Flowings of Your Everlasting Taffyman

Im feeling sick... sort of light headed today, but that didnt stop the process.

I have been down in rochester for the past 4 days hanging with my brothers and my older brothers wonderful staff.
highlights included
* "signwars"
* meeting cool people
* hanging out with robyn
* food runs
* the debates
* winning today
* seeing james emotional
* seeing james so adament about not allowing a smear campaign

So let me start closer to the beginning.
My older brother is the campaign manager for Mark Ritchie (the man the dems want for the next secretary of state) its an extrememly important job, that doesnt get a lot of coverage... but it did this time, because there was expected to be a very tight race, between our guy and a young top lawyer named christian sande.
Anyway... James has been working for months, to make sure everyone knows that Ritchie is the man, and he is very well connected. His endorsement list and past work experiances are overwhelmingly amazing, for instance if you saw the daily show on election night last time, you saw him talking to Jon stewart, as he was the national director for all those new voter registration groups like the nov 2nd people, they got over 5 million people registered to vote and such...

anyway. this weekend was the big endorsement at the dfl convention...
and james doesnt sleep and doesnt eat much either and works around the clock with a staff of incredibly professional people who all know exactly what to do, and me and steve walk in and goof around hoping to help, but feeling a little out of place. (not that there werent other first time volunteers, but that we get treated a little different since we are living and working and eatin with the staff full time, as james brothers...)

anyway.
this morning we woke bright and early and had a rally on the lawn. then moved it inside, and prepared for a floor demonstration, in which me and steve were supposed to lead groups of organized demonstrators in to the civic center and have them dance and cheer, but that got out of hand, when they moved the race up 15-20 minutes and we didnt have time to prepare, so we just sent em out and rocked the place to "we are family" or whatever. the room was packed with delegates and signs in blue (ours) and light green (theirs).
Most of sande (the other guy)s staff was young kids who hadnt done anything before nd they were very effective in getting seen and pumped up, but didnt really know the inner workings of a campaign (it seemed like)
so the whole time we had people persuading delegates and alternates, and when it came to balloting time (which has to be 60% for one person or they keep doing it) we got 57% (fairly unexpected) and Sande graciously bowed out of the race.

we all got emotional, but it sucks to see that someone has to lose (considering we are all "dems") anyway... one of the most amazing things for me and steve is that, we may believe ritchie is the best man for the job, but us and much of the staff are there for james. Its an amazing thing to see people so engaged and so inspired to work together and solve problems, especially when what they are inspired by is just other people who they know would do the same..... james and mark have both worked with so many people and inspired so many, that they come out in force and do the most incredible things just to make sure that things continue in the right direction.

hmmm
this is all babbled i know. but it was one of my proudest moments today with my brothers, to see james win, and hopefully again in the fall, it kind of just made you feel things were back on track, that hard work, patience, and good idealism does pay off.

SO yeah....
good times, and i feel like its more important than ever to get involved with this stuff.
Recently someone told me they didnt vote, and i was slightly disappointed, but i think whats really important, and really true about the whole voting thing is that maybe one vote doesnt count, maybe the canidates are too alike, maybe there are problems with the system.... but they are solvable... people can work together to change these things, and voting is a small piece in a larger puzzle of how things can change. It takes a lot of work and organization to make it worth it, and thus why people should get involved (i used to be more reluctant too) but its amazing to see things change for the better...
anyway :::::even if you dont vote, it doesnt keep you from being a valuable part of the process, so those of you who are apathetic... its still important to follow the ideas up with action, and if you are doing so in whatever way, you are making a valuable contribution... -for example, last night (unknown to us till today) me and steve convinced a woman at a diner to vote for our guy, simply because we sat down and talked to her about us... about how much we wanted to support james and eachother and what not... hell i even told her about my parents and shit... we werent persueding her, we were connecting, and she gave us baklava!!! hell we thought she was the one who was being nice... we were just being us... and sometimes all it takes is someone bein themselves and trying to be better...

whatever... sorry for the rant..
marl ritchie for s.o.s in the fall!