2004-01-21 - 3:40 p.m.

last week, the dean campaign called me. i've been attending their meetups for months now. i'm not even a registered Democrat (go Green!). i was just going because i think the way he is running his campaign is cool. also to pick up on all the earnest, young, politically active hotties that show up to union pool for the meetups. it's fun, i hate bush, and i love to flirt. what's not to like?

so when they called my cellphone i wondered how they got my number. a nice boy in the 603 named matt wanted to know if i'd travel to new hampshire for the weekend to help the campaign. just the standard stuff: knock on doors, make phone calls, sleep in sleeping bags in a gym somewhere and endure long new england bus rides. i told matt i'd have to think about it.

but the more i thought about it, the more perfect it sounded. i've never even been to new hampshire before. the cost to me is minimal: i'll have to borrow a sleeping bag and buy myself saturday night's dinner, but everything else is comped, including a chartered bus full of politically active hotties leaving midtown on friday evening. regular readers will know i'm recently out of a long-term relationship and just over an extremely hectic move. the idea of being told what to do for an entire weekend sounds more appealing than it normally might. so i phoned matt and told him to sign me up.

on tuesday night howard dean made a huge ass of himself by having a manic episode in iowa in front of the entire country. his vast lead in new hampshire is steadily eroding. i can tell by the dean supporters i've talked to in the last coupla days that dissent is brewing in the ranks.

i guess my advantage is that i actually don't care that much. i hate bush but i'm pretty okay with kerry or clark. even edwards wouldn't be the worst thing ever, he's basically clinton with a thicker southern accent. dean's appeal for me is more about the intelligent way his campaign is being run, which i'm sure has more to do with campaign manager joe trippi than with hotheaded howard (who wouldn't have known a blog from a bog eighteen months ago).

in any case, i think it'll be educational. a great photo opp. and i can get my hamster-like mind out of the self-defeating ruts that the end of my relationship has induced, at least for 48 hours. and if i can find someone who wants to zip his/her sleeping bag up to mine, it'll be a warm, cuddly bonus.