Yesterday evening about 5:30, I got a robo call from the Lieberman campaign... Joe himself was telling me that he isn't Bush, that he challenges Bush, he disagrees with Bush, that he doesn't even look like Bush, and really, truly, he isn't Bush -- got that?

I thought the robo-call pretty shrill and mused that perhaps it was Lieberman shooting himself in his remaining foot. But my opinions have been woefully wrong on these calls. For example, I thought the Clinton robo call for Lieberman -- a tape of his Waterbury speech ending-rouser "he's a good Democrat and he'll do you proud!" was going to really change votes...but apparently while people still love Clinton and the cheering Waterbury crowds on the tape, it has not been as effective as hoped.

The last Lamont push started with another phone call, a live call, last night about 8:30. It was the Lamont campaign manager asking if we could come get our Poll packets... My car is in the shop, and the Better Half was at a town meeting, so I called another member of the town committee to make the 30 minute drive down to CT-CD2 headquarters.

After a flurry of activity, Better Half actually got home in time so we took off and got to the CD-2 headquarters around 9:30-10:00 pm. Bunch of phone bankers were sitting around talking and wrapping up-- now too late to call folks.

Katie (the CD-2 Campaign Manager) and another volunteer were entering data into the computers and other volunteers, including "Dad," the designer and creator of the infamous Kiss float, were making up packages for the poll watchers. Better Half and "Dad" shared notes, while I doublechecked that we had enough palm cards, posters, more buttons, etc. for today.

As an aside: Our biggest brush with "blogger" fame was being in the presence of "Dad" when he designed the Kiss Float on a paper napkin at the planning meeting for Willimantic's boom box parade. (There were all of 7 there -- Dad and son and a young woman sketching the kiss float idea; two women from CT NOW who had the statue of liberty float with the symbol for female in her hand instead of the torch... and a Lamont guy from Vernon, another town in the CD-2, Katie the Manager for the CD-2, and us.

(We didn't contribute anything but our encouragement at the meeting, but it was a reminder of what huge things can be done by a very few committed people.)

Back to last night: The 5 or 6 phone banking young folks/volunteers were lighthearted. We older folks (Dad, Better Half, Katie, another volunteer and the guys packing boxes) seemed to be the worriers.

CT-CD 2 is all of Connecticut east of the Connecticut River -- it's big geographically, but we are a bunch of small towns, not really part of the political machinery.....although, frankly, that made us dangerous during the convention, because we are not beholden to anyone ... many of us don't give a damn, actually, and can speak our hearts. (For example, 3 of the 6 towns that have passed resolutions about Joe running as an independent are in the CD-2 ... those three towns are Willington, Hampton, and now Cantebury, just this week (New Britain, Greenwich and Norwalk are the other three -- for perspective, that is 6 out of 192 or something like that towns).

Ain't all this useless information fascinating?

Morning Update:

We had thunderstorms late last night, but Better Half has already done the morning shift (6:00 to 8:00) at our polling place. Seasoned workers in town say that turnout was light. Hoping that is the case only for our area.

I am off now, driving a Lieberman voter, sigh, to the polls.

10:42 AM update

from phone call with the guys doing the sign waving at the polls

Slow but steady stream. CT hasn't had a meaningful Democratic primary for several years, so getting folks out on an early August day is hard. But it's a gorgeous day here in eastern CT. Cool, sunny... we'll see if it heats up.

They suspect turn out is a little bit up from "normal." Lots of older folks with Lamont signs and stickers on their cars, which we take as a good omen, as that was one of the groups that the Lieberman campaign seemed to still be resonating with.

Expecting a slight increase around noon/lunchtime here and then the largest numbers this evening for the after work traffic.

12:30 Updates

Just back from the town offices ... slow, but steady stream continues. One woman came in wearing her portable oxygen. Lots of older folks voting. Don't know what that means. Unofficial tally at this time is about 20% voter turnout as of noon... making the state projections of 40% sound reasonable.

Lots of thumbs up signs, but hard to tell for sure and the day is about to get hotter. As driver being able to park within 75 feet for my elderly passenger, I made sure that the Lamont sticker was off the car, but slapped it back on quickly as soon as I could.

Forgot to add: 1 to 3 lamont poll watchers...3 to 4 Hurlburt watchers (state legislature primary); 1-2 Eastwood watchers (same race); 1 Malloy person; NO Lieberman; NO DeStefano...

2:30 Update

I took sandwiches and water to the folks poll standing and "spelled" the Better Half.

The slow, steady stream continued...word was that some of the other towns near us are a lot busier.

One gal had to go to another town to vote, but I gave her Lamont bumper sticker, label pin and sticker... She was quite happy with that. Thumbs up were intermixed with the "look straight aheads" -- so I am not sure what the numbers are, but the seasoned types said that it's usually pretty dead from noon to 4:00 -- it was not dead.

We did get shooed away (very nicely and very kindly) from the steps (the only place in the shade) because we forgot that we had our Lamont stickers on (over our hearts - of course!). Decided shade was at that moment more important that a disposable replaceable Lamont sticker, so we took them off and continued drinking our water and eating our sandwiches.

As soon as we got outside the 75 foot limit, we donned new stickies.

Home for some RandR and then back out to wave at the homeward bound traffic.

4:30 -- will be going off with another town committee member (also one of the 505 CT Dem Delegates who voted for Lamont in the infamous CT-Dem Convention) to do the waving at the Highway exit. Will be back, hopefully, to give another update before polls close.

6:50 Update

We have an hour to go before the polls close. Turnout is currently at 46.5 percent... means it will go higher. Very good for this little town. We stood at the exit ramp from about 4:30 to 6:30 -- (we have three exit ramps for our town, we chose the one on the way to the polling spot) and waved. We got tons of waves and honks and high fives (but a few of those finger gestures too) when we did the highway wave thing (Not sure if that's a New England thing or not... basically, standing at the exit ramp with the campaign signs and waving at every car that comes off (cause they probably live in town). The hope is that it is a subtle last minute reminder to vote.

Did have one woman hold up her new generic VOTE JOE sign as she careened down the highway, but generally positive energy. Bad sunburns all around though.

Haven't had time to check any of the other blogs or sites and I am only here for a quick refill to pick up cokes and drinks for the troops.

Next update will probably be with the poll results from our little town, but not sure when that will be.

Forgot to add -- even got waves from the state troopers.

Robo-call notes: I had lain down for a twenty-minute nap and got today's Joe robocall. It starts with HIM explaining to ME how critical this election is. Thanks, Joe... I really needed that. Keep your fingers crossed... I have no clue how it is going.

8:20 Update

Polls closed --53% voter turnout. Lamont -- (299 to 165) two to one over Lieberman! Hoping it is the same as that all over the state.