It's up to Women: VOTE!

Las Cruces is a HUGE city, sprawling thru the high desert like L.A. stretches over the basin. We follow the signs to downtown and as we're driving, we spot Kerry-Edwards headquarters and in we go! The rooms are bustling with folks working hard to get Kerry elected in New Mexico as well as 16 boxes of pizza, which Rae and I both decline. We talk with the volunteer coordinator, who has come from Boston to spend this time in New Mexico. She tells us their strategy is to focus on the registered democrats and the undecided voters – which there are plenty of in that state, especially the western part including Las Cruces. She takes one look at the truck and then gives us her treasured bumper sticker that she's been hording for the right moment, saying she'd be honored to have it travel cross-country with us! It says "It's up to the women: vote" And under that "John Kerry". So she sticks it on an honored place on the side of the truck with the other bumper stickers folks have contributed!

As we're leaving Las Cruces we pull into a gas station to fill up and ask about a the location of a mail box. The young man, manager written across his shirt, tells me he can mail them for us in his office. I tell him these are vitally important documents, voter registration forms. He assures me he will personally make sure they get mailed, altho he himself is not voting. He lives in Texas, which is less than an hour away, and thinks bush might be doing a great job, he's not sure. I tell him I'm sure, bush is doing a terrible job at best. I run thru the state of our economy and this fellow nods his head, agreeing he has witnessed the downfall of the economy first hand. He comes out to the truck with me to get a voter registration form for himself. He asks about codePINK and then says, as the womon earlier, he thinks we should just bomb the whole country and turn it into a parking lot.

I stare at him for a moment, not admitting I’m heartbroken but nod slowly and say “Okay, so it's alright with you if we kill someone's mother, someone's child, someone's wife?''

“Well, they're terrorists,” he says a little less firmly.

I say “They're human beings, people just like you and me. You are talking about killing someone's mother and grandmother and children.”

“Well, I didn't think about it that way,” he says. I with as much certainty as I can convey “You HAVE to think about it that way!”

He asks for more codePINK information. He agrees that a vote for bush is a vote for rich people. He asks for another voter registration form for his girlfriend, saying he will pass this info on to her and talk it over with her.

I think he was sincere and hopefully ready to vote against bush!