July 27, 2005

we lost

So, A little over an hour ago I watched as the last moments of the CAFTA vote played out. Funny, you know, one of the only times I can recall watching C-SPAN with interest. In the end, we were 2 votes short, and we all watched in not-so-disbelief as all of the work from the past 14 months came down to a few tiny ticking numbers. 201 to 199; 203 to 203 (for the longest time it was tied at this number, I swore I would vomit at any moment); and finally 217 to 215, one yellow republican not voting.

So, at this moment (since sleep is eluding me–somewhat also atrributable to a touch of the flu) I am here, sitting in the glow of my computer, everything a bit fuzzy since I forgot my glasses upstairs, and contemplating the events of the past year and some months.

As any of you who know me will know, this is the mistress, this DR-CAFTA, that has kept me away for most of the past several months. I have been accused of being a "workaholic" by some persons to remain unnamed. I have given three interviews on 88.5 (one of them open to callers questions), I have been directly quoted in no less than 5 articles in the mainstream media, and called BY NAME from the offices of elected officials. Pretty strange for a chick whom 2 years ago worked the closing shift at McDonalds

So, I suppose one can take from this the knowledge I have gained, and god knows I have learned so much. I have had the privlege of working with some of the most brilliant minds and personalities. I will never forget the way that Lori Wallach (of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch) used strange metaphors and sarcasm in her updates from the hill. It was always so hillarious to hear her colloquisms (sp?[its late, friend]) while we were all running like chickens–made us all more at ease somehow. I actually could have been seen at one point reading from Psalms in front of Jim Davis’ gubernatorial campaign office. Now wasnt that a sight! And through it all, I can only quote one wise soul: "what a long strange trip its been".

Of course, the thoughts go back to the ten million things we could have done differently. How might it have panned out if we were able to organize more effective phone banks? Were letters a waste of time? And quite frankly, we may never know. We lost by a very narrow margin (2 votes for god’s sake…TWO!) and it is the feeling of many of us that the votes of the republicans in our state were out of our reach as soon as the administration started its pandering and arm-twisting. Diddnt stop us from working on them, though. What I can say is that we lost no Dems, and that was a happy surprise, after all the work we did on Davis even after everyone else had given up on him. Yeah, the pud Jim Davis actually voted our way, after having kept his stand on CAFTA under wraps for the past year. Not one person believed we could get him, and we did. So thats one small victory, I suppose. On that note, had 15 dems not voted for it, we would have won, thankfully they werent any of ours, if you have to look at it that way. (which i do, for my own sanity)

All in all, this was an experience. It was a time of coalitions with groups we never thought possible, a time of meeting people and sharing ideas, and overall, a time to really understand community. So many people pulled together to try to make this happen, and I wont discount any of our efforts. And even though in the end we lost, i dont believe it was a total failure.

Maybe Im just being too pragmatic.

PS, my boss is out getting drunk.

So long, for now, anyone who still bothers to read this.