The phone calls, the emails, the voice mails, the robo-calls, the text messages. The door knocking, inevitably when I’m in the bathroom or sleeping. The door hangers or giant post it notes left when I’m not home or literature illegally stuffed through the mail slot. At 8:00pm tonight, for good or ill, it is done.
Election day is over.
Here’s the thing. We have an Ed Markey sign in our front window. We live in MA. This state is the bluest of the blue. I grew up in a swing state and this, right now, is worse. Markey went into the election when the polls opened this morning with a 10 point lead over the laughable contender the Republicans put up against him. You wouldn’t know it from the deluge of emails I’ve received today.
Geoff and I do not have TV. It’s not that we don’t have cable, we don’t have any TV signal of any kind coming into the house. We’re lucky in this: we’ve missed out on all the ads and all the vitriol splashed on the airwaves.
But we’ve gotten all of the emails, often more than once. We’ve been deluged with phone calls. We’ll often come home to 4-6 voice mails of a political nature per day. And the worst part is this, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Despite the fact that we’re 1) supporting their guy, 2) desperately poor, and 3) working weeks in a row at a time without a day off, we are hounded unto death about our vote, donating money, and volunteering.
I am sick of it. I’d stay home and skip the election in protest except that would do absolutely nothing for anyone except for that pretender Gomez. I literally cannot get the political machine to back off and leave people like me, rank and file working class, poor democrats who know the issues, know the candidates, and who WILL show up on election day, alone.
And so I am still being harassed. I am being reminded by text message to vote. Yes, I know the polls are open till 8:00pm, thank you very much, now STFU. I’m working today.
Kelly
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