Settling in

Over the last couple of days Mary and I have been out a couple of times doing lit drops again, first in northern Orange Country, a part of the county I don't know well, mostly roads branching off of New Sharon Church. Then today we went down to Sanford and went around neighborhoods in town. Yesterday was much prettier, but today it was easier to hit a bunch of doors.

First observation, something Mary really fastened on, was the prevalence of intentionally scary signage out in the country, even for houses marked for Democrats. So many signs saying "we will shoot trespassers" and erstwhile witty variants on that theme ("due to high prices on ammunition, you won't get a warning shot", etc). I don't know if that's because there is actually more crime and less police presence out there in the country (though of course the latter is true) or because people feel threatened out there.

Towards the end of our turf yesterday we came across this old dude sitting outside in his yard, which was pretty much a junkyard, outside of his trailer with maybe a bit of a stick-built addition to it. Mary got out and handed him his packet and he was like: "Oh, so y'all hadn't sent me enough stuff in the mail, you had to come all the way out here to bring it to me?" Which is kind of a good point. It does feel a little superfluous to be bringing stuff similar to what comes in the mail by hand, and surely there has been a surfeit of phone-banking, text-banking, just as there has been a mail overload. I think the real issue is that there's all this pent up energy and cash that comes spewing out of anxious Democrats (dunno about Republicans) late in an electoral cycle, and you end up sending a lot of people whose time is expensive out doing rote things at huge scale. It would be much better to productively engage their talents better across the full cycle, but the party hasn't figured that out yet. It is no simple task for sure, but it's worth pondering.

In town today in Sanford, one thing that was noteworthy was the low incidence of Biden/Harris signs in primarily African-American neighborhoods. I guess now that I think about it it's not that surprising, maybe I haven't seen them there in years past. But still. Come on, it ain't that hard.

Very good Mexican food a La Fonda Lupita, though I hoped for more a few more nopales in my gordita. When we went in this woman was singing very well and passionately along with some song she was playing on her phone. When she was done, everybody gave her a well-earned round of applause. And then I realized that she had no mask on. Thanks for that.

I think I may be done for this election. I don't know, maybe I should go up to Person County and poll greet on election day, but I may have done my part.