a city that is filled with moment and beauty everywhere.  The view from the Tidal Basin.

The Mall is a national treasure.  The Washington Monument dominates the Mall.

The Smithsonian museum system--most admissions are free--is a draw for the region and is unparalleled anywhere else. The plane that ended World War II hangs from the ceiling at the Dulles Air and Space Museum.

I love living in the DMV.  Locals understand about tourists and don't let their idiosyncrasies get in the way of welcoming these treasured visitors to our wonderful city.