Requisite Election Year Political Post

While I was in Chicago, I spent most of my time bumming in various coffee shops—they’ve got a bunch of great ones, particularly Café Ambrosia (1620 Orrington Avenue, in Evanston), and the Boystown Caribou Café (I was living in Lakeview, around the corner). When I came down to Jackson County, NC, coffee shops are few and far between, and everything is outside of walking distance, so instead of reading Huff-Po and William Gibson novels while working my way through a liter or two of coffee, I decided to do something, you know, useful.

So, a few days after I arrived, I tracked down the local HQ for the Obama-Biden campaign, in Cullowhee (next town over). Turns out, they’re headquartered, locally anyway, in an old gas station. Drinks for the volunteers are in a gas-station fridge with sliding dispensers, and the washroom is out the door and around the corner (it IS a gas station, after all). So, I spend my time calling mountain folk, asking them who they want to be president, and suffering through their screeds when they don’t want Obama. Oh, and did I mention the plate glass window that got hit with the ass end of a hurled garbage can?

And then, as if we were living in a pulp rewrite of Vineland, John McCain opens up HIS Jackson Country HQ…right across the street. I have what you might calla hunch that this fall is going to be awfully interesting. I’m going to keep the political stuff to a minimum, since bathing in polls and editorial every day has proven bad for my mental health. I will say this, though. If McCain wins, I’m probably not coming back for the foreseeable future. I’ve got plans in Poland, and a Canadian work visa that’s valid until July 2, 2011. And I have no (NO) qualms about using it.