MANNING THE PHONES: WHAT IT MEANT FOR ME

Many years ago, after first moving to the Pacific Northwest from our home in the San Francisco Bay Area, our family was involved in the campaign for a Rotary friend who was running for a municipal judgeship. His name was Tom Wynn - and he not only won his election, but won succeeding elections until he is now the presiding judge for the Snohomish County Court.

During that first involvement in the campaign process, my wife, Nina, our two teen aged children, Richard and Kristina, and I learned about silk screening yard signs, and canvassing neighborhoods to distribute fliers, and all the other myriad tasks that go into helping a person get elected.

With that background, we then worked on the campaign of a fellow Rotarian's wife's bid for a state senate seat. Again, as a family, we made signs, canvassed neighborhoods talking to people and handing out fliers. And as a family we attended the election night watch at campaign headquarters, to see our candidate lose her first bid for office.

We worked with other Rotarians on this and other projects of 'goodly deeds' - until we discovered that many of these 'good deed' folks were rotten to the core inside, and would sell you out without a second thought if it would further their personal goals.

So we exited the Rotary club, moved from the southern Snohomish County area and continued life without any involvement in the political scene.

Until now.

With those experiences now nearly thirty years past, I have volunteered to man the phones for the re-election of Senator Patty Murray.

First, I attended a rally in Bellevue on Saturday, the second, in which Senator Murray and several other local Democratic candidates spoke, mingled with the crowd and shook hands with the many who were familiar to them as volunteers - and with those of us who were volunteering for the first time.

And there, in the crowd, I bought into the vision that has propelled these men and women to face nearly intolerable scrutiny from the press and from society - a vision of equality in the application of our laws so all people in the state of Washington can have equal access to the benefits of their citizenship here.

With a feeling of rightness that I hadn't felt since those early campaign experiences, I signed up to help man the phones for Senator Murray's re-election.

Yesterday afternoon I drove to a building that was for lease, but was now the temporary headquarters for the Murray and DelBene campaigns in Renton, was given five pages of names - about one hundred in all - and began calling my neighbors. To tell them about the message of hope that the Democratic platform offers its voters, and to encourage them to look past the doom and gloom policies of the opposition, and vote for  continued progress.

When I was finished - it took nearly two full hours to make all the calls - I had a feeling of both exuberance and relief; I had reintegrated myself into the social fabric and had opted to help make a difference in the world.

Manning the phones had a made a real difference; and perhaps most especially in me.

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