Slice of Life

Its been too long. I promise to be more consistent and make time to write every day.

This was a great weekend. After working hard for three weeks straight, I got a brief respite from madness of the office. Saturday at the Bewley’s in Guilford was a perfect way to come back to Connecticut.

It was hard to leave Connecticut, but I have to admit there is so much to do in Cleveland in the next 22 days it was even harder to keep my thoughts from wandering back. The first leg of my flight to Philadelphia arrived late -- not late enough for me to give up on my connection, but just late enough to make me run to the next gate. There was a mild sense of relief in knowing that I was able to reserve a seat in an exit row online the night before. Walking onto the plane I realized two things (1) this was a small puddle jumper meaning no extra room in the exit row (2) there was no way my duffle bag would fit in the over head compartment. I tried futilely to stuff my duffle bag into the compartment and after 30 seconds the person behind me says, “you’re going to need a black hole generator to get that in there.” Great. Thanks man. And then he sits down next to me.

I finally get settled in and over head comes this announcement “We’re fourteenth in line here and unfortunately there is no way to get the air going until we’re moving, we apologize, hang in there.”

So I look over to this gentleman and say:

So what are you doing in Cleveland?

I am heading there to put on an event -- he was clearly guarded in his response -- you?

Oh I am a volunteer with the Obama campaign in Cleveland.

Great, well I am one of Bill’s advance mans. He’s coming to Cleveland Thursday.

We start talking about the field program in Ohio, what the structure is and who the players are. He was curious to know how we could build an event in 3 days that would fit in well into the current campaign on the ground. Do I know a printer near by who can do tickets? What are the constituencies in the area? How far is your regional office from downtown? etc. etc.

Talking further, I find out that he worked Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992 starting back in New Hampshire. He ended up serving as Clinton’s body man in the first administration – for West Wing fans, Charlie’s role (played by Dule Hill) was based on his job. I picked his brain about hill politics, White house turn over and how transition programs are run.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Bill Clinton is coming here Thursday and we have the fight of our lives here to win Ohio for Obama.

Now that’s a big lemon meringue slice of life.