By Sue Bergeron
February 2nd: It's Super Groundhog Day in America and here in the Biggest Little we've heard that Puxatawney Phil did not see his shadow, predicting five more years of Trump.* That means I'll be back in New Hampshire by noon, hoping that if I play my cards right I can crash some Super Bowl parties. I hope to be on the doors in Manchester and done before sundown. On the other hand, this plan could go against me if I ring the wrong doorbell and walk right into a KAG party. I could get skinned alive.
Bobby Cauldwell croons What You Wouldn't Do For Love as I swing into a parking spot to pick up my packet at the new satellite HQ for Joe Biden. So many new volunteers have flooded the downtown office that a new satellite office has been opened.
Chris, sent in from "Central Command," climbs down from his ladder. He's been taping campaign posters to the tiny storefront window of the new office, shakes my hand, and gives me my marching orders. Fifteen minutes later, under a smoke colored sky, I'm out in the suburbs, climbing stairs, dodging dog poop and yelling through people's windows. I smell cigarette smoke as I scamper up the steps of a tired rancher and notice a badly faded Christmas wreath has yet to be removed from the front door. There's a one-eyed snowman toppled over in the holly bushes next to the stairs. "Who's there?" A woman in curlers calls to me through her upper window. "Can't come down---I'm in my pajamas. But talk to me. I'll vote for that Buick over there, anything but Trump. Joe Who? Oh! I love Joe. Leave it in the mailbox." I inform her that it's illegal to put things in peoples' mailboxes but she protests. "Fuck the Post Office. Just stuff it in there!" You'd be surprised at all the many objects people claim they would vote for as long as it wasn't Trump.
Most of the snow has been washed away by the recent rain. I love snow but the Trumpies have weaponized the stuff by whacking some of the Democratic campaign workers with snowballs. In the Fall it was sprinklers. They turned their lawn sprinklers on us. This is why my car is devoid of bumper stickers.
It's 34 degrees, windy and raw today. I wear fingerless gloves so I can log in polling data with my pencil. A pen is no good, the ink freezes. Sometimes I stuff nickles in the knuckles of my gloves to get more bang for every knock. The new "Ring Things" as I call the security devices, offer me a chance for a quickie ad for my candidate. I push the bright blue digital button and as the musical tone sounds I give my 20 second pitch. "Vote Joe on February 11th!"
It's been a good day. I finish the route, save one busy road too dangerous to walk in the encroaching dusk. My plan has worked! Happy football fans, eager to see Andy Reid take his seat at the table of Super Bowl champions, have opened their doors to me. Breakfast now a distant memory, I'm tortured by the smell of meatballs bubbling on the stoves of strangers and the garlic chicken wings roasting in their ovens. Out here in the burbs I'm in Biden Country. On every street I'll get hugs and thanks for helping them to get rid of Trump.
There was one couple that stood out. I so enjoyed speaking with them, that even though they had decided on Steyer(he)and Klobuchar(she), I squandered almost half an hour of valuable pitch time to listen to them rail against Trump* and express their fears of creeping fascism. It is almost a sexual thrill for me to gather with other sensible humans who enjoy spreading the truth about this mendacious blob of plutocractic bullshit. I enjoy the company of those who enjoy outing the fleshy garment-challenged Emperor who parades his obvious nakedness to the horror of anyone who has eyes and a brain. The gentleman goes to the wall of his sunporch and takes down a photo of his favorite car, a 1967 Stingray. "See this?" he says. "Here is one thing Joe and I do have in common. He's got one of these, too." He smiles and I point to the Stingray on my big red Ridin' With Biden button. "You mean this one? (I giggle) Sir, you have good taste in cars." "I'm sorry," he says, "it's just...Joe's too old now. He should have run last time. We wouldn't have this. Trump. If only Beau hadn't..." His voice trails off, a sad look comes over both our faces. He carefully places the Stingray back on the wall. "We're all too old," I tell him, and to cheer everyone up I suggest the 1956 filmNight and Fog, for their fear of fascism viewing pleasure. We shake hands and I see them waving goodbye through the sunporch, as I ease down their driveway and back out to Cohas Road.
Winding through the city of Manchester the street lights are coming on now and I can see pick-up trucks and beater cars starting to clog the parking lots of the local taverns where the locals are gathering for Super Bowl 54. I will debrief with Sal, who is my field organizer and mentor. He's a Harvard man, from Scranton, Pa. If I had only two words to describe Sal it would be wholesome and driven. We'll huddle, I'll off-load my poll data and then I'll head back to Rhode Island. And the next day there will be a political earthquake for the Democratic party and for my candidate. Iowa.
Monday February 3rd: The Iowa Caucuses will officially kick-off the 2020 General Election season in America. I spend the morning with steaming hot coffee and the latest poll numbers. There won't be any weekend updates out of DesMoines because The Register has announced they won't be releasing a final poll; they can't validate the integrity of it. There's been a 'problem' in reporting numbers from one of the campaigns. We should have known this was a harbinger of bad things to come. Very bad things.
When I'm not in New Hampshire I'm on the phones. I use a laptop and an smartphone, calling thousands of Ganite-Staters, in an effort to defeat Trump at the ballot box. The sheep in the U.S. Senate won't remove Trump*, so we'll just have to do it the good old fashioned way.
Today the Senate is making final arguments in the background on my living room TV, as I call and call. "Still not ready to put a ring on it, Larry? C'mon. One week left, Larry..." The week is a busy one. Super Bowl, Iowa Caucuses, State of the Union, Impeachment. Life has become a perpetual split-screen existance. I'm breathless by the time Katy Tur takes us live to the caucuses at 8 o'clock Eastern. I'm exhausted now, after combing through an endless list of wrong numbers, angry Undeclareds and hang-ups. But I'm staying up to see the results after hours of watching Iowans, in real time, play "Let's Make A Deal" with democracy. Where are the results?? The Great Kornacki's going nuts! Peepers goes to bed, leaving Ron and me to scratch our heads. Ron's the first to say it. "There's a problem."
Tuesday February 4: By the time people are waking up on Tuesday morning, "the problem" will be labeled the worst debacle in Democratic Primary history. Around midnight, as the various frontrunners fly off to New Hampshire, each of them claiming a possible victory in Iowa, it is becoming clear to a sleepy nation that there's been a total stunning failure of the Democratic Party to competently report the count of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses. The Biden Campaign shoots off a stern letter to the Iowa Democratic Party, slapping them hard for their incompetence and questioning the integrity of the process. I can't get Sal on the phone. He texts "In a pow-wow." I send back a request for a list of voters to call. Two hours later I call him and debrief. "What's going on? Is the traffic crazy? Where's Joe?" Joe is in Concord. He never stops. He's a machine. Conspiracy theories swirl. The president of the United States is one of the biggest perpetrators of them all. Rigged System! Democrat Election Hoax! There goes Caps Lock Caligula, at it again. 24 hours later we would still not know the complete results of Iowa. And we would learn of an untested app made by a company called 'Shadow.' By about 5PM Tom Perez of the DNC would put out a statement vowing to never use the Shadow app ever again in any poll. By midnight Tuesday we are still not sure of many things. But we will be fairly certain that Pete Buttigeig has rocketed to the top of the charts with a bullet. Not Joe Biden.
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