So this last weekend we were able to add to our life experiences. I wanted to go to
Las Vegas for the weekend to help out with the Mitt Romney campaign but I felt bad to take off on a trip and leave Rachel and the children here while I went off to play. (if you call working on politics playing like I do) So one thing lead to another and I was able to go and bring the family. Thanks to my cousin Brooke, her husband Jeremy, and their family. The family stayed with the Fritz and I was gone most the time working on the campaign. The highlight moment happened Thursday night just as we arrived in town. Mitt came into town for a rally and we got to see him and hear him speak. I even made my way through a crowd of people to personally meet him after he spoke and with Anna and Carly on my shoulders we all met Mitt. When we were heading to
Las Vegas I explained to Anna and Carly who Mitt Romney is; the next President of the United States. They were well rehearsed by the time we got to the rally so they did great and thought it was very cool to meet Mitt!
What made the trip even more fun was my political buddies Corrine came up with us and Garrett came down from Provo. Corrine and I called on the support of Dad and Alisa to run the office for a few days so we could take off. Garrett doesn't have Friday classes and as he reminded us throughout the weekend he lives off his wife bringing home the bacon so he just had to make sure he could take their only car and he was able to "come on down." Most of the time we spent at campaign HQ making calls to get people out to vote the next day, but we also did a little neighborhood canvasing too. We quickly realized the phones were much more effective.
The second biggest highlight was our assignment on the morning of the vote. Nevada had a Caucus which means that rather than having a polling location open all day where you just stop in and vote, you have a set time (in this case 9am on a Saturday) to show up and discuss the candidates and vote on delegates as well as the candidates. Most of the caucus locations where high school. Because a caucus is run by the party using volunteers at each location rather than the party setting up and controlling a "voting place" like you see in primaries and general elections there was a need for more supervision. Corrine, Garrett, and I were assigned a high school and we were the ONLY people there from the Romney campaign. WE REPRESENTED the campaign at that location. It was crazy how official we became when we put on our new Mitt Romney shirts. Everyone at our location thought we knew everything. We were getting feedback about the radio ads, which points Mitt should highlight on his stump speeches, why people were voting for Mitt, what other literature they got from other candidates, etc. It was quite a rush to be so involved in "the process." What might surprise many people is that very few of the volunteers working for Mitt are LDS. People act like he is the Mormon candidate but we certain saw first hand that he is not; he is a presidential candidate who is of the Mormon faith. Big difference! For me the highlight of the caucus was that one of my jobs as Team Captain at the caucus location was to certify the vote count. I watched everything being done. How ballots were being distributed, collected, and then counted. I even had to sign a paper showing I approved of everything, representing the Romney campaign. (Every campaign had the right to have someone there but most campaigns don't have enough staff to do it. Only Ron Paul had people at our location besides us.)
Well a big thanks goes out to Rachel for being a good sport and coming to Vegas for the weekend. She had a good time with Brooke and the children all loved playing with "new" cousins so she was definitely glad she came. Corrine got a reality check on road tripping in the Minivan with a young family. She still managed to get a little of her never ending projects done (knitting this time) but not much because the girls expected her to be paying attention to Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses and other such movies. Thanks again everyone!
And anyone reading this post - don't forget to make your voice heard and GET OUT TO VOTE! (you can make me happy by making your vote for Mitt - I really think we need a successful businessman to go in and clean up our national government and I think Mitt is the man to do it!)
