Iowa is a blast. I'm super-busy so I can't write much other than to say I'm having a great time and I'm confident we'll win the 2nd big contest here on Monday night.

I'm about to head for a DC for Dean victory party (must beat Sharpton...must beat Sharpton) and then it's off to Iowa. I'll try to keep a few posts up for the next week.

I worked the polls in support of the good doctor for two hours at another polling place (not Garrison Elementary School, where I vote), then got a ride to Garrison and voted on a touchscreen machine for Dean. Then I put up a final sign, walked to work, and rode the elevator up with Donna Brazile. She complained about too many Republicans in her ward (Ward 6 - Capitol Hill) and said she'd already voted. She asked what number I was and I said that I was delayed becaused I'd worked the polls for Dean. She gave me a thumbs up.

A damn fine way to start the day.

I'm about to go out and start working at a poll, then vote, then head to work. This day could be historic for several reasons: the first in the nation DC primary, the day the Dean campaign took off, or the day that Bush & Co. began to defeat our proud nation. With a Dean win, the first two will be true and the third will be proved wrong. So get out today and vote, district denizens!

Just to show everyone where I was a year ago in the Democratic primary fight, I'd like to point to this post as well as this one which still seem apt. (Well, excluding the "Graham could catch fire" comment, that is.) Dean was leading in my mind then for the very reason he's leading today and it has nothing to do with most issues: it's that he seems like an honest guy who tells the truth and fights hard. Only someone like that can defeat George Bush in 2004. Hear me now and believe me later. A year later...

Some of my coworkers found out I'm going to Iowa next week for Dean. They aren't that happy about it. I'm not that concerned. I'm convinced next January they'll be wrong and I'll be right. So there.

Someone mentioned that they managed to destroy Homer's head from the Homer Cube page. Sorry, man, I can't help you put it back together again, horses and men included.

I also just ponied up my annual $1 gift to my college. You should too! Last year my class was the stingiest givers of any class since the class of 1928, if I recall correctly, and even they were only handicapped by the fact that only 3 people were left alive in their class. I'm sure my one dollar is being used properly.

So I wake up this morning and discover I've got a 3/4" scar on my hand. Odd. It wasn't there last night, so I either sleepwalk poorly or someone is sneaking into my room and attacking me without my knowledge. Either way, a little scary.

It's over for Kerry. Why, you may ask? Well, just check out the trends from last week and compare them to the link above. Essentially, Kerry is now tied with Lieberman in NH, with diminishing hard support.

The good news, for Dean at least, is that Clark has hit a plateau of around 20%. He has apparently sucked most of Kerry's people over, without managing to decrease the overall "undecided" percentage at all. I'm not a huge fan of the ARG poll for the raw numbers, but I think the trends are accurate. Clark had a huge week last week (while Kerry was stumping in Iowa) and the numbers reflect that move. It doesn't matter how well Kerry does in Iowa: a ten point margin is tough to top if his momentum is trending down.

So I'm helping put up signs around the White House in the freezing cold when the Secret Service pops out to tell me I'm breaking the law. I point out that the entire city is covered in signs, but they claim that the statute in question "is rarely enforced". Later they give me a song and dance about how it doesn't matter "if I call a lawyer or the ACLU or something" that "we're not debating this with you". Two other groups on the other side of the White House were also harangued by officers. Even when the park police and city police showed up (to say that, actually, we could put up signs as long as it was on city property) the secret service delayed until the dissenting officers left, then wheeled back in to tell the group that the signs were going to be removed by force.

As we wrapped up, with throwing a few signs outside the "Club for Growth" headquarters, a DC cop showed up to chew us out. This time, fortunately, one of the organizers was there to defeat their silly rule-making. Too much recession and depression for me. But at least there are tons of signs up now.

I ended up having a strange dinner. You know that feeling when you're doing your taxes and you expect you have to pay a bunch only to find at the last minute that you can deduct something? And then, a few minutes later, you realize you made an earlier error and that you actually do owe a great deal of money? That was like dinner tonight: I went from worried, to confused, to angry, to disappointed. As I've said before, with a long enough timeline, everyone will disappoint me. It simply didn't take the route I thought it would. Faced with the prospect of writing off something entirely, I'm hesitant. Call it sunk cost.

Trust is always maddeningly difficult to earn, yet effortlessly easy to lose. I'm glad I'm a positivist. Star-crossed, yes, but still optimistic things could change.

Yesterday I managed to fly around the city in rapid fashion, heading over to the National Cathedral to score a sleeping bag from Loaf, then cruising downtown (to right outside my office, oddly) to attend a Dean rally with Gwyn & friends. The rally was well done, right up to the part where Elijah Cummings (chair of the CBC) spoke. Afterwards, because of some scheduling weirdness, about 20 other people spoke. It was like watching a clown car: people just kept being invited to come up and speak, and each took up valuable time that we could have spent, say, actually working.

The icing on the cake was that I helped break down the event, which meant that when I headed over to the new E Street Theatre, the massive crowds there prevented me from getting a ticket to the latest Bruce Campbell film in time. If I'd only left a few minutes earlier, I would've been fine. Argh. So I delayed and caught a later showing. I'll try to throw up a review later, to augment the multiple reviews that I've been posting on a regular basis now.

I met up with Deborah after the movie and the two of us headed over to hang out with Sean, Kevin and some friends near Dupont. We were having a good time at the place in question, but as the evening approached the magical midnight moment, I realized I was supposed to head over to Local 16 to meet some other friends. Normally, I'd have lobbied quickly and won, but for some reason every single person was intent on hitting Sign of The Whale instead. Needless to say, I was not open to such an idiotic idea, and I only managed to convince Kevin to come with me. (Deborah had already retired by this point).

In hindsight, things worked out perfectly. L16 was a madhouse, as usual, so it would've been incredibly difficult to get all the earlier people even in the door. As it was, we were a small enough group that I got to converse with both of the people I knew (there was a third person there, but she didn't make much of an impression....meh) extensively and after a bit we all called it quits. A good end to an enjoyable evening.

I turn on the TiVo this morning and discover it's been busy in my absence recording every episode of "My Life as a Teenage Robot" which enabled me to catch the few ones I hadn't seen before. Then I flipped over to ABC, where George S. was interviewing Dr. Dean on "This Week". Dean came out and said plainly, that he was going to propose a cut in the payroll tax later.

Damn.

As I've said before, cutting the payroll tax is brilliant. A week ago (after someone at the WaPo got the payroll tax idea inserted into the end of a story) the NYT ran an article suggesting some other, different way of helping the middle class through tax credits, etc. So I was down, because the payroll tax is really the simplest and easiest way to affect working Americans. Simply remove the cap, and lower the resulting tax by a percentage point or two and you'd pay for the stimulus yourself. Workers would see it in their paychecks immediately, which would help spur the economy. And there'd be no long term implications, because you'd actually be making revenue, through removal of the cap.

I can't wait. War on FICA will make fighting 43 that much easier.

Time to get back to work...later this evening a large group of us are going to the White House to stick up tons of "Dean For America" posters around it. It should be quite a spectacle tomorrow morning when Bush wakes up to find his house is surrounded by DFA posters. Yay!