I’m delighted of course, that Deval Patrick and Tim Murray won the election, along with our other democratic candidates but I am very disappointed that Deval and Tim (and our democratic candidate for State Rep.) lost in my town, and the majority of towns in my House district of 1st Middlesex. We’re the red strip of border towns on the Boston Globe map. In most of the towns it was a close race, but in my town we had the dubious honor of losing by the greatest margin. In fact, in the Boston Globe my town is further dishonored by being one of the worst towns for the ticket. Ouch.
Needless to say we have some work to do in my (red)neck part of the map. What happened? The good news is that the margins were much closer in this election than in 2002. More folks voted, and voted democrat and that’s a great thing. I just think, no, actually I know, that if we had more volunteers we could have won. Not just come close. Won. In my town alone, the margin was 323 votes. That’s it. Out of 5,100 registered voters (all parties) only about 3200 showed up. I don’t think that it’s out of the realm of possiblity to pick up 324 votes from the balance of potential voters who chose not to vote. We didn’t have enough volunteers and we just flat ran out of time.
So where do you go for volunteers? The first stop is the Democratic Town Committee. You’d think a group of 14 – 20 active volunteers could really accomplish something. Here’s the rub though: unlike the other towns in my house district, we did not have a majority of members supporting Deval Patrick before the primary. You’d think though after the primary that we could count on more help, and I honestly thought that after the primary people would get to work. Hell, people even told me that after the primary that we’d all be working together. Awesome. But it never happened. Why? There was a variety of reasons given. Too busy. Too shy. Summer vacation. Here’s my favorite (actual quote) “I am not on the `unenrolled’ town committee, so I will not call, or contact unenrolled voters.” Now mind you, a candidate cannot be elected dog catcher in this state without reaching out to unenrolled voters, so really this is just another excuse to not do the work.
In my town, on any given day from the time after the caucus until primary day, and on through to election day, we had 2 (two!) volunteers (Myself being one of the two) working full-time (phone banking, canvassing) and a few others who helped with stand-outs but not with those other tasks. We also had people willing to hold signs on election day, but by then the deed is done. Holding signs is an important part of the overall strategy, but it doesn’t ID voters. By election day if you don’t have your voters ID’d you’re done. Two weeks before the election I knew what was coming.
Last night was our first town committee meeting since the election. When we discussed the outcome of the election and what we could do differently next time, there were many people who were absolutely amazed that the ticket didn’t win. Amazed! How could it happen? These were the same people who were for the most part MIA. The same people who ignored my phone calls. Ignored my e-mails. Ignored my many, frequent, incessant calls for help. Unbelievable.
I was diplomatic. I was cordial. I did not in any way, shape or form want to insult anyone, but I made it very clear that we lost our town because we didn’t do the work. You can’t just hope for the best, as Deval says, but not work for it.
I’m not trying to make excuses, and as the co-coordinator for my town, and district coordinator of my senate district I know the responsibility lies with me and I accept that. I have some work to do. My plan is to learn more about effective organizing with the dual goals of not just having more volunteers, but to build a stronger democratic organization on my local level in the process.
That’s my local rant – on a senate district level, we had essentially the same issues, but on a larger scale. Pre-primary we didn’t get any help from any of the city committees. Many people were with other candidates (and not working for them either). I get that. We had a few people here and there helping out, but for some that just meant they would put up a yard sign. Helpful, but like I said before, signs don’t ID voters.
After the primary it was better. The unions and Neighbor to Neighbor were fantastic, but the Democratic City Committees, with the exception of Gardner were completely missing in action in my district. We had plenty of chiefs, but not enough indians. We had to scrape for phone bankers every night and canvassers every weekend. Once the campaigns were coordinated, we had the help of a very talented, energetic Field Coordinator (originally with the Murray campaign) who made miracles happen on a daily basis. In the smaller towns in the district we had the same issues with a lack of involvement from the local town committees. In some areas we had State Rep. races going on as well. In at least two towns we had committee members actively supporting Republican candidates. In one case it was a Town Chair who was foolish enough to endorse said Republican candidate in the local newspaper. Yikes.
Bottom line: We did better in this region this year, but we still have much room for improvement. The challenge is to keep those folks who were involved in the campaign around and engaged, and to also reach out to our allies who are involved in other causes. We have many goals in common and it just makes sense to join forces.
What are you doing? What works in your area? What else can local activists do to recruit and keep volunteers?
I welcome your suggestions.
Since my repeated requests that you be referred to as “Susan the Red” and that you be taken out and shot have fallen on deaf ears…
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Let’s start by telling a different story. A small dedicated band of volunteers led an effort that neutralized the Healey/Hillman campaign where they were counting on bigger wins. If you like the military stories, maybe it’s something similar in spirit to Agincourt or Bastogne.
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Look at a bigger picture. Those 324 votes would be a 10% increase in what was probably an already high turnout in your town. The marginal effort needed to do that might have cost the Patrick/Murray campaign more than 324 votes in other places by diverting your attention from other work in the district.
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You learned so much and you’ve opened doors to learning even more. I think you will find many opportunities in the coming months to learn about campaigns and campaigning. The first thing I would do is sit down and have coffee with that Murray field coordinator. Those “miracles” were probably the result of some good preparation, perhaps over years.
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Continue working with the people who did help you. Find projects that will keep them connected and working together. You’ll meet other good people as you do that. Encourage good people and help them develop their skills. Build a team, you can’t do it all by yourself. Don’t be too hard on the people who just hold signs, you’re going to need them next time. (ok, I’m about to remind you to wear sunscreen, so I’ll stop for now).
Peter Dolan is funny (and I STILL owe you a phone call!)
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Thanks for the comments. You’re right of course, the big picture view is better than 2002, but what can I tell you, I’m greedy. I wanted to win on the 7th. Badly.
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You are so right about opportunities to learn. That is one of the best parts of this experience for me. I’ve met (or almost met – in person g) some incredibly talented, and generous people in the course of this campaign and I plan to take advantage of that going forward.
We had a similar experience with the DTC in my town. The members that did anything in the primary were backing Gabrieli. The Thursday after the primary I went over to the law office of the town chairman. They were tapped to run a Victory ’06 sponsored phone bank, and I wanted to introduce myself and coordinate our efforts. That was the last time we spoke. None of my subsequent calls were returned. The town committee sat on its hands through the entire general election campaign. I copied the chairman on every organizing email I sent out and never got a single response. Finally near the end of the last week of the campaign I got calls from the town moderator and one of the selectmen, offering to distribute yard signs and help with the visibility on Election Day. During a conversation with one of these men, I expressed my frustration with the lack of support from the town chairman, and he just chuckled and shared that the chairman hadn’t gotten his hands dirty in a campaign since Ed Markey’s first run for Congress.
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Post election there was a discussion of this problem on the Yahoo coordinators group. Someone posted the following paragraph from the State Democratic Charter:
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“All Local committees are intended to be working committees, dedicated to the cause of winning elections. All members should pledge a minimum of 40 hours in each 2 year election cycle to organizing or soliciting financial or grassroots support for Democratic candidates, at least half of which shall be in the general election time period. Nothwithstanding any other provisions of this charter, failure to work actively in any election cycle could result in removal from all Democratic Party offices, if voted by said committee after a hearing. State Committee members shall be responsible for ensuring that all members within their State Senate District are given opportunities to comply with this pledge. Town and Ward committee chairs shall be responsible for ensuring compliance with the work pledge provisions”
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Best as I can tell, our entire committee failed to comply with this requirement. There’s also a clause in the charter that says the town committees are supposed to meet at least four times a year and at least once each quarter. In the previously described conversation, I was told that in an off election year I’d be lucky if our DTC met more than once in the entire year.
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My plan right now is to show up at the February caucus with as many of my Patrick/Murray volunteers as I can drag out with me. We’ll see if we can’t breathe a little life into the existing group. It sure would be nice, though, if the state committee was paying a little more attention to what’s going on (or in our case not going on) at the local level.
Organizations need new blood. The folks who have been around for a while have often traded in their energy and enthusiasm for wisdom. That’s can be a good thing — but a balance of energy and wisdom are needed.
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So, get on some of these committees. When you are successful, remember that these “less motivated” members are on the same team. Don’t instigate, and don’t be confrontational. Just turn up the juice. Get it done, and help them help you get it done.
What happens when you try that, and it fails utterly?
the “getting on the committee” or the “working well with others?”
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If the former, well… thems the breaks. Try harder next time.
If the latter, well… thems the breaks. Try harder, and next time vote them out of their position too.
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[Did you think I had any particularly insightful advice on this one? I hope not. đŸ˜‰ ]
I got on the committee. Easy when there’s so many goddamned openings even in my somewhat-active ward!
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But they had, what, 2 meetings this year? And the big decision at the one weeks before the general election? Whether or not to go back to having a holiday party.
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Useless!
I give you so much credit for making the effort to reach out to the chairman, it’s a shame that nothing came of it. I have heard from other folks that had the same experience of calls not returned, e-mails not answered. Very discouraging.
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I’m also familiar with that paragraph from the state charter, in fact, I mentioned that at the town committee meeting I had this week. Some people were nonplussed to say the least.
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It is discouraging, but I keep saying (mostly to myself) that the antidote is more involvement, not less. Some of the best advice I ever got about town committees came from Howard Dean and Jesse Gordon.
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Jesse said (paraphrased), “The Democratic Party belongs to those who show up.”
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Howard Dean (through DFA) said to join your town/ward/city committees. Sit on the bench. Listen. Get involved.
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When I first started attending town committee meeting the dates and times were all over the map. Overtime we decided to go to a set day (3rd Monday) and time and that has been very helpful.
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Yes, show up to the caucus, but stay involved and keep going to the meetings. I think some committees see a revolving group of people who come and go depending on if there is a caucus, or the convention. I know that has been a problem for some people who start to get involved then. Some members who’ve “been around” think these people are just blow-ins who only want to do the fun stuff like caucuses and conventions, but not want to do the work. Time goes by and then YOU are the old-timer. đŸ™‚
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That’s awesome. I’m going to write that one done.
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Another thing I thought while reading your post was that, while I don’t know exactly where your town is, surely the politics of “Beyond 495” will be changing over the course of the next decade as urban dwellers unable to afford inside/beyond 128 property migrate to your territory. Steady recuitment drives for more active committee members should change your reality somewhat. Put another way: You show me a decent 3 bedroom with a yard for around $300K, and I’ll show you an active committee member!
There is nothing that more quickly turns off an independent voter than to hear the phrase unenrolled. It seams to say you not participating in the process. The unregistered are the unenrolled. The Independents are the largest political party in MA at 49%. In the district my friend refers to we are actually 60% of the registered voters. I had the privilege of meeting Deval 18 months ago and all he did for the two hours we talked was asked me what I thought, not who was I affiliated with. And what impressed me was his willingness to consider any idea regardless of which party affiliation conceived it. But as to the red streak district Susan refers to I live at the bottom end of it and it has steadily gone from red to blue so their is hope. Deval won with the largest margin in our town in a reps district that had 3 of 5 towns go Healy Hillman. Red and blue should refer to beliefs and not party affiliations. Deval won because independents turned out for him. If you want to continue promoting progressive (make that caring) political views then selling the party is far less important than selling what you believe in. So to get back to the thread when you get the “I don’t call independents” you get the reason we independents are not interested in joining red or blue. To paraphrase a quote be a little more concerned with the content of ones beliefs than the color of their party affiliation. That’s how the dialogue gets changed and how you get volunteers to participate.
The proper term should be “unaffiliated” since you are obviously enrolled but not affiliated with a party. I can understand in a way people who are nervous about calling unaffiliated voters because they have no idea whether those voters are far-right or far-left or just in the middle. Of course I have also learned, however, that “Democratic” doesn’t always mean liberal, either–sometimes it means somebody who has always been registered as such and never bothered to change even though they are far outside the mainstream views of the Democratic party. From the viewpoint of cold-calling voters, everyone wishes they could know in advance that the people they are calling will be supportive, but of course the purpose of voter ID is to find that out.
….the chair of the Republican Committee in town. He is also one of the most progressive thinking, pro education, environmentally sensitive and supportive of gay rights people I know. Let’s be clear. Some of the newly elected members of the Democratic majority in Congress are Anti abortion, Pro death penalty and Anti Gay rights. As I recall Harry Reid, the incoming Senate majority leader is Pro Life. Unaffiliated (a much more accurate designation Thank you) is a sign that nether party really stands consistently for every thing we independent types believe in whichever way we lean and the party’s obsession with across the ticket support doesn’t always work. I.E. Jill Stein was far and above the best candidate for Sec of State. Lincoln Chaffee was a loss of someone puling the GOP into reasonableness. Only God knows where Lieberman will land.
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Take it up with political science, because the correct designation for someone who doesn’t belong to a political party is “unenrolled”. People who are unregistered, are, well, unregistered. You can see this in Secretary of State reports from anywhere in the United States, including this one from Massachusetts. (Warning PDF)
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True, many unenrolled like calling themselves “independent” because it feels all mavericky. Hence, some smart folks decided to form political parties in the 90s that included the word “Independent”. Since we now have two political parties registered in Massachusetts alone that include the word independent, we had to change the description of folks like you. Hence, “unenrolled”.
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Finally, I hope saying that “The Independents are the largest political party in MA at 49%” was dry humor, as the only thing shared by that 49% is an antipathy or indifference to the political parties that they know. That does not make a group into their own party.
I was about to roll out a response that was basically what you said, so thanks. đŸ™‚
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What sabutai said.
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I have some other thoughts about “unenrolled” voters, but that’s a post for another time.
The above comment is just the kind of arrogant view of party loyalist’s who like to maximize their own importance while minimizing the contribution of those who chose not to have an affiliation somehow speak for who or what they stand for. I imagine Lincoln Chaffee is pondering a few of the votes he took with the Republican majority. All such comments diminish participation and create the reasons why we who are independents (or unaffiliated) are so and why those who are unregistered likely remain so. The unaffiliated was respectful. The above just (as one democratic loyalist but feet on the ground friend put it) the musings of the over educated and under experienced. You are correct. It may not make us a party just a force to be reckoned with if you want to get elected.
I can’t tell whom you’re referring to.
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The threading system here is confusing sometimes.
We posted about the same time so it looked as if I was responding to you which I was not
if you register as “Independent” here, you don’t get to vote in any primaries. In fact, you wouldn’t even be “unenrolled”–you would be joining an actual party called the Independent Party that nobody knows anything about, except that most of its members don’t know they’re members. The correct designation here for people who don’t join a party is “no party affiliation”–and you still don’t get to vote in any primaries ’cause they’re closed.
First – I appreciate the reasons why someone would prefer to be “unenrolled” (sorry you don’t like the term, but it is correct) but as a partisan Democrat my goal is to grow the party, so I’m pleased as punch to work with folks who are “unenrolled”, but I’m still going to do what I can to encourage them to change their registration to Dem.
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Second – IIRC, the “unenrolled” voters we targeted were ones who had pulled a democratic ballot in the last two election cycles, so it’s not like we aren’t concerned about the contents of their beliefs – in fact, we’re counting on it.
… of the problem with requiring anyone to be affiliated to vote. You have to pull and vote on only those candidates listed on a ballot from a major party. I know I’ve hyped on this one before but where in the US or Commonwealths constitutions does it state about the creation of political parties. To get back to the comment about your volunteer who wont talk to anyone unaffiliated, if the criteria is who pulled what parties ballot at the primary then all you speak to is someone you assume is along the lines of your beliefs. Hence it just leads to the polarization of the political forces in our country because we don’t talk to each other. If you really want to see beliefs, I know we both share, carry weight in our district then you have to deal with the 60% unaffiliated and majority of republican votes in our district. Another annoying thing is I mention my Republican friend (who is a Selectman) was widely supported by Democrats when he ran but those who were on the town or state committee had to get permission to put his lawn sign up!!!
is more about the two party system, which I totally get. We saw during the elections how it was helpful to have Mihos and Ross in the race. Like Deval said it helps to sharpen your viewpoints and I do believe that people would like to have more choice. I’m not a scholar on this subject, so I can’t speak to why the other parties can’t seem to get more of a toe-hold. Looking at the SoS website there are a lot more political parties here in Mass. then I even knew about.
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The second part of your comment goes back to the partisan nature of being in party leadership. The goal of the Democratic Town/Ward/City committees is to grow the party and get Dems elected and that means that we don’t support Republicans, unless of course, no Democrat is running against that candidate. Otherwise you run afoul of the party charter:
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Removal of Local Members
Section IV.
b. public support for or financial contribution to an opponent of a nominee of the Democratic Party which nominee publicly supports the majority of the platform of the Democratic Party as adopted at the most recent state and national Democratic conventions. A member for whom a long and deeply held belief would be violated by support of the nominee shall not be removed under this section.
I think you’re really on to something here, Ed. I know that Groton in particular has gotten more progressive over the years.
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Maybe I should be phoning up new homebuyers and inviting them to our meetings? g
.. to see that here even in the bluest of blue states, where you can barely find an elected republican anywhere, we still want to stamp out any last vestige of red. Same goes for the greater New England in a prior thread lamenting Maine R’s.
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Then I ask myself: would I stamp out every last elected democrat if I could? I fear that the answer is Yes.
which doesn’t really change who is elected one way or the other–it is about the feeling that her committee isn’t participating more than a matter of who won (since it really doesn’t matter how many towns you win, it’s how many total votes that determines a statewide contest). But I think the real subject is participation at the local level, and bemoaning how few people on town committees carry their share of the load.
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From where I am (not quite relevant to the discussion, since I’m a long way from Massachusetts at the moment), the question that comes up a lot here is whether local parties actually make a difference at all–the Pinellas County (everything’s by county here) Democratic Executive Committee basically fell apart into warring camps over the summer, with the result that the group opposed to the current chair devoted all their energies to individual campaigns. As it turned out, the candidates for state rep and state senate supported by the out-of-power group won, and the state house delegation from our county is now 4-4 (plus both state senators) whereas before it was 6-2 Republican (and one R and one D in the state senate). Although Jim Davis (Dem for governor) lost, the margin was narrow considering this was Charlie Crist’s home county. I don’t think it would have turned out different if the “out” group had retained control of the executive committee, but who knows?
you got it. The real theme of my post is involvement of town committees — recruitment is always on my mind too, but I was specifically talking about people who are already there.
We were lucky locally, in that our town DTC chair and town campaign coordinator is also in charge of Field Services for the state party; she wears a few hats, has a lot of connections, and is always on the case. She’s actively trying to assess what was and wasn’t effective during the campaign. The MetroWest area also has quite a few social events to keep folks engaged along the way, thanks to the regional coordinators.
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Our coordinator’s also good at getting lots of people to do a little bit each; a couple of hours of phone calls here and there, etc. Although I made some excuses myself (I had major surgery two weeks before the primary), and although I hate making phone calls, I ended up doing my small part. If you can convince enough different people to do this in little chunks, I guess it can work.
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There’s only so much Field Services can do, I suppose, to hold DTCs accountable to the campaign; I don’t know how that structure works. I’ll bet every DTC has a slightly different reason its members participate, and herding them towards a common goal — no matter how well that goal is understood — sounds like more of a challenge than it should be.
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I’ll be interested to see what the consensus is on what type of campaign activity made any difference. I have heard mixed information as to whether phone calls make a difference (such as none, unless the race is within three percentage points), but we sure made a lot of them. The weekend of the election, I had someone calling from every room of my house, and callers covered our town and parts of two other towns that weekend, from one phone bank or the other. But how much of the phoning is aimed at knowing the outcome, and how much at influencing it? Certain activities are geared only towards making supporters happy — lawn signs have zero effect on moving votes, for example — and some activities are only effective in the aggregate, in creating awareness of the size of the effort, so it’s hard to pull all of that apart and concentrate on one activity or the other and understand its worth.
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Your story about the MIA’s and their amazement at the outcome is revealing. Maybe it’s been so long since real grass-roots hard work was on display that many are too young to understand how it works. So many elections have been “advertise and pray” over the course of my adult life that it might take another election cycle before the involvement starts to build.
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Thanks for writing this up; it’s food for thought.
Do you have any data to support the statement that “lawn signs have zero effect on moving votes”? I’m not convinced. My only “data” point is that between the primary and general elections this year, nearly 40 Patrick lawn signs were stolen or vandalized in my town. (I know because I had to replace them.) This is proof that at the very least these signs motivated someone to act outside of accepted civil norms, and on the flip side of the coin, I suspect the signs helped to motivate some of our many “undecided” residents. Their thinking might be something like this: “I see Dave down the block has a Deval sign out. Since I don’t know any better, I’ll trust his judgment. After all he was right about my old Chevy needing a rebuilt power steering pump.” I know it sounds strange, but there are many persons out there who seem to be casting their vote based upon some secondary reason. The one that really irks me is, “The cute kids in their TV commercial get my vote.” Arrrrrrg! And I missed talk-like-a-pirate day again this year.
At least, at thresholds.
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There’s a viability threshold. If you don’t make it that far, you’re in Ross’ or Mihos’ shoes. You’re not viable so people won’t take you seriously, and you’re not taken seriously so you’re not viable.
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There’s the name recognition threshold. Seeing the sign often enough ensures that the less-involved voter connects the name on the TV with the name on the ballot. Signs help reinforce the names.
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There’s the people-I-like or people-like-me threshold. If folks who you associate yourself with tend to be visibly supporting the same candidate, that matters. It could be a person who’s opinion you value, or it could be that most of the school parents / seniors / apartment dwellers / ??? tend to have the same sign out, and you’re one of them.
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There’s a “majority” threshold. If your signs are clearly in the majority, that matters. You’re the front runner, and while Americans like underdogs, what we really like are winners.
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Yeah, I think signs matter, at least at certain threshold levels.
No, I don’t have any data to support that; it just came up in discussion with some experienced campaign people about how they decide where to spend the money. Instinctively, I would have believed as you do — or maybe I wouldn’t have bothered to have one in my yard — and I’m not sure there’s any way to reliably measure the effect. I feel good about my candidate if I see lots of lawn signs, so it seems like there should be some influence, but maybe the negative influence (“so that idiot Dave down the block is for Patrick; well that’s good enough for me — I’m voting for Healy”) and the positive cancel each other out in terms of net votes.
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If it has an impact, my understanding is that it’s still less than all the other things like personal contact with the candidate, door-to-door canvassing, phone calls, and “visibility” (standing on the corner with signs), in roughly that order.
Our experience has been good in getting a core group of our DTC involved in working for elections. We had about a dozen or so members who worked rather diligently on many of the campaigns, but did, of course, run into some “fatigue” towards the end. For the most part, however, our committee members were knee deep in Patrick’s campaign and served as co-coodinators for the 1st Senate District Towns. We also held a house party for Murray that was very successful, phone banked some (but not huge amounts), and organized weekly standouts for all the Dems on our ballot.
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The way we find a lot of our new people is through the town festival in August. We have a big spiffy banner, complete with Kicking Ass donkey, a tent, and a bunch of stuff that draws people over for no other reason, sometimes, other than to talk. That’s where we get them to sign up for my email list that keeps people informed about what’s going here.
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You’re in a tough location, so I’m not sure that I have much to offer in the way of valuable advice.
Major sore point here in Townsend. We have a lot of events on the common here in town. Our DTC had requests denied repeatedly to buy space so we can put up a table and do some voter registration, or just answer questions. We’re just not welcome.
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So a few months back, when I was checking out the events list on the North County GOP website (be sure to check out the doom and gloom post they have up now – it’s a hoot) I saw that the Townsend Republicans were planning to have a table at Old Home Days, so I rang up the committee head (who’s on the RTC, natch) to buy a space and we were denied again. I mentioned that I had seen the website advert for RTC and they first said that I misunderstood the website and then I read the ad verbatim to him and suddenly he needed to get back to me. Well, two days later, I got a call back – no political organizations were going to be allowed to have a table at the event. Nice solution.
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It’s a real shame because we’re citizens of this town just like everyone else and our organization is as civic in nature as the Womens Club, or the Lions, which are filled with Republicans. Again, we’re just not welcome.
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I’m getting to the point through where I’m going to push my first amendment right to be on the common and show up with a card table and some voter registrations forms (which the Asst. town clerk didn’t want to give me to begin with – another RTC member) and just take a stand. I don’t think I can be arrested. LOL
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Thanks. This post is the beginning of a series of essays on the role of DTCs.
I’m always on the lookout for ideas on how to make volunteering fun and interesting. I think David (see above) missed “Talk Like a Pirate Day” this year because it was Primary Day. That got me thinking, what if we incorporated “Talk Like a Priate Day” into our Primary Day GOTV efforts? See the information below on how to prepare for “Talk Like a Pirate Day.”
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So I’m challenging BMG readers to create a “Talk Like a Pirate Day” GOTV script. I’ll publicize the best one in tomorrow’s Democratic Dispatch.
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There certainly were a number of interesting comments on the underlying issue. I’m still contemplating everyone’s thoughts.
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Other than “Have fun!” the single biggest piece of advice I can give in building your local committee is “Do Something.” If it doesn’t work, figure out why not and fix it, or try something else. The worse thing you can do is nothing.
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Kate
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From Dave Barry’s Column …
To prepare for Talk Like a Pirate Day, you should practice incorporating pirate terminology into your everyday speech. For example, let’s consider a typical conversation between two co-workers in a business office:
BOB: Hi, Mary.
MARY: Hi, Bob. Have you had a chance to look at the Fennerman contract?
BOB: Yes, and I have some suggestions.
MARY: OK, I’ll review them.
Now let’s see how this same conversation would sound on Talk Like a Pirate Day:
BOB: Avast, me beauty.
MARY: Avast, Bob. Is that a yardarm in your doubloons, or are you just glad to see me?
BOB: You are giving me the desire to haul some keel.
MARY: Arrrrr.
Kate – this past primary day WAS Talk Like A Pirate Day! Here’s my post from that day –
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http://capecodporcup…
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I got the names from the Pirate Name Generator. Aaarrgghh!