Butterflies Amongst The Beast.

The title of this piece is the name of a graphic novel i never started years ago but after spending many drawn out moments in my mind contemplating a title for what i am about to write i have come to find perhaps this was it's place in the world all along.

I wanted to have a title involving the over-presence of evil and the barley overcoming but still shining human spirit. Thank your god for the butterflies amongst the beast.

Almost two months ago, late October to be exact, I was working on a campaign for assemblywoman candidate Dana (lets just say her name rhymes with) Refer in Boonton, NJ (more on her later) when i received a phone call.

(I will use fake names for now as i am not sure what the law says about truth these days)

"Mr. Shit?"
"Yes," I say.
"My Name is Nin Nonal I work for the Dennis Kucinich Campaign"
"Oh Lovely," I say in a non-verbatim way.
"Blah Blah Blah, We're putting all of our eggs in one basket. Everything is relying on New Hampshire, Blah Blah Blah, Your Hired as State Field Director For New Hampshire"
"Oh Noodles," I never said.

Obviously at this point i was ecstatic. Elated. Most of all surprised. Surprised because i never even applied for this job. Out of tons of highly qualified individuals this job is handed to me.
What should also be obvious is that when i do dialog since i couldn't quote a conversation verbatim from memory i take these opportunities for some humor or rhetoric but the basis behind it all is 100% in tact.

Never receiving an address to report to after my hire i found the contact info via internet for NH state coordinator Susan Shoes (again i remind you all names have been changed)
I introduced myself and she happily gave me an address to report to. I plotted my bus route.
The next day i received a phone call from Nin, he confirmed my address and i asked him a few preliminary questions.

One of the things we discussed was transportation.
I as a human being by principal, DO NOT DRIVE, I believe it supports a system of pollution and oppression far from worth the cost. I made Nin aware of my belief and before i could assure him it would not affect my work he told me it would not be a problem.

Further on the note of transportation.
Despite my personal beliefs it is a fact that mobility is essential in the success of any campaign no matter it's size. I will make this brief for now and extend with many more facts in the near future and focus on one thing. I can get the word of a man from a rental company in Manchester NH (fake name) Pat Walls who personally wrote around 4 revised quotes and was in almost daily contact with me for three weeks as the campaign dropped the ball on getting vans.

They held up their canvassing operation for over a month for numerous reason i will add when time and energy permits. In that month I formulated a plan to reach out to NH via 20 Targeted geographical locations the campaign selected for me. After a month of preparation they replaced Susan Shoes with a new State Coordinator Shawn Pullins. Two days after getting our vans on the night of a big event in Manchester NH, with Obama and Oprah about 100 feet from our field office at 7pm. Less than 1 work week with the campaign Mr. Pullins scheduled a meeting in Dover NH for the entire state staff at 7pm.

Since we had been planning to canvass the crowd for quite some time one of my offices interns suggested asking for the meeting to be moved to Manchester so everyone can canvass with us and then we have the meeting. I thought it was a great idea and gave Shawn Pullins a call.

"Shawn, hey listen... Blah Blah Blah... Great Idea... Blah blah... What do you think"
"Absolutely not it's pointless."
"But there will be around 10,000 NH Voters... We only got around 3,500 votes state wide in 2004, surely the percentage of undecided voters would make this well worth our efforts as opposed to being a complete non-presence. "
"(At this point i remained silent and i have an office full of interns to prove it while Mr. "Pullins" proceeded to have an ego fit over being questioned by a peon like me or at my insistence on putting the best foot forward for democracy that ended like this) Cry Cry Cry, (this part is verbatim) and you know what we actually wont be needing your services anymore. We will pay out your contract in full through out January. You'll need to be out by the morning"

Long long story short.

I was fired simply for asking a question. For trying to better our very weak efforts.
For one brief instance.

The Kucinich campaign has me sitting home right now paid highly to not do a job i am more than capable of doing while still not having a proper canvass operation in NH days later.

It's kind of like the dog walker being paid thousands a month out of campaign dollars while interns working tooth and nail are paid 400 dollars a month.

Or the 15,000 dollar box fort made out of rejected literature.

But those are other stories in themselves.

Till the revision.