ORLANDO, Fla. - The October sun set over Washington last Thursday as 275 D.C.-area college students were loaded onto five massive motor coaches. After taking part in a brief rally led by the League of Conservation Voters, we were all fired up for the supposed 13-hour bus ride from the George Washington University campus to our weekend villas in Orlando. The next two days were promised to be a whirlwind frenzy of canvassing as part of a massive grassroots campaign for Sen. John Kerry.
The League of Conservation Voters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental organization that gives grades to presidents and government officials based on their record. President Bush is the first president in history to receive an "F" from the league, whereas Kerry has a long-standing grade of "A." Because of this huge discrepancy, the LCV has chosen to endorse Kerry for president, and has rallied countless volunteers in a few battleground states - such as Ohio, New Mexico, Oregon and Florida - in a mass attempt to get Kerry into the Oval Office. With the election only days away, the LCV organized the trip from D.C. to Orlando with the goal of talking to 50,000 voters in one weekend.
Fast-forward to 3 a.m. No one is sure what state we're in, but solid bets are being placed on South Carolina. Up and down the aisles of the AU bus, people had been working for hours to find sleep that wouldn't come. They wriggled around while they tried to find some position comfortable enough to doze for a few minutes, which proved to be no easy task. The most ambitious (or desperate) used pillows and blankets to stretch out beneath the seats or in the aisles. The more affectionate relied on the buddy system, resting their heads on the shoulder of the person next to them, stranger or not, and snuggled up for the ride. And the more rational leaned back, closed their eyes, and prayed for a Starbucks when we got to Orlando.
At 8:30 a.m., our bus pulled into a rest stop in a town called Brunswick, somewhere in Georgia. A sign outside the gas station proclaimed, "SPACEWALK FOR RENT," and was complete with an adjoining Waffle House knock-off called "Hubble House" (same logo and everything), and a convenience store that boasted feathered rooster figurines and a delectable selection of flavored milks. The League of Conservation voters told us beforehand that we would be in Orlando by 9 a.m. At this point, that gave us 30 minutes to get from somewhere in Georgia, to not only the state of Florida itself, but to a city well within it.
Finally at 11 a.m. we rolled into Orlando. The AU contingency was split into two groups, with some stragglers from Catholic University and Trinity University divided amongst us. Each group went to its own "villa," one of the luxurious vacation homes the league had rented for us inside some sort of neighborhood that consisted of nothing but vacation rental properties. We unloaded our bags and staked claims for bedrooms in the villa lovingly dubbed "Splendor in the Palms." The villa, intended to sleep 12, housed 24 people including College Democrats president Greg Wasserstrom, a few dedicated freshmen who participated in the Erskine Bowles extravaganza in North Carolina and a socially conscious cross-section of students from AU.
The LCV volunteers showed up at Splendor in the Palms, armed with canvassing materials and an energy level that frightened the hell out of our weary, fatigued and un-showered bodies. Not given much more time than what was needed to scarf down a slice of Domino's, we were shuffled into vans and sent off into the heart of Orlando's finest neighborhoods. This completely rushed and exhausted group of kids was being sent out to knock on doors, carrying the message that John Kerry would do his best for the environment if he were elected president. The expectations from the league could be seen as marginally sadistic, but we later learned that our bleary-eyed group knocked on approximately 8,000 households in one afternoon.
After a full afternoon on foot, we returned to our villa, where the blissfully relaxed, yet still socially conscious cross-section of students ambled around the house until we collapsed from the excitement of it all.
The next day started only four hours after we fell asleep. After breakfast, we went back into the vans and headed for our "turf," the area we would be canvassing that day. We were fortunate enough to be assigned to a huge neighborhood of apartment complexes, and we stumbled from door to door, singing to voters the praises of John Kerry. A huge portion of doors were left unanswered, so we would leave a League of Conservation Voters door-hanger behind, reminding these potential voters of Kerry's advantage over Bush.
We worked until the sun was barely visible on the horizon. Of those Floridians we talked to, a slight majority promised support for Kerry on Tuesday. A few voters could stand and talk at length about how much they hated President Bush, but still weren't convinced Kerry was the right person for the job, a most aggravating line of logic. The greatest accomplishment of the day came when devoted canvasser Dylan French successfully swung a voter to Kerry's side. This particular voter began her diatribe by mentioning her distaste for Bush, yet proclaimed Kerry "too inexperienced for the presidency," but by the end was convinced that the prospect of another four years with Bush was the less desirable option. Other small victories came in the form of receiving completed absentee ballot forms and distributing information about voting sites to people who were unaware of how to get out and cast their ballot.
Of course, campaign work was not all the league had planned for us. Orlando nightlife was on the agenda as well. After spending two days working our little hearts out as progressive champions for change, we were subjected to the corporate nightmare that is the world of Disney. We were dropped off in an area called "Downtown Disney," a monolithic cluster of themed restaurants, "nightclubs," and, of course, retail stores. After dinner there, our skin was crawling with capitalistic disgust, and we had never been so ready to return to the splendor of our villa.
Our second night in the house closely mirrored the first, too much fun and not enough sleep. A portion of our entertainment for the evening came from C-SPAN coverage of the Kerry and Bush rallies of the day, at which we cheered and booed respectively. Only a troupe of political buffs such as ourselves would opt for campaign speeches over the various other partying options. We crashed on floors, beds and couches after a raucous night of post campaign trip excitement.
Morning came quickly, and we re-boarded our buses to head home. The journey was long and excruciating. We were on a bus from 8 a.m. Sunday until 2 a.m. Monday. We were subjected to many hours of "Chappelle's Show" and a viewing of "Amistad," cramped seats with not enough leg space and unnecessarily long rest stops. Most of those who struggled to sleep on the ride down nodded off from pure exhaustion.
Our bus cruised into the AU parking lot and we filed off to retrieve our luggage. It took until the next day, after sufficient amounts of sleep, to realize what we had spent our weekend doing. Instead of passively cheering on John Kerry's campaign, we traveled many, many miles from home and worked tirelessly to get out the vote for our candidate. The fleet of students bused to Florida knocked on close to 48,000 doors in two days, our bodies running on near-empty and pure adrenaline. We legitimately have a personal investment in Kerry's victory. Huge amounts of our time, energy and passion have worked toward putting him in office, and standing by to wait for the results is almost painful.
