ustxtxb_obs_1978_05_26_50_00017-00000_000.pdf

I cp. ,ac 0 hint at a liking for the candidate, you beand you’ll hear from them again and again. Several people say, “I’m not voting for anyone who calls me,” and some simply hang up in mid-conversation. These are definitely not IVs, but privately, I count them as STs \(sound By 11, Jan and I have finished our calling and record-keeping, have picked up another foil dinner for Phil and are ready for sleep. We again have little conversation. TUESDAY MORNING, May 2. I stay home, after sleeping late, and call Linda at headquarters to ask where my breakfast tray is. She says a bad word. TUESDAY AFTERNOON. For some reason, Jan has decided that today she must rent a U-Haul and move furniture she has stored at the Hardbergers to Austin, so I help her load the trailer. We don’t finish until late, and by the time I’ve showered away San Antonio’s humidity, the night’s activities are in full swing at headquarters, I hope. Just to make sure I’m not shoved to a phone, I carry a camera and look busy, taking official pictures. It works, until the office closes down, and I along with everyone else am herded downtown to join about 35 or 40 other volunteers at Phil’s law offices. What we are going to do cannot possibly be done. A letter of support from some leaders of San Antonio’s Edgewood district \(chicano, desIn one day’s time the letter was copied, labels made, and now, by midnight, 10,300, that’s ten thousand three hundred, envelopes will be labeled, stuffed, stamped, and at the post office. I keep wishing Phil were here to behold. That the task was done, not only on schedule, but ahead, was to me the biggest morale booster of the week. And working right along with the volunteers, who are expected to do the scutwork, were the paid staff members, and even Peck Young and Roger Duncan themselves, of Riemer, Kaplan, Duncan & Young, Public Affairs Consultants. Tonight Phil could have used a boost. He had left the house at 4:30 a.m. to visit a factory, whose first shift didn’t come in until 6:30 and consisted of maybe 60 people, few of whom lived in his district. Later, when he reached headquarters, he found a nasty, hysterical letter waiting, and such things bother him. He’s not as thick-skinned as a politician should be. Nevertheless, he put in his six hours of door-knocking, and a couple more trying to raise money, but when I get home a little before midnight and see his bedroom light still on, I knock, wanting to describe tonight’s enthusiasm. If one of his opponents called him right now offering a week at South Padre if he would quit the race, he might be tempted, and because I don’t like to see my friend tired and discouraged, I’d throw in the suntan oil. WEDNESDAY, May 3. A rejuvenated candidate has already run his early morning laps at the nearby high school track, showered and gone off campaigning by the time I get to the office, where I spend the morning typing and Xeroxing. After a late lunch, I go back to the Hardbergers’ house to tend to personal business, then back to headquarters at 5. A few of the staff and Linda are sitting in the front office gabbing, and I want to, too. I squat on the floor in a corner, but Bernadette immediately spots me and asks, “Did you come to work?” Well, uh, yes. “Fine. Go back to the parking lot and make signs.” My three partners are high school girls who have been assigned by their history teacher to help out on a campaign and then write two-page papers about their work. “All we’ve done is put signs together. How can we fill two pages about that?” They have found a soul sister in me, and for the first time in days, I’m part of a conversation. After a while John Cain, the teenagers and I load the back of a pick-up with garbage, and John takes me along to the city dump, which is the high point of the week. Not the city dumpwe never found itbut we found an acquaintance of John’s who, it turns out, is willing to share his own private dump and his beer, as well. The weather is beautiful, the conversation pleasant, and it’s too bad we get back in time for me to do an hour on the phone bank. Late tonight, back at the Hardbergers’, Peck Young and I discuss what his firm does and how campaigning is different now, and he asks if I’d like to see the computer in action Saturday. Indeed, I would. Seeing first-hand a modern, bigtime campaign is one of the reasons I came, and so far I haven’t been allowed enough time even to ask questions. “Well, I’ll arrange it for you,” he assures me. THURSDAY, May 4. Hah. Some arranging Peck has done. Bernadette calls me this morning and says, “Sheila, I understand you had a conversation with Peck last night, but at this morning’s staff meeting we made some changes. Understanding what you need to do and what we need to have done, we have arrived at something of a compromise. \(Who’s “we”? How can “we” have made a compromise concerning my duties, when I’m not part of tomorrow, and Saturday morning you and two other women will make 80 sack lunches. After they’re made and delivered, you may come to headquarters and spend the rest of the day with Peck and Roger.” I tell her I need to go to Austin, and she says I may go tomorrow morning, providing I’m back by early afternoon. I fool her and sneak off this afternoon to visit an Austin friend and have an un-foil-wrapped dinner. FRIDAY, May 5. I return on schedule, but the grocery list isn’t ready, and while waiting I overhear a’conversation all volunteers should remember the rest of their political dogooding lives. Peck tells Bernadette to make a change because so-and-so and so-and-so want to either walk or work together Saturday instead of doing whatever was planned. Says Bernadette archly, “Maybe one day we’ll operate on a professional basis around here.” Peck, appeasingly: “Well, remember they’re volunteers and volunteers have their little quirks we have to put up with. What else can you do?” What they can do is say “please” and “thank you” or even ask “What would you like to do today?” THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17