Election Day on the Streets, Eastside Edition

"i voted " by Seattlest Flickr contributor sum-optima

This morning we woke to chilly air and dark clouds, and although we had signed up to volunteer at the Obama office later in the day we considered mailing it in. But then Sarah Palin came on the tube, telling us how she'd make a great VP, and we said "Hell No!" and a few minutes later, we were in our car headed for the Obama/Burner campaign office in Bellevue.

After arriving around 10 a.m. to a jam-packed office, we volunteered to canvass (politicalspeak for knocking on doors asking people to vote for your candidate while running from dogs). We were paired up with our new friend-for-a-few-hours Steve, a programmer from West Seattle, and we headed off in his biodiesel VW to a precinct in Sammamish, which coincidentally we had canvassed in 2006 for Burner and 2004 for Dave Ross.

By 10:30, we were on the streets. Steve's first door was home to an ex-pat Scot who hauled him inside and started chatting him up about the US electoral system etc. After they were inside for about 10 minutes, I went back after Steve, and was lured into the story of life in Scotland and work in Zimbabwe before coming here a few years ago. The world's friendliest Scot wished us well, and then, as we headed for the door, the man reached into his pocket for his wallet and said here's $500 for your campaign. Awesome, except it was a $500 Zimbabwean dollar note, which as Steve later pointed out, had an expiration date of November 2007. (Probably time to leave the country when your currency has a 'use before' date.)

Soon we were on our way, plowing through the neighborhood like pizza drivers with a heart. As we made our way deeper into the neighborhood, the hills got steeper and at one point, we were walking back to the car, and after slipping and almost falling while writing notes on our clipboard Steve says "Dude. You just stepped on a dead rat." Sammamish has a rat problem. (Insert Dino Rossi joke here.)

We were cornered by one dog, ran from another and that was the extent of problems out there. Amazingly, we didn't have a single door slammed in our face, and in fact, not a single voter who answered the door claimed to be a McCain supporter. Also startling was the fact that we didn't see a single GOP volunteer out in the field. In Sammamish!

We took a break and phoned our neighbor Mark, who is poll watching at a nearby Eastside election center. People at his precinct were lined up 45 minutes before the polls opened and there has been a steady stream of voters there all day. As of 3 p.m., more than double the voters that voted in the entire 2006 election have voted today. People are really fired up at that precinct.

Say what you will about the Eastside socially, but politically, this area is simply not the GOP hotbed it has been in the past. With the 45th and 48th legislative and state senate seats already being held by the Dems, and with the reception we had today, this area continues to swing from red to blue. In our un-scientific view, the GOP in the Eastside is pretty disheartened.

Just as we finished knocking on our assigned 98 doors, the skies opened up, and the Plateau was coated with heavy rain and then an inch of hail/ice pellets, and traffic is now crawling in the area. Let's hope that rat gets washed away.

Darcy Burner's Victory Party is tonight from 8-midnight at the Westin Bellevue, 600 Bellevue Way, with free parking on the 4th and 5th floors of the garage.