PERSONAL NEWS #136
On Saturday, December 1st, I cancelled going up to Yonkers Ferret Shelter, as I had to stay home and await delivery of petitions via Fed Ex. These petitions were coming from volunteers in upstate New York. While waiting for the delivery I baked Xmas cookies and brownies for the holidays, as well as do chores around the apartment. Around 6:30pm Linda G showed up with a ton of signed petitions garnered over past month. Linda worked with another volunteer, Max, on getting these petition signatures every weekend. They did an awesome job and by Dec 4th had accumulated over 800 signatures. Wow!

The next day, Sunday, December 2nd, David Bright [Kucinich campaign ballot access director] joined me at my office to work on processing all the petitions. Thomas and Phoebe also joined us to work on this time consuming project. Many volunteers stopped by to hand in their signed petition forms and inquire on the progress. By 5:30pm the total of signatures was only 4300 and we needed another 1000 to put us safely in the clear. The deadline for submitting these signed petitions was looming quickly. Too quickly and I was getting quite anxious. Immediate action was necessary, so Thomas and I sent out urgent emails to our connections, plus volunteers to get out and obtain more signatures. The Kucinich campaign staff also sent out an urgent email to their NY State volunteer base to help out. This was serious crunch time! After making copies of the petitions, which I took, and David took the originals, we left my office after 8pm. By this time, after two busy days, I was feeling tired and drained. Upon arriving home I collapsed into bed. David headed off to Thomas’ place in Brooklyn were he’d be camping out, plus working until Wednesday evening on organizing, petitioning and other campaign duties. Tuesday, December 4th, had an appointment with my foot doctor and also joined in the National DoP conference call that evening.

On Wednesday, December 5th, I met up with Thomas, Phoebe and Jim [many thanks!] outside my office and then headed down to Penn Station to meet David Bright. We handed over all the remaining signed petition forms to David, who was taking Amtrak up to Albany that evening and working with volunteers in that area. [These volunteers were spearheaded by Mary, Wendy, Steve, Frank & Jim. Many thanks to ALL for your fine, excellent and outstanding work. Around this time I became acquainted with Caitlin O’Heaney and we started work on organizing a NYC DJK Fundraiser. You’re a gem Caitlin!] The petition deadline was the next day and it looked like we had more than enough to clear the 5000 mark. Monday through Wednesday I saw a lot of volunteer traffic through the lobby of my job. Sadly I didn’t get much work done, but in regards to the campaign, we were on fire. Hell yeah!

Thursday, December 6th, evening was the monthly NYC Kucinich Team meeting and we had a good turn out this month of 30+. Several were newbie’s to the group and campaign. I’d heard from David earlier that afternoon and he gave me an update on petition progress. We were definitely in the clear and that evening I announced to meeting attendees that the final count of signatures was 6413. Yahoo! Whew! Amen! Everyone applauded and cheered, as this was very good news and meant that in 3 ½ days we brought in over 2000 signatures. Wow! When push comes to shove NYC and NY State volunteers pull through brilliantly. We had a great meeting and many important issues/topics were discussed, as well as plans for the NYC campaign over next month.