Thanks, Joel and Michelle

two wingnuts, one knocked over

I have to back up to take care of work I set aside for several days.  I have a happy task, that I’m getting to a few days late.

It may seem odd at the beginning of a campaign to thank the people who stepped forward to help.  That will be more appropriate when Maryland passes the Dream Act, and it is clear that the people working to secure the support of people who pray-then-vote provided the margin of victory.  But I can’t wait.

I am so pleased with the folks who have stepped forward to help!  We are just starting, but already it looks great to me! 

Joel, thanks!  I was worried and in pain, and you came by and got me laughing for hours.  That was a real gift!  I know you hate being the Jewish kid, but you did clarify an immensely important detail about our dream about the Dream Act.  I have decided to pursue Biblically oriented voters.  Does that push me to the far right of the political spectrum?  NO! says Joel. 

Joel saw what I was doing and seized it with both hands.  I asked if he was okay talking to Christians about the Bible.  Sure, he says.  “I don’t know the fine points, but I understand the high points.”  (He’s read SparkNotes?) He continued, “I didn’t know that the Catholic Church said immigration was a right.  That’s cool!  I really like that.”  (That’s not in SparkNotes.)

Talking to folks on the other side of a divide is the job.  If we talk to people who agree with us about everything important, who applaud our work, we are wasting our time.  We need to get out amongst folks who are going to be upset to hear from us.  That’s the assignment!

I am sure that some yahoos are going to tell Joel or me or both or at least each other that someone is gonna go to hell because this Jewish kid is asking them to check the Bible before they vote.  Hey – if you can’t stand having a Jew suggest you check a hot topic in the Bible, take it up with the Boss.

So nightmare one has passed!  That’s not a law; it was a potentially crippling defect.  I do want to talk about the Bible, with some detail and care.  I don’t relish becoming a right-wing-nut, or being seen as one; I am a left-wing-nut.  Joel, don’t let go!

To pass this law, we will need people cooperating from opposite ends of the world.  I am grateful to you for helping to make that cooperation visible and clear.

And Michelle!  Is it true that you auditioned to make ads for FedEx? Thanks for the flat and absolute guarantee that this work will not get boring, ever.  At about the same time that I pulled you into the immigration fight, someone said something stupid about female anatomy, and you went off.  It wasn’t that you were gonna do anything inappropriate or prove your point in public or anything, but you wanted everybody to know that you had one.  24 point type, red letters.  Hoo-boy. 

I am hugely grateful to you for the way you handled the remark about home schooling.  You said things that could be insulting; she called you on it; you apologized in less than a nano-second.  To make this campaign work, we are going to need to push back against the really destructive habits of savage incivility that dominate political discourse today.  Civility does NOT mean being ultra-careful to be bland; it means paying respectful attention to people, especially people who are different from you.  To make this thing work, we will have to apologize when we make mistakes.  Guaranteed: we will make mistakes.

(Michelle, I'm not going to bother getting a definition of "bland" for you.  You will never understand it.  Some things are just too foreign.)

We did not have a formal training session the evening the two of you visited.  But we did cover the two main topics of training.  We are going to reach across divides, and we will be civil.

Thanks, Joel and Michelle!  I am a very lucky man to know you!

Recruit!  We have some campus coverage in every part of the state, but we don’t have every campus, by a long shot.