Delusions of Adequacy

Background: About a year after college, back in 1994, I was a delegate to the local Republican convention (and would've gone to the state convention to nominate a senatorial candidate, had work not intervened). This was the second major election in Virginia since the election of Clinton, and we Republicans were pretty high on the fact that our gerrymandering-ousted junior congressman, George Allen, had defeated an incumbent Democrat, Mary Sue Terry, after a nasty campaign -- nasty on Terry's part, anyway. We were in fact so high on this victory that we nominated Oliver North to run for the Senate against incumbent Chuck Robb.

Live and learn.

(Actually, I supported North's opponent for the nomination, an economic policy wonk named James Miller, if memory serves. I never cast a vote for North during the nomination process but I did during the election. And I shook hands with the good Colonel at the local convention, where he spoke rousingly.)

Ah, they were heady days. A high school and college acquaintance of mine tried to enlist me in a sting operation designed to prove that local party officials were stacking the vote for North by offering to pay off delegates to the state convention. I accepted the mission but did not carry it out because it made me feel slimy. People seeking offices were calling me, talking to me at conventions, trying to woo me to serve their own ends.

It was all a bit too much, though. I did not seek out delegate status the next time the election machinery rumbled to life, nor any time since. I have never, to my recollection, contributed anything but time and a skeptical ear to the Republican party -- and votes, of course, and the occasional e-mail debate or Usenet "discussion."

I thought it was all behind me.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I received, about a month ago, a fundraising letter from the RNC, delivered to my current Georgia address, which to my knowledge I've never provided to any political party. (I am on the Howard Dean mailing list, but that's another story.) I registered to vote in Georgia last fall, but the Georgia voter registration form doesn't call for a declaration of party affiliation.

They've found me. How did they find me?

This morning, in my mailbox, I found an envelope from the RNC, bearing the warning: "PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO ENCLOSED. DO NOT BEND." Alternate interpretations of that last line aside, I was again a little freaked out.

They know where I live.

The photo is a nice one. It shows the President at his desk, pencil in hand, studying a document of some sort on which he has circled paragraphs and made annotations. He's got a telephone handset wedged between his shoulder and his ear, and it's clear he's engaged in a momentous conversation of some kind. Skeletal, leafless trees are visible through the windows behind him. It's an 8X12, though the picture is smaller to allow space for the message at the bottom:

To Mr. Stephen Tilson,

Thank you for your support of the Republican National Committee. Grassroots leaders like you are the key to building a better, stronger, more secure future for our nation and all Americans.

Best wishes,
(signed) George Bush

Exsqueeze me? "Grassroots leaders"? I haven't lead anything, grassroots or otherwise, even during my brief tenure as a local delegate. And I've never ever given any money to the party.

Which, of course, is the point. It's a fundraiser.

Just a few points from this:

1. This fundraiser operates on the "flattery will get you everywhere" principle. Of course it's flattering to receive an unsolicited, machine-signed picture of the most powerful man in the world calling you a "leader." I am strongly considering sending a donation to the party.

2. Let no one say the Republican Party's grassroots efforts are disorganized or inefficient. I live at the dead end of a country road fifteen miles from nowhere in the foothills of Georgia, and they still found me.

3. I wonder whom I have to talk to, to become a delegate in Georgia?