Pat Fuller Ω #Unite4Victory · @bannerite
30th Jul 2015 from TwitLonger
#Hillary2016 Not Feeling the Bern - 1st hand report from friend who attended Bern event. #PDMFNB
Reporting on : Bernie's (Not Exactly) Massively Online Super-Meeting
Oh my. How to write any of this politely. I went to the meeting at Sanders's main HQ in Des Moines, the main city to win if you want to win the Iowa caucuses. About 20 to 22 people came to the meeting, held at 7:00 pm.
When I arrived just nearing 7, I was asked to sign in and as I waited my turn (to put a fake name on the list), I said, "Oh, I'm so excited for this neat thing where Bernie talks to all of us at once. On Skype, is it?"
The young woman handling the entry said, "We'll be showing that at 7:30."
"Showing it? It isn't live? I was really excited for it to be live."
"Um, well, we got the time wrong and he already did it. But we taped it for you and we'll show it again at 7:30." (Me thinking...again?)
Right. Your HQ in first state to vote and you....got the time wrong.
Went into a big open room. Usual campaign sort of space but only 30 folding chairs and two tables inside. Big sheets of white paper on the wall inviting people to sign up to canvass door-to-door or to phone bank. Blank paper underneath. Later a clipboard sign-up came around. Three people signed up.
The people. Hmm. The HQ is in a poor white neighborhood and that showed. Several very thin, droopy, tired old women were there. Some of them clear misfits--those fellows who look like they're 30ish but still live in their parents' basements. About five of the folks were middle class and ordinary.
And then the meeting started. Only three people there had ever caucused before. Several folks tried to tell the state organizer (not impressed there) what to do. "We need a DVD to give people when we go door to door. If they could just see Bernie...." "We need his 12 points on a business card size handout." (Seriously, someone said this.) "How do we know when there's something going on? I can't find these events you're talking about on your Facebook page." (No central page, none of the pages are using event sign-up capabilities in FB.) Big argument ensues. "We can't win this on Facebook and Twitter. We need warm bodies out there." "Don't worry. We'll empty the high schools and the millennials will swamp all the nearby caucuses." .....
I couldn't stay long enough to watch Bernie's not-live-after-all speech. I figure it was just like all the others I've heard, since they're mostly the same.
And I was overwhelmed by the strong, multi-source perspiration odor in the room. (Not kidding, very sorry to even mention it, but...really bad.)
So that, my friends, is Bernie's central organization in Des Moines, Iowa. Newly fledged, wildly unorganized, peopled with inexperienced folks, but...they'll get it going at some point. Until that first debate knocks him out of the running.