My Man Mitch

Lucky you: two blog entries for the price of one today!! :-) Thought I'd help stimulate the local blog economy. Um, yeaaaah. Kinda worthless since only about 3.5 of you ever really read this.

Anyhow... yesterday I volunteered for the Mitch Daniels campaign. It was all in exchange for the free My Man Mitch shirt I got from them. And also to get some experience before the Tai-for-President 2028 campaign rolls around. :-D Thus, I spent three hours on the phones calling random citizens, asking them who they planned to support, making sure they knew about early voting in Indiana, and leaving messages for people who were smart enough not to pick up the phone and talk to me. ;-) Overall, it was a lot of fun!

General observations/fun things from the evening:

1. I am a lot better at reading than the Obama campaigner who left a message on my machine. (See blog entry about that here.) I employed my "great diction" and theater skills on my voicemails - classsssy. At the very least, I hope that it got people's attention in a positive way!
   
2. I found that the majority of people were really nice - and very eager to talk to me. This beats the times I volunteered for the Case Alumni Association to call alumni, when all I got were a bunch of disgruntled old people. And then I realized that it was because the CAA had us calling people to ask for money. No wonder they were grouchy.
3. My favorite call of the entire evening: I called this home where the answering machine kicked on. Halfway through the answering machine greeting, the guy picks up and says, "I'm voting for JOHN!!!" [Note for those of you who "don't get it": JOHN = John McCain. How did he know what I was planning on asking him? It is very likely that the caller ID read "Indiana Republican Party" and so he excitedly picked up the phone and proceeded to tell me how wonderful John and Mitch and Fox News are.]
4. Favorite quote #1 from a call: "Brad, some GIRL is calling for you!!"
5. Favorite quote #2 from a call: "Girl, if I didn't vote Republican, my grandmother would come rollin' out of her grave and kill me herself!!"
6. I spoke to a couple of older volunteers during a break to grab some chili. One of them says to me, "It's all of the young ladies in your generation who are voting for Obama!" I threw my hands up in the air and told him, "You know, I thought we were smarter than that!!" ;-)
   
7. Most popular vote combination: people are planning on voting for Mitch for governor and Obama/Biden on the national ticket. This made absolutely no sense to me at first, because if you look strictly at the issues, Mitch (the businessman) and Obama (the lawyer) have NOTHING in common. And then I tried to think about it from the perspective of these voters. Mitch has done a TON to turn this state around in four years. To name a few examples, he has turned the BMV into a business structure (average total time spent in an Indiana BMV is 15-20 min), completely converted the state's budget to a positive number (the only state in the Midwest to do so), capped property taxes, and encouraged new businesses to invest in both Indianapolis and around the state. He's a very popular governor - you will see him out-and-about in the community (restaurants, sporting events), and all of the major newspapers in the state endorse him. So why Obama AND Mitch? I think people feel that Obama may have the same "appeal" as Mitch. Obama talks like he's a reformer. (You're entitled to your opinion if you think he really is or isn't one.) Mitch has spent his entire term reforming Indiana (no more "Nap-town"!!!). So if a voter believes in people he perceives as being reformers, there you go.

Believe me - if Mitch ever runs for national office, I will gladly volunteer for his campaign! He's done a ton for Indiana - all you have to do is go to downtown Indianapolis on a Saturday afternoon! He deserves four more years to carry out the rest of his good ideas!!

GO GOV!! :-)