The sky is just orange above the mountains, and still indigo and starry overhead. I slept for less than three hours last night. If I could hear my bike it would probably be roaring, but the wind at 100mph takes pretty much all other sound away.
Last night, pointing at the map, our state Field Director, Mike Moffo, laid out the strategic vision. He's got a whole battle plan, and it's brilliant. He was part of the Kerry team in Iowa in '04. Nuff said. He lays it out, piece by piece, a general prepping the troops. We get assignments. The teams, the timing, the plan. But that was last night. It's not quite 6am, I'm alone on 215, and my bike is flying.
It's already started by the time we get there at 7:15 in the morning. One team has been there all night, sleeping in cars, playing kickball. We've all got red shirts. Two flatbeds, one 16' UHaul. Supplies apportioned accordingly for the battle plan. It's not 8am, and we're set. Three supply posts, walkie-talkies, and a bunch of campaign staffers completely and totally oblivious to anything but winning.
I guess this is where I should say a few words about the layout. UNLV and CNN have dissected the campus, outlined a set of seemingly arbitrary rules, and a code of conduct for the "CVA", or Campaign Visibility Area. We're under strict instructions not to knowingly break any of these rules. Where we can and can't be, what we can and can't do, use, place, wave or say has all been pretty well preordained. Of course, it all goes out the window by 10am when it becomes clear that none of the other campaigns give an ass, and that campus security doesn't either.
There's the rule about the size of campaign signs, prohibiting the ubiquitous 4'x8' mega-sign. We've got 4'x6' signs. The Clinton folk have cut their 4'x8's into three sections and turned them into three man sandwich boards. The Edwards camp either didn't get the memo or didn't care, and there goes that restriction. An area of the parking lot labeled "H" has been designated as the only acceptable on-campus visibility area. No one goes there. By 11am, they're routing traffic through the CVA, and we're all out on the street, lining Swenson from Tropicana to the parking lot entrance. Mobile teams get the call via walkie-talkie and swarm to live camera shots, waving signs behind sometimes amused, sometimes annoyed TV anchors. We outnumber the other campaigns already, and it's still just staffers.
At 11am, the infantry starts to arrive. Volunteers roll in, pick up a sign, put on a tee-shirt, sign a pledge card and hit the street. By 11:30, we're several hundred strong. We've got the street lined with red tee-shirts. And it's time to start the cheering.
At this point, my adrenaline is starting to settle in. It hasn't gone down, or gone away, it just isn't making me twitchy anymore.
We need volume, so I make what I can. Up and down the line, leading the cheer, and after one pass I realize I need more volume. I twist a sign into a bullhorn, tap it with packing tape, and start shouting. Call: "Fired Up!" Response: "Ready to Go." Repeat. The Clinton camp doesn't seem very well organized. They're loud, and they have (against the CVA rules) a megaphone. We all have red shirts. It's pretty obvious who our people are. "Fired Up." It's got a military cadence. Long first syllable. Rising, then a sharp, hard second. There're other chants too. We have a megaphone before long. The response it steady, even. "Ready to Go!"
It's November, it's an early state, and we all put on sunblock in the morning. It's probably 80 degrees. At 12:30, lunch arrives, and most settle into the shade to eat PB&J. We have a bagged lunch for everyone. I'm distributing, and catch this bit as I walk by a cluster of Clinton peeps. Volunteer, female, 50: "So that campaign gets bagged lunch delivered, and we have to walk back to headquarters for fruit roll ups?" Campaign staffer, flustered, younger, male: shrug, look away.
By the afternoon, cavalry for both sides arrive. My voice is failing by 1pm, but I force it, when we need it. There's a group of staffers taking turns leading the pep. Me and Max, another Mass-hole, tag team a few rounds, running the length of our line, pumping our fists. Every time a camera goes live, we swarm. When they make the mistake of coming along the line, we pounce. More than one journalist gives up, laughing, as we surround in a sea of red shirts, signs, and chants.
John King's about to go live, and we get in behind him. Somehow the Clinton camp hasn't figured out how to get people behind the cameras, or maybe they just can't spare anyone from the line. John King's on a stage, and I'm holding a 4'x6' sign as high as I can behind him. He turns and grins at us. He sees my Sox hat. He gets the look every New Englander's had since '04. "Where you from?"
"Boston."
The look turns into the other one. The Nation one. "Oh, great. I'm from Dorchester."
"Lexington." I'm not sure he can actually hear me, because my voice isn't even a croak at this point. It's only 2:30, maybe 3. But he smiles, waves. He turns back to the camera, then looks back at where I'm standing. He's got a water bottle in his hand. He says something to the Camera man, the Camera man looks through his viewfinder, then looks at me.
"Hey, scoot this way a little," and he winks. I scoot.
We go live, and the Obama signs are the only ones there. Behind us, another news anchor looks at us and laughs. I glance over. She's cute, and she shakes her head at me, smiles, and shrugs. I agree. It's completely nuts. And I haven't had this much fun in ages.
The camera turns off for a commercial, and I set down my sign. I have to hold it high, and it's kinda unweildy, there's a breeze and my arms are tired. I see Rory Reed getting out of a limo, and there's a tall, thin redhed walking towards us. She's gorgeous, and I swear I know her. She walks right up to me and smiles. "It's good to see you all out here," she says, and she has a clean English accent, Queen's English. "Even if you are for the wrong candidate." It clicks in my head just as I see her button, just as she raises her hand. "I'm Elizabeth Kucinich."
"It's an honor to meet you ma'am. I have a lot of respect for your husband."
Her grip is firm, and she looks me in the eye. She shakes a few more hands and moves on. The camera gets ready to go live again.
There's a lot more shouting. A grand finale. We pack the trucks. We head to the party. A Mexican joint across from the Hardrock has 21 flat screens, and they're projecting the debate on a screen and on the parking lot wall. Everyone watches, but really we're all waiting. After the debate, after Secret Service ropes off a little area. After the intros, he comes bounding into the room. He's smaller than I imagined, somehow, even though he's bigger than I am. It's part stump, part off the cuff. He's standing 4 feet away from me, and Brie's squeezing my hand. To be completely honest, I don't really remember it. When he comes around to shake hands, I push forward and put mine in his path. He shakes it. He looks right at me.
It took me about three days to process, I think. If I remember correctly the shake was firm, buthe didn't press or apply pressure. After it happens I'm in a sort of a daze. And then, we're off to the last hurrah.
The first Nevada Jefferson-Jackson dinner isn't a damn thing like Iowa. It's in a ballroom at Paris Las Vegas. It's quiet. Of course, before I find out what it's like inside, I have to come down the hall. As I walk towards the door, the guys from my office break out of a group. "Evan, Evan, you gotta come over here." They're all in a semi-circle, and they bring me around. "Evan, this is Richard. Richard, Evan." Again, he's smaller in real life, but not as much as I would have thought. He looks at my Sox hat.
"Not wearing that hat I can't shake your hand," he says, as he shakes my hand.
"It's an honor to meet you, sir." I really can't talk now.
"Somehow with the hat I expected an accent."
For a few minutes, we get treated to the ideas of Toby Ziegler, er, Richard Schiff. I'm really just not processing anything anymore.
The dinner's interesting, in a clinical sort of way. Joe Biden's angry. Chris Dodd is too slow to make his point. I miss Kucinich, although I hear his wife was standing behind him the whole speech. I miss John Edwards too. Gravel's a firebrand, part loon and part Cassandra. People nod politely, he rants against the privatization of Washington and the selling of the Democratic Party, and he's mostly Cassandra, right but too honest to be believed. Our guy bounds onto the stage, delivers the stump. It was better in South Carolina, the first time, in it's full glory, but this one's pretty good. There's a giant TV on either side of the stage, and he looks tiny compared to the massive tele-rendering he gets on the screens. We wave our signs when he leaves.
Earlier, we packed the streets and the campus. Inside, it's Hillary who's packed it out, full of $120 a plate supporters. Every time she gives the call, they give the response. Her voice is shrill. I've never heard it live before, and it's every bit as shrill as on TV. I'm barely in the room, though, so it doesn't really matter. Finally, it's over, and we head for the doors. I say something to one of the other guys. He looks at me. "Is that really how your voice sounds?" I just nod, smile.
The chant is loud when we reach the door, and outside in the hall it's deafening. Every staffer. Every supporter who went to the dinner. They're all in the hall as we spill out. A sea of red shirts and red and blue signs. They're jumping. "Fired Up." It rises. "Ready to Go!" The floor is shaking a little. Some dinner-goers walk by shaking their heads. Every one of us has been up since 5am. We got 1, 2, 3 hours of sleep the night before. We're hoarse, at best, and exhausted, but the adrenaline hasn't given out yet. We jump. We chant. I see Moffo again, and he's grinning with the thrill of battle. "Fired up," he shouts. I catch his eye. "Ready to Go!"
