Report

We left for the airport Friday morning, flew all day, and got to Cedar Rapids at dinner time. To get to Cedar Rapids, we had to fly to Chicago and switch flights. Isn’t that silly?
On our second day we went to our HQ, the Scott county Republican center, and were briefed on what we would be doing: Literature drops all day, phone calls at night. We didn’t get started until late that day, so I think we did more phone calls than anything. I would say that 40% of the people we called hung up on us; 40% we had to leave a message on the answering machine, and 20% listened to what we were saying. Going door to door, most people weren’t home, and if they were, they weren’t as mean to our faces as they were on the phone.
We had Sunday morning off and we all went to a local Baptist Church, which was fun. In the afternoon we did lit drops and phone calls. We were mostly campaigning for Jim Nussle for Governor and Mike Whalen for Congress. We got to meet both of those candidates and a few others. That was a lot of fun because they thanked us so profusely for what we were doing.
We worked hard on Monday. Jen was bitten by a loose dog while handing out literature- it wasn’t a bad bite, but she had to get a tetanus shot so her arm was sore. And she got a lot of attention after that.
Tuesday, we were kicked out of HQ by some Scott county volunteers who didn’t like us much, so we didn’t have to work as hard. We did about five hours of sign waving at big intersections during the morning and evening rush hours. Then that night at about 7pm we went to the victory party at one of Mr. Whalen’s restaurants. At about 10:00pm, Mr. Whalen gave his speech. It was one of the most inspirational speeches I've ever heard. Yes, we lost. And when you look at the nationwide election results, it looks like we really really lost. But I'm not worried about it. Mr. Whalen encouraged us to be in the political arena, to work hard, and to be leaders. And we will! It was an honor to work for such a godly man, and we are already looking forward to working in the 2008 elections.