On the campaign trail

I have been meaning to post for days now, but there never seems to be time. Most mornings I wake up, go for a run (I had to temporarily suspend my break from it as food in the heartland leaves me needing to burn off some calories) or do some yoga in my room, get picked up by Brian between 8:30 and 9am, and then we're on the road or making calls and doing data entry until around 10 or 11pm every night.

Last Friday was Brian's last day off until Election Day, so we took a break from work and went to nearby Lake Okoboji.

Weekends are devoted mostly to going door to door, and that is exactly what I did for eight hours on Saturday and three on Sunday. I was a little intimidated by the idea of knocking on strangers' doors, but after a few you get used to it, and I really only had one or two bad experiences. You meet a lot of nice old ladies, as well as Obama supporters who want to talk your ear off because they think that you're able to convey ideas directly to Barack.

One door I knocked on had a sticker on it that said, "The owner of this property is armed. There is nothing inside worth risking your life for." No one answered the door after one knock; I didn't wait around to knock again.

The past week has been quite the roller coaster ride. I've had really uplifting moments, and I've had really emotionally fraught ones as well. I think that I am still processing a lot of my thoughts and want to have more time with them before I can come to any strong conclusions. I will say that the Obama staffers I have worked with so far are some of the hardest working people out there. At the same time, I sometimes find myself frustrated with the disorganization that comes with people who are not as experienced with campaigns (and who are all very young) running the show. That's all I'm going to say for now.

Oh, and if you didn't catch Michelle Obama's speech tonight, try to find someone who DVRed it (Dave did). I for one teared up on numerous occasions.

"Yes we can!"