| (full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign and this post is part of a live series from the No on 8 SF offices)
 This morning Speaker Nancy Pelosi came by the San Francisco No on Prop 8 offices to surprise several hundred volunteers who were for training. She stopped at the office after church and her good friend Phyllis Lyon was with her. The two (and Del) go way back to the days when Pelosi was a young up and coming San Francisco politician and are close to this day. I am still trying to track down a great picture someone showed me of Pelosi giving Phyllis a big kiss on the cheek.
Pelosi recalled the time she called Del Martin and it took a few minutes for Del to figure out who was calling. She repeated that it was Nancy a few times, but Del said "I'm sorry, I don't know who this is." Pelosi finally said "Del, it's the speaker.", which prompted a big "Oooh, hi Nancy."
Unfortunately, it was hard to hear the rest of the Speaker's remarks. She didn't have a mic and I was towards the back. Heather Cronk from NOI is out here volunteering and captured it all on her flip camera. It is hard to hear and a bit shaky. Flip it for the video and more pictures.
Volunteers are here for the final training of the evening. They are signing up for shifts on election day at voting locations all over the Bay Area. Thousands have come through this office over the weekend. The same scene is repeating at offices across the state.
Staffers are busy allocating literature for election day, having to re-calibrate their estimates given the flood of volunteers coming into the offices. The staff is a mix of Californians and out of state veterans of the MA marriage fight and other GLTB battles. They have been sleeping (a little) on futons and couches and everyone is a little in awe of the scale of this campaign. For some of the staff this is officially "vacation" time as they have taken a leave from their day jobs to join the campaign trail.
Speaking of staff, the Oakland team organizing the African-American literature drop returned recently, exhausted but with smiles on their faces. They had a great turnout and covered a ton of turf.
On the more good news front, the campus program continues to expand. There are GOTV activities on 167 campuses across the state, from small rural community colleges to the big UCs. That is a lot logistics to sort out to get literature to all of those locations, but that is a great problem to have.
Only 48 hours until the polls close. |
