Time once again to get on the phone and GOTV. Absentee ballots were mailed in Montana on Monday, so time is of the essence, as they say, to do a little plugging for our candidates.
Tonight I had the pleasure of supporting Wayne Stanford, Democratic candidate for HD90 in northern Ravalli County.
Wayne will be a great Representative in Helena. You can get a sense of where he stands from his responses to the local newspaper, The Missoulian.
Wayne is progressive, intelligent, and supportive of improving the quality of education in Montana.
I was delighted to see this response in his interview:
What should be the top priorities for Montana for energy or natural resource development? What specifically can or should the state do, to achieve those priorities?
...Stanford: Montana needs to promote wind, solar and maybe even nuclear power. Coal development can be part of our short-term solution, but it truly should not be part of a long-term solution to our energy needs.
I love this guy! So many people who run for office around here are so poorly informed, it's reassuring to know that MY guy gets it.
I was privileged make phone calls with two women who ran (and lost) for this position in the last 14 years. Both of them were great candidates (IMHO), and many of us Dems worked hard on their campaigns. So here they were, giving back to their party. And here I was, giving what time I could to make calls, too.
Our target tonight was Independent and 'Unknown Affiliation' voters. I honestly mostly talked to answering machines , but the few voters I DID get a chance to talk to were polite. This was a pleasant surprise...the 'mood' of the voters was a mystery (and potential nightmare) to me, because we have some really nutty Republican candidates running in Ravalli County this year stirring up all the susceptible people. Thankfully, the few people who were definitely not interested in my message were polite. And there were a few people who were noncommittal in a nice way. And a few enthusiastic people.
Overall a good first night. I'll be doing this some more in the coming days and weeks, I'm sure (there aren't that many of us caller-people, so it's a busy time!) For once I think it might be worth it!