Blue Broad in a Red State

Another two days on the road in D23. If you want to see first hand a hard-working people and an incredible landscape--this is the place to do it. Everywhere we went today we saw families shopping and working and eating at Burger King; everywhere people were laughing. Like many parts of Idaho, however, the historic downtowns were struggling and there are closed signs on many businesses. These small businesses, Mexican restaraunts and steakhouses, florists, and gift shops, the Old Kings "five and dime," coffee shops with wi-fi, diners with specials of the day, city newspapers, even bars and groceries have become few and far between. 

Yesterday I worked on Jody's logo (help any graphic artists!!!!) which is a version of the Democratic "Kicking Donkey) 

which we are adapting to a kicking Jack Rabbit (these are a strange and fascinating local creature you should look up if you don't have them where you live - they look like a cartoon creation).

Right now we are trying to meet people who are democrats in order to get committments from as many individuals as possible to write-in "Jody Bickle" on their ballot May 15th. This is more difficult than it seems because this year only democrats can vote in a democratic primary -- independts (and there are many in Idaho,) have only a few judges on their ballot and Republicans cannot cross over as in past years when one could take the ballot of their choice on the Primary vote.  Thus the Dem ballot is fairly empty; no one is running for most positions leaving Republicans unopposed. This empty ballot is a long list of blank spaces with "WRITE-IN" printed on it, and getting Jody's name in the right space is not as easy as it sounds.

We have printed a card showing how the write in should look with a copy of our section of the ballot on one side and the proper spelling of her name on the other. 

 

Right now this is the most important thing, but we hope to have our palm cards soon so that we can begin to make contact with independent and Republican voters. Our opponent, upopposed in the last election, still got 7000 votes and we only have 3400 Dems in the Distrtict. There are, however, 14,000 UNKNOWN voters in the district -- that means a lot who are not registered, or who have not participated enough to show up on registries. 

I got the first pages up on our website www.jodybickle.com

Here is the slide show we are using on the webpage to track our travels, the places and people we meet. Soon I hope to have portrait and stories of families, community businesses and individuals included on the photo blog. Today we are off again to Twin Falls, one of my favorite towns in the state, (unfortunately not included in our D23 district as a more substantial few hundred dems live there. Tonight is the Democratic meeting, however, and we hope to make contact with a people willing to help the campaign, perhaps host a house party, or at least to meet people from the surrounding area to the west just outside of town, which IS in our district. After the meeting we will go on to Jackpot, Nevada where we have coupon for a free room for the night and there is a two-for-one buffet! Maybe we can play the nickel slots (I like the Mermaids game where the girls in the cartoon are so delighted when I get a bonus) and win enough to pay for our next palm card.