Monday musings

So it's Thanksgiving Week...and while I know I have work to do during the next few days, my brain is longing for the "vacation" that is Thursday and Friday.

As much as I love all things social media and the like, I really think I'm going to try and unplug (for the most part) on Thursday and Friday. Granted, my family's turkey day antics will undoubtedly result in a few tweets and/or Facebook posts, but lately I've felt permanently tethered to this damn laptop and...I. Need. A. Break.

In other news....

I might have mentioned here that I'm sort of a big huge Twilight fan. I'm #TeamEdward and I've read all the books (a few times). And yeah, I get it. It's not the best literature and Bella is annoyingly clingy and rather week (as female lit characters go, she's no Katniss Everdeen). But whatever. I don't really care. It's fiction people. Move on.

Last Thursday night my sister and I joined some friends for the Breaking Dawn 1 & 2 "double feature." Oh my Edward. It was so much fun. And (NO SPOILERS!) I'm just going to say, BD2 was the BEST film in the series. The end? Yeah. Left. Me. Breathless. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Except for this: I think it's quite possible that I'm now #TeamGarrett. (Twilighters will understand this).

And since it is Thanksgiving week, we decided to decorate the house for Christmas. Yeah, I get it. I'm as bad as the department stores, right? Why can't Thanksgiving have it's own week without all the holiday crap? I'll tell you why. Because for the last decade we've always put up the Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. And they come down a day or two after Christmas. It's how things are done around here. (And please, no lectures on the whole "must keep the Christmas tree up until after the new year for the whole 12 days of Christmas." It's just not gonna happen.).

And really, I noticed a lot of people getting their yards "holiday ready" this weekend...so I'm OK with the yard looking like Christmas is tomorrow. I also noticed some yards still "wearing" their Election Day decor - yard signs. Seriously people. It's time to take down the yard signs. The election is over. If your person didn't win, keeping the sign up isn't going to change the outcome. It's time to move on.

So with that....when do you decorate for the holidays? Before turkey day? And when do you "undecorate"?

After the election...a reflection

Tuesday morning - Election Day - I woke up at 2:15 a.m. and got ready to spend the day with my friend Angela, who was running for Congress.

By 4 a.m. we were on the road to a "dawn patrol" breakfast at the Teamsters. At 6:30 a.m. we were standing outside a polling location (in high heels, I might add), freezing cold and talking to voters. We spent the day traveling around the Fifth Congressional District here in Ohio visiting polling places, talking to voters and hoping for a win.

Tuesday night at about 11:30 p.m. - shortly after President Obama won re-election - my friend Angela conceded the loss of her race.

This is still sinking in today - the day after the election.

As happy as I am that our president was re-elected, I'm also incredibly sad to see such a spirited and inspirational congressional campaign come to an end with this loss.

It's a sad day, but it's also a day of reflection on what this the past few months have meant. Working on a congressional campaign for a friend who inspires me and whom I admire and love dearly has been a life-changing experience.

Spending the last six months working on this campaign and dealing with all the insanity that can (and does) happen on social media has been at times exhausting, fulfilling, amusing, frustrating, and well downright amazing. It might sound silly to some, but watching the candidate's "social media numbers" grow every day was exciting for me. (And yeah, perhaps I need to get out more, but whatever).

When you're part of a campaign staff and every day is filled with the "big things" sometimes you need to allow yourself to get excited about the "little things" like Twitter followers and "Likes" on Facebook. Or maybe it's just a social media thing and you either "get it" or you don't.

Either way, when it became apparent last night that the gap in the numbers was too big to overcome and that the race was lost, it was as if the wind had gone out of our sails. All of us on the campaign staff were somber - despite having started the night in a flurry of nerves and excitement. Tears flowed freely as my friend and candidate talked to us about fighting the good fight and friendships and never giving up.

It was a strange moment ... in front of me stood one of the most dedicated, brilliant, hard-working and just downright amazing women I know, conceding an election that she worked so hard to win. And on the screen behind me was video of huge crowds of people cheering for the re-election of our president. As much as I wanted to celebrate that moment for the president, I couldn't celebrate. I wanted to allow myself to cry and be sad for the campaign we lost.

And we did cry.
And we hugged each other.
And we said "next time...."

Today as I see so many hostile posts on Facebook and Twitter - calling people 'idiots' (or worse) for voting for (or against) the president - I just want to remind these people how lucky we are that we live in a country as amazing as this.

We live in a country where we have this amazing right to cast our votes for the person we think will best represent us. Do you know how lucky you are? 

These elections aren't about the debates or the TV commercials or the hateful and hurtful social media messages. These elections are about us ... we the people. You don't have to agree with everyone or every candidate, but you do need to remember that this is all bigger than the TV soundbites and the campaign yard signs.

I was lucky enough to be part of something that was so much bigger than you or me ... and that's not something many people can say at the end of the day. And so today, as I celebrate four more years of a president I fully support...I also grieve the loss of a campaign that would have made a difference for the people of Ohio's Fifth Congressional District.

But as sad as I feel...I am also inspired by the friendships and unity and incredible support that I saw during the course of this campaign. It might have been a long, difficult road with many twists and turns and potholes, but it is a road I would travel again with my friend and all the amazing people we met along the way.

Get out the vote O-H-I-O!

Unless you live under a rock you know tomorrow is Election Day.

Me, I'm lucky enough to live in THE SWING STATE - Ohio. Every day I get at least 10-15 political phone calls, my inbox is overflowing with emails from every Democrat in the country, and I'm even part of the Obama "Twitter Team" (which basically means they send me things to retweet and I choose if I want to participate).

Go O-H-I-O.
No pressure for us Buckeyes.
Basically the fate of the free world rests on us tomorrow.
But hey...no biggie, right?

Wrong.
Get your butt out there and vote.
I don't care if you live in Ohio or North Dakota or New Mexico.
Get. Out. The. Vote.

I early voted last Monday and I'm going to totally honest with you - when my ballot was accepted and the votes were complete I felt a surge of pride and joy that I haven't felt in any other election. Not even in 2008.

I almost did a happy dance right there at the voting booth.

The thing is, this election isn't about party affiliation.
It's about the people the elected officials are going to represent.
This election is about YOU.
If you don't vote, you can't complain about the state of government after the fact.
So get off your butt and get out there and cast your ballot.

Vote now!

I'm going to get political for a moment. 

My friend Angela Zimmann is running for Congress this year for Ohio's 5th Congressional District. (It makes me so proud to type that sentence).

Angela is one of the most amazing women I know.
She's absolutely brilliant.
And supportive.
And an all-around amazing individual.
She is also a wife, a mom, a college professor, a Lutheran pastor, and a school board member.

And is she EXACTLY what Ohio's 5th Congressional District needs as a representative and a voice in Washington, DC. She knows what we need here in northwest Ohio. She understands this region and knows what it will take to make this region prosper.

Today, Angela was named one of the top 10 Grassroots All-Stars by Democracy for America. For those of you who don't know - Democracy for America is "the people powered PAC' started by Howard Dean. They are, according to their website, "a grassroots powerhouse working to change our country, and the Democratic party, from the bottom up."

So, what does it mean to be a Grassroots All-Star? Well, the candidate with the most votes by 8 p.m. PST on February 28 will be named the Grassroots All-Star for 2012 and will automatically win Democracy for Change's biggest endorsement of the year and a commitment from DFA to raise $20,000 in small donations from their members. Second and third place candidates will also receive an endorsement from the DFA.

In short, this would be HUGE for any grassroots campaign. 
Here, in Ohio's 5th District, we need a new voice to fight for us in D.C. We need Angela. And she needs our help to get there!

Today, I'm asking all of you to vote for Angela to be the 2012 Grassroots All-Star. It's so easy to do. Click on this link http://grassrootsallstars.com/?t=VE1 and choose Angela Zimmann. You don't have to live in the 5th District to vote. Heck, you don't even need to live in Ohio. You can only vote once, but feel free to share the link with friends and family via Facebook, Twitter, and email.


Disclaimer: No compensation was received for this post and no candidates asked me to write it. I simply wanted to get the word out.