I meant to write this diary a couple of weeks ago, but my personal life has been crazy (in a good way) and my spare time has been spent working on Udall's campaign. I want to share a specific story about meeting Sen. Udall's wife. She is a terrific lady and a very accomplished person in her own right. America lost a significant chunk of its freedom with the defeat of Udall. I will address this below the fold.
Maggie Fox, wife of Mark Udall, is a world-wide respected Environmental sustainability lawyer. She works in third-world countries in helping them develop sustainable energy. Mark is a lucky man.
A couple of Saturday's ago, my wife and I were at Diane Primavera's office in Broomfield county. Udall and Polis are using the office as their campaign headquarters (Diane is our state Rep, and her story is amazing - but left for another time). Broomfield slightly blue, but very swingy county that between Boulder and Denver and it is where my wife and I reside. Maggie was there in the office to give us all a pep-talk before we went out canvasing.
She told several inspiring stories of Mark running for congress and how it looked grim for him in those races. But when the election was finally decided early the next morning - all the kids in the neighborhood went into the streets and shouted 'we won! we won!'. Maggie said that Mark and her never forgot how they represented a 'we' and not just Mark. She also told an inspiring story about how Mark and their daughter surprised her with a pair of red cowboy boots one Christmas - she called them her lucky boots and always wore them canvasing.
After she was done talking and before we went out to knock on doors, I wanted to talk to Maggie. Here handler, was trying to usher her out the door - but I had to tell her something. I introduced myself and my wife. I told her my story. I used to be a registered Democrat, but when the Democrats conspired to let Verizon and AT&T off the hook for their no-warrent spying, I changed my affiliation to 'unaffiliated'. I told her to please thank her husband for tirelessly working on getting to the bottom of unwarranted information gathering on Americans.
I struck a nerve (in a good way). Maggie almost began to tear up. She explained that when Mark first opened the hearings on domestic spying in the US Senate - he suddenly became the subject of investigation by the CIA. THE FUCKING CIA. Maggie was in Africa, doing her environmental work. She had to fly home at a movement's notice to be with her husband. A couple days later, Mark was on the air with an add explaining his position on the issue.
When I knocked on doors for Sen. Udall, I got a lot of people who didn't want to vote for him because of gun control. GUN CONTROL. They were more worried about some background checks or a limited magazine than they were about their government gathering information on them. It was depressing.
America lost a good deal of its freedom. A good man who was willing to speak truth to the power was swept away by an empty suit whose only legislative accomplishments are writing and creating 'personhood' bills - and then lying about them. Next time I meet a Coloradoan who bitches about government intrusion, I'm going to ask who they voted for. If they say Gardner, I'm going to laugh in their face.