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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I underrated Clinton in 1992 and Obama in 2004 because I didn't realize how good they were at this sort of thing. Being a Senator gets you attention from the political press, but it doesn't necessarily mean you are a good retail politician, and the longer you are in the Senate the less good you have to be, because incumbency protects you and you only have to run every six years.
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I went to an early event in January last year and then a few more during the heat of the campaign. I had a selfie taken with him right before I voted for him the first day of early voting. The man NEVER stopped talking to people and shaking hands. It was amazing to watch. And he actually seemed to listen.
Again,
Anne Helen Petersen:
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Afterward, the small group — these were the early days — moved over to a nearby beer garden. O’Rourke came up to her, and apologized for what he called his “pitiful” answer. She went on what she describes as a rant: about the Texas state budget cuts of 2011, the shuttering of women’s health clinics across the state, and the maternal mortality rate in Texas. He started taking notes and admitted he was embarrassed by what he didn’t know. He gave her his email address and asked her to follow up. She emailed him a bunch of sources and statistics. The next day, her friend in Houston attended a different rally. O’Rourke was talking about the maternal mortality rate. He now brings it up at nearly every event.
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My sister, who is an introvert and the last person in the world I'd ever think would do such things, was so taken by the campaign she knocked on over 2000 doors and registered over 100 voters, personally taking 8 to the polls and taking one to the Secretary of State's office and then the county to work out some registration issues.
I only managed to knock on about 100 or so (I was also volunteering for the Texas Voting Rights project), but from what I saw, it was an efficient, well run organization, insofar as predominantly volunteer organization can be efficient. His strategy was to focus on the non-voters, and it almost worked.
Obviously, the last two plus years have motivated a lot of people to not be complacent about elections, and progressives in Texas have been waiting for decades to find someone to rally behind. There have been a few other attempts, but nothing like this.
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