Small Moments

A political campaign, like life itself, is a stream of small moments. Tiny incidents are the current, and they flow around major events as if they were stones in a stream. 

Here are a few of those small moments. 

.....

On Thursday of last week some of Ben's family arrived at the office toward evening.

 Their arrival wasn't scheduled, and in fact Ben wasn't there to greet them. The group included his mother, Susan, and two sisters, Jackie and Becky. 

Ben has a reputation with the staff and volunteers as the ultimate nice guy. Virtually all of us came on board because we agreed with one or another of his political positions. We're still there, and working crazy hours,  because long ago position papers gave way to profound respect and affection.

So I asked Becky if he was always this easy to like? Did Ben play this same sainted role in his family that he now enjoys in the campaign?

"Are you kidding?"she replied, "I was happy we had a hard back edition of the Book of Mormon. It gave me something substantial to throw at him."  

Then she sat down and tirelessly made calls in his behalf until 9:00 PM. 

.....

Half-way through that same evening I thought Ben's mother, Susan, could use a break. And besides, I wanted to share something that might show off her son in a good light. 

Once her present call concluded I walked over to her, "Hey, I'd like to show you something." 

I took her back to the conference room. On the wall was a whiteboard that should have been erased, but it still showed Ben's schedule. It didn't leave an hour with less than three places to be, and there were were fundraising objectives, specified by the hour, which seemed especially aggressive. 

I assumed she would be flabbergasted and filled with pride by all he was doing. Instead, she looked at this proof of an overly programmed life like she'd seen it all before. It was nothing remarkable or even worthy of sympathy. 

She looked at me with a deadpan expression and said, "You know who I think is the real hero? It's Ben's wife, Julie. She's brilliant and totally selfless when it comes to supporting Ben."

Then she walked away looking for that phone from which I'd taken her. She sat down and dialed her next call.

......

Late Saturday afternoon I was sitting in the office of Joel Freston, our field director. Joel is famous for working like a man in a flood sandbagging his own home. I asked if he was taking care of himself? 

"Yes," he said over the lid of his laptop, trying to multi-task our conversation.

"Measure yourself," I cautioned.

Then he dropped his hands from the keyboard and engaged me directly. "I know," he said, "a campaign is filled with more things in a day than anyone can possibly do. And maybe it's crazy to try. But the good part is that very same thing."

"How so," I asked.

"Well there is always something to do. Every day is filled with a thousand of those somethings."

"Joel, life is like that," I argued, "not just campaigns."

"No," he insisted, "campaigns are different. They accelerate until one morning in November you wake up and it's over. If you didn't win you feel miserable knowing there's nothing - not a single thing - you can do about it. You look back at all those days with so many things that needed to be done, and you're filled with longing." 

If I were running for political office, I'd want Joel working for me. If I were selling health insurance, I doubt I'd call him.