Web Log
Oct 7, 02:02 AM | Author: head zoo keeper | Category: 2004 campaign
16th and Valencia, 1:52 am
Posted by Oliver
I was one of the six who postered with Jane last Monday night. I’ve known Jane for years through our involvement in the arts community. I only really got to know her, though, after I helped her drop liturature in Chinatown for Matt Gonzalez’s campaign. ( I guess I passed her test, especially given the fact that I was an Oakland resident at the time.)
I had no idea then that the next campaign I’d help her with would be her own. But there I was, tetering on the top of a seven foot ladder that the candidate herself held steady as she passed me her own signs. We would alternate roles throughout the night. When she was up there postering, I’d try to imagine the other candidates doing the same. By the looks of it, they didn’t. You could tell that theirs were professionallly done by crews who charge thousands of dollars to blanket the city.
Jane’s campaign is indeed truly grassroots. There is no mayor behind the scenes looking to prop up his allies. There are no downtown interests pumping money into her campaign. There are no aspirations of higher office motivating her. There is only this election. She is beholden to no one except the youth who every weekend crowd her living room, grab a plastic bag full of her campaign literature and a bottle of water, and hit the streets because they believe she is the best candidate for them.
There is an odd feeling dragging a ladder in the middle of the night through the empty streets of San Francisco for a candidate you believe in. It’s a feeling you don’t often get as part of the average citizenry who are so often left out of the political machinations of this town. But it was a feeling I felt strongly that night. The feeling that, as a young progressive, this city is ours. And perhaps one day, for the youth that Jane has inspired, it will be theirs.
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