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There will be more Big Operators in your hair, more blokes with votes-in-their-pockets, more people
widi their hands out, more hopeful patronage hounds, more of everything which makes politics
complicated without adding to the vote.
There is just one thing to be remembered in the midst of all this hurly-burly and confusion: Keep your
eye on the ball!
The votes are still in the precincts. Punching doorbells still remains the only way to get out the vote you
need, despite anything you may hear from the Important Politicians from down town.
Maintain your own practice of spending two afternoons each week punching doorbells.
Schedule Mr. Upright for another 500 hours of canvassing and see to it that he keeps to his schedule.
Keep your campaign centered around the Doorbell Club and don't use them for anything but canvassing
until election day.
Ignore the opposition as before.
The only real differences are these:
(a) You all campaign for the whole ticket and
TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT! 215
emphasize Mr. Upright only by getting in his name more frequently, principally through quoting him by
name in support of the platform and the ticket.
(b) You canvass from a selected list as before, but this time you ignore, in your canvassing, all the
members of your party who voted in the primary. With the exceptions of the ones who had to be carried
co the polls (and will have Co be again) these people can all be depended on to get to the polls and to
vote the straight party ticket. Instead you canvass all members of your party who failed to vote in the
primary ... and all members of minor parties and all unaffiliated voters. The known members of the other
party you ignore. You have nearly 40,000 people to reach; you haven't time enough nor people enough
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to do more. Your effort will be to turn out the largest possible vote of your own party... especially the
voce of the "sleepers."
(c) Therefore you will put more effort than ever into organizing your election day forces. If additional
help for election day can be obtained from the county or state committee you will want it, since it does
not require local information, other than a prepared list, Co do election day work, and it does not even
take that Co be a poll worker or a count watcher.
And that's all
Along toward the last of the campaign very heavy pressures will be brought against you co change the
campaign, but one will come from an unexpected source. A senior member of the party, resident in your
district, a nominal member from the beginning of the Upright committee and a fairly heavy contributor Co
it, is likely to call on you. He won't put it quite bluntly but the idea is that you should lie down and let
Swivelchair win.
He will say you have made a good fight but that Upright does not have a chance. Upright isn't quite
ready yet; maybe in two years, or four years, but not this year. On the other hand he happens to know
that
TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT!
Robert A. HeMein
216
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Swivelchair plans to go for Senator next time; on that occasion he could throw a lot of support to
Upright if Upright did not cause Swivelchair too much expense this time. Why not be practical, take a
long view, and get along?
You wouldn't even have to drop the rest of the ticket, naturally; just persuade Upright that there was no
sense in throwing good money after bad-and get sick for a while.
As for you - well, what appointment would you like? Maybe it could be arranged.
There is no particular reason why you should not indulge in the rare luxury of losing your temper,
although it won't help any. Send him about his business. Don't make it an issue - now. But don't let him sit
in on any party conclave during the campaign, nor ever again, if you can keep him out. He's a Trojan
horse.
Don't let it shake your faith in human nature. Instead, it should build up your faith. They would not try to
buy you off if they were not frightened! It is a shiningjustification of your faith in the nature of the average
citizen. Your methods and your beliefs are being vindicated in the most practical way possible - and die
opposition knows it.
Some time later you will again find yourself seated behind a table with an election night party going on all
around you. The radio will be blasting, the phone will be ringing, you will be trying to eat a sandwich and
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listen to the radio while thinking with half your mind about how to scrape up the postage for the eight or
nine hundred-odd letters of thanks that Upright will have to send out in the next two weeks.
The early returns aren't going too badly; Upright is
even running a little ahead of the ticket in some spots
-but it's still touch-and-go. Swivelchair's organization
is experienced and well trained; it can't be discounted.
You decide to put off worrying about the postage,
and so forth, until about Thursday. You'll find the money; you always have.
There haven't been any returns on congressional districts for about an hour. You are getting jittery. The
announcer is introducing candidates and notables - why don't those stuffed shirts get off the air?
Here come some figures-9th district, 10th district, 11 th district, 12th district - the announcer stops.
What's got into him?
'Just a minute, folks, some new figures just in... any moment now. Here's one item of news anyway. The
new figures clearly show that in the Umpteenth District, in a surprise upset, Jonathan Upright has
unseated old-timer Congressman Swivelchair. The incomplete returns show a lead of-" " You have
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