Wednesday, 27 October 2004

Hey mister deejay: So, what did you do after work last night? Watch a little TV? Go out to dinner? Catch up on some reading?

That's nice. I helped raise over $5,000 for John Kerry.

For reasons best explained as "have iBook, will travel," I spent yesterday evening in the audio/video booth at our Democrats Abroad Sydney fundraiser — where we had about 120 (!) Kerry supporters show up to cheer our candidate on to victory. (Our previous attendance record was somewhere around 45 people, so this was a big, big night; the people at Bar Broadway, who've been incredibly supportive as we commandeer their upstairs function room once a week, said we should do this more often.)

Here's Tanya Plibersek, a Member of Parliament and of the Australian Labor Party, speaking about the importance of the upcoming American election and its effect on U.S.-Australia relations — but, more importantly, I'm supplying the Kerry/Edwards logo in the background! Doesn't it look great.

Crowd scene! I'd guess this was taken around 7:30 or so, when there were about 50 or 60 people; the room was even more packed an hour later. Bar Broadway took phone calls all day from people asking for directions, which they said only happens on major events.

Here's me doing a song and dance number — no, actually this is me talking about the current state-by-state polls, what Kerry needs in order to win, and why he's going to. Incumbents, challengers, undecideds, two-to-one ratios, getting out the vote, and it all adds up to Kerry 300, Bush 238. The October surprise is that Democrats are registering to vote in record numbers.

By the end of the night the Kerry campaign was over $5,000 richer, courtesy of donations large and small: From $500 checks to $5 bills, Kerry supporters in Australia showed their support with money, enthusiasm… and with the thousands of absentee ballots they've already mailed in.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 12:45 pm. comments.