From an Iowa
blogger
comes
Deadmoines.com> this:
Hand writing vs. apathy
Nobody except my mother’s mother writes handwritten letters to me.
So, when a Dean supporter sent a *long* handwritten description of her passion for the good doctor to me yesterday I was stunned.
I mean, I knew the campaign was doing this, but I hadn’t yet received one of these letters. And didn’t really expect to, given my Independent registration. Still, a day later I continue to think about it…
Not that the letter, or the accompanying position papers, persuaded me strongly.
Instead, I think the letter — on top of the myriad phone calls
(not the automated survey crap, but the live people who fly in to Des
Moines to dial us all day) — has me pondering the energy within our
democracy.
From Iowa blogger Dedmoines.com, January 15, 2004:
I can’t reconcile the amount of activity surrounding the Iowa caucuses with the disintegration of our government and so many other aspects of American life that seem so damaged.
Why can’t campaign volunteers redirect their civic pride, their
sense of duty — whatever drives them to participate as they do — to
other causes throughout the year?
Maybe they do; maybe we just don’t see it on TV, in the newspaper or in our mailboxes.
You would think that I would have at least made a decision to
support a candidate today — only about three days to go before Iowa
provides some indication of the direction of the Democratic race based on the issues that are important to this state.
But I haven’t.
And I probably won’t until I walk in and see the faces of my
fellow suburbanites who have hope that we all still make a difference
in the policies and practices of our federal government.
