Day Two - We wake up, eat waffles and hot chocolate, and make our way to the Dave Reichert Rally at a local elementary school. We get lost, but arrive shortly after the rally in time to meet Dave, eat donuts and OJ, and pick up t-shirts, stickers, and fliers. Photographers are still busy snapping pictures. One takes mine and asks for my name, but I don't give it to him. He complains a bit, but I want the attention to be on the candidates, where it belongs.
From the rally, we go to lunch, then split into vans again and go missionary style (teams of two) from door to door. Joe and I get to 23 assigned homes and talk to people in the street. Some of the girls do better, but we are all happy and very, very wet when 4:00 comes around. We should have worn swimming suits, as the rain falls down and bounces right back up, soaking us to the skin, and it's not hot rain, either. We are glad we have one umbrella, though at more than one moment I am ready to fly through the air like Mary Poppins. It never lets up.
At one door, I learn the difference between a politician and a statesman. A statesman is someone who understands that he is accountable to someone higher up.
Dave gets a lot of compliments. Nobody hates him, though we do run into one woman Democrat who tells us why she is a Democrat. "I don't believe in the war," she says. Not meaning to argue, I tell her I have been there. She says there has never been peace in the Middle East, and there is no precedent for Democracy. That depends, I suppose. There are many Middle Eastern countries that are hybrids of Ottoman hierarchy and Western capitalism, and they are plenty stable. Qatar, Jordan, and Kuwait come to mind. In Iraq, women had the vote before Saddam came to town. Egypt has its own kind of peace, and overall the region is relatively stable, with the media tending to blow singular events out of proportion. Jerusalem is safer than New York. This month there are more attacks in Iraq than ever, but it will go away after the elections. It is the knowledge that their attacks may affect this election and take power away from Bush that is leading to a renewed fervor.
What is Iraq really like? There are 20 million people out there, and only a few people are complaining. They have loud voices, because they speak with bombs. But does that mean we should let a maturing Democracy be ruled by a minority voice that has not even tried to make its point in a peaceful way? Should we let their policy or ours be dictated by people in a mob state of mind?
Saddam killed over 1 million of his own people. If there are 20 million people in Iraq, that means he killed 5% of his country's population in 20 years. That is 500 people a day. If 50 people a day die in Iraq now, are they not ten times better off?
There is a lot more I could say on this subject, but I am proud of the work we have done there.
The woman then says she thinks the rich should pay taxes like the poor. They have the money! I think the poor shouldn't have to pay taxes, like the rich! But I don't say that. I do say higher taxes take away some of the motivation for being rich, and also that who will make jobs for other people if not the rich? For that matter (and I don't say this either), who will pay the lobbyists that are advancing her rights? If we disenfranchise the rich from the American dream, what is left for the poor to work for? But on one level she is absolutely right--we share responsibility for the improvement of our nation, and if taxes are really the best way to accomplish that...well, let there be tax. What is funny to me is that there are no income taxes in the State of Washington. Everything is supported by Sales Tax. So the rich and poor really are equal here! In the end, we are all just as rich or just as poor as our talents and God's grace make us, after taxes.
She doesn't change her mind, but we both have something to think about. What a great country this is!
In the evening, we report to Dave Reichert's campaign office and I make 115 phone calls. At 7:59 pm, I've run the phone into the ground. The day is done.
Jed Merrill
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