Late Nights at HQ

Today’s reason we’ll win the primary:

Sometimes I listen to NPR in the car: when congress is on I swear it sounds like a bunch of 40-something (and up) kindergarteners who haven’t learned to share yet.

While Dean doesn’t rail against Washington (which I think is a sign a of good politician), this mentality is why many voters are drawn to a governor instead of a senator. Dean can run on his record, Kerry can’t.
So I worked til midnight last night, and Tom, the Field Director, was driving me home (which is still temp housing) when he mentioned he hadn’t had dinner. So we pulled into a late-night diner, ate, and talked politics, especially data & politics. It was great; he is such a nice guy and a great leader. Tom got home at 1am and was in the office at 6:30am. Now that’s setting a standard.

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Car Help Please

Quite a few things to blog today, so I think I’ll spread it out to two blogs. First, I went to a large rally in Portsmouth, NH. Over 400 people in attendance, which is by far the largest rally by *any* candidate in NH. We were watching C-Span a few days ago and Leiberman, at an event he was really pushing, got about 75 people to come. This campaign has really tapped into a spirit of activism that was in remission in many of these people.
One of my favorite lines from the event was:

A campaign based on hope will always beat a campaign based on fear, and that’s why we’re going to win in 2004.

Hopefully true, and certainly a way to beat GW in November-a-year.
Also, I’m looking to buy a car this weekend; specifically, a Prius. Unfortunately, there is only one dealer in the area with Pruises in stock, and they only have this one. (It’s actually black.) So I have a question to people with cars: under what circumstances should I not buy the car? What should I look out for?

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In Person

Today I had the honor of meeting the next President of the United States. Thankfully, I knew this handshake might happen today, so I wore my colorful “Save the World” tie. And, of course, Dean said, “That’s a really nice tie!” woohoo! (I’m still kicking myself for wearing a boring tie the time I met Clinton.)
But, what really made the day blog-worthy was that Gov Dean did an interview with WGBH just 4 feet behind me. (It will air sometime b/t Friday-Sunday for those of you in the Boston area–I’ll give more details when I have them since I might be in a shot). I thought the interview was fabulous and reinforced my belief that I have found the right candidate. Dean gave the best analysis of affirmative action that I have ever heard from a politician. He doesn’t dance around issues–he cuts right through them. When the interview does go on the web, I’ll make sure to post a link.
Also, note Jane’s blog. She has a most thought-provoking post.

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Leading in CA

Yesterday I completed my first real day at the campaign. Staff meeting daily at 8:30am–wow there are a lot of names to learn. I’ve got the important ones down (including the person trying to find me housing). Also, there was an e-communications meeting in the afternoon. I was blown away with the number of *great* ideas coming out of Burlington (VT, national campaign HQ). Normally these people working on campaigns will have ideas that either 1) will get us nothing in the end, 2) are impossible to do in the course of the campaign, or 3) some combination of the two. Certainly not the case here. Anyway, if you think Dean’s use of the Internet was good so far, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
For housing, I’m currently crashing with the field director and his deput. The campaign gave me the option of (A) paying me a little more and finding my own housing or (B) paying me less and providing me housing with a supporter. Considering my hectic state the week before I officially joined the campaign, I chose option B. So hopefully I’ll get some housing that’s close to HQ.
Check this out: “Dean now leads pack among Democrats in California, poll shows”! Margin is +/- 5 and our lead is only 1% (over Kerry, then Leiberman), but, wow, that’s quite the journey from obscurity just a few months ago.
I might finally get to meet the Governor today, as I’m going (along with most of the campaign staff) to an event in Portsmouth.

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Dean HQ

Well, I made it. Finished my thesis over a month early, completed (most of) my Boston responsibilities, packed everything in my room up in one night, and travelled safely to Manchester, NH–thanks to my Uncle Michael and his pickup truck.
I’m posting from Dean’s New Hampshire Headquarters. It’s actually surprisingly quiet right now–only about three other people in here with me. This place is *huge*–tons of computers, with room for growth. It looks like an old warehouse, the desks are clearly “homemade,” but serve their purpose well. The array of artwork on the walls is impressive–the campaign clearly earned its reputation for being creative and energetic. There’s a quote on the wall: “We’re not going to beat Dean,” Kerry Staffer, 7/1/03. The staffer is actually talking about 2nd quarter fundraising, but out of context, it’s very funny/heartening.
Also, there are vending machines, OJ in the fridge (!), and bagels/donuts out for consumption. Looks like there will be plenty of food; hopefully not too much so–I’ll try my best not to repeat the horizontal growth I experienced in Gore2000. To that end, I donated/lent my trampoline (along with my bulletin board and whiteboard) to the campaign. Thankfully, the ceilings are high enough for full-blown jumping. I know the IT staff will use it (and,yes, that’s more than just me); perhaps the rest of the campaign will come around too.

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Bowling shoes

So this past weekend was a blast! Thanks to Rachel and Rebecca/Elazar for inviting me to Shabbat dinner and lunch, respectively.
Saturday night was the big farewell party with over 30 people! The Elephant walk was a lot of fun, except for the divisive table arrangement–but the food and atmosphere made up for it. Then, candlepin bowling–need I say more? I went easy on the first game, and Rachel’s b/f Shaun came away with the top score of 92. I hunkered down for round two, and blew everyone away with a 104. Hey, I was on my home turf–and I couldn’t let the crowd down. I noted some impressive bowling from Shaun, Jen, Shu, Mike, Prof. Ansolabehere, Billy, and McBean (but he’s good at everything).
Notable aside: when I went to pay, they said they didn’t take credit cards. Sheesh, they could have told me that over the phone when I reserved *seven* lanes! So I had to run to the ATM, two blocks away, just across the square. Not wanting to keep the people in my group waiting (they wanted me to pay before we left), I jetted out of Sacco’s Bowl Haven. About five strides into my run I slip a little and realize I still have my bowling shoes on. Now, I figure I can manage this fashion faux paux because, as Morgan Freeman tells us in Shawshank, no one ever looks at a person’s shoes. Well, turns out that the exception to that rule is when the shoes are brightly colored red and blue with a big 10.1/2 on the back. I know this because on my sixth stride, this young women (apparently a frequent visitor to Sacco’s) informs me, while laughing, “Bowling shoes outside–*that’s* not allowed.” D’oh. Strike three, I’m out. So, apparently, wearing bowling shoes outdoors is a violation in more than just the fashion sense.

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Goodnight Moon

Well, I just completed my last all-nighter of my college career. The fruits of my labor can be seen with my written thesis here (warning: some lines got cut in the pdf conversion), along with the proof that the ideas I wrote about actually work. Anyway, I’ll try to make the application a little more user friendly, but that’s for another day (or night).
Sigh, I’m going to miss this place. I ran into one of my ex-6.001 (intro to programming) students today (heck, and one yesterday for that matter)…it’s so cool that I’m friends with them after the class. I loved teaching–maybe I should do that after I take the fall for someone else’s political scandal later in life. Sounds like a good plan, well good when you consider it’s 7am. Oy, 7am. Hrmm, maybe I can get 2 hours of sleep. That’d be good, better go home now though.

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Creative Commons

So, I was on Slashdot the other day, and came across this article about how my favorite politician was guest blogging for one of the most interesting “talking heads” on the Internet, Lawrence Lessig. I learned about Lessig in 6.805, the same class that spawned the paper on airline security that Samidh and I wrote.
Anyway, I checked out Lessig’s blog, and came across Creative Commons. This is a really awesome response to the RIAA and MPAA’s war on fair use. Basically, with Creative Commons, when you create something, you automatically give permission to other people to mess around with it. You can specify some restrictions: attribution, non-commercial, copyleft (or “share-alike” as they call it), etc. This neat flash presentation can explain it much better than I can.
So, this blog is licensed under Creative Commons (see lower-right corner of page). I wanted my thesis (warning: still in edit mode) to be released under Creative Commons, but it turns out that since MIT paid my tuition (as I was a TA) this past year, they get to have the copyright. I guess &quot all rights reserved &quot is a small price to pay for a stipend. (Actually, I guess linking it right there is technically illegal–oh well, just more of my civil disobedience).
To actually add to the &quot creative commons,&quot I’ll release my Thesis song parody. Below is the chorus and final verse; you can find the rest in the “read more” section. I don’t think I need to say what the tune is to. So, feel free to change the song to actually make it funny!

Oh, SuperComboPoliCompSciWeightedVotingThesis!
Even though the sound of it
Will make you fall to pieces
If you work on it long enough
You’ll always screem out JESUS!
SuperComboPoliCompSciWeightedVotingThesis!
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
So when the prof cracks his whip
There’s no need to submit
Just conjure up this golden word
and it’ll be the prof that they commit!
But better use it carefully
‘Cuz it might change your destiny
One night I said all too loud
And now I’m working on my PhD!
It’s SuperComboPoliCompSciWeightedVotingThesis!

Oh, right, thesis. I should finish that.

Continue reading →

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Quote of the Week

“I think the burden is on those people who think he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are.”


–Ari Fleischer, July 9th, (Reported in both WP and NYTimes)

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First post :)

Greetings. This will be the place to check out all my life-happenings while I spend the next six months of my life in Manchester, NH working for the Howard Dean for President campaign. Honestly, I won’t have time to keep in touch with half of you half as much as I would like during the campaign, so this simple blog will have to do.
Speaking of this blog, I just spent the past two hours of my life installing this Moveable Type weblog template–time I should have spent finishing up my thesis (it’s almost done, I swear). Well, the two-hour install was not really all Moveable Type’s fault (though they certainly share some blame)–the template has a lot of bells and whistles which took quite a long time to upload to the web server I’m using (hosting by ICDSoft).
I’ll try this template for a while, and then see if I want to use my own MySQL/PHP system; I think the biggest issue for me will be customizability. Clearly, with my own system I could do whatever I wanted…I’ll just have to see if change in flexibility + knowledge gained – opportunity cost – potential frustration > 0.
Right, back to thesis.

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