"He's uncool isn't he?"

And so I'm back.

After a long three days, I've returned to these here Interwebs. This is to the delight of three people, my parents (Hi mom) and my boss. Maybe a few people in Mississippi? (I would add Blizzard to this list, but he’s probably too busy watching Gossip Girl to read our blog).

So let's go through the recap...

Friday was mostly uneventful during the day. In the morning, Nathan, Lisa, Brennan and I did lit drops again. Unfortunately I have no good stories that involve elderly ladies this time. Sorry to disappoint.

In the afternoon we were teamed up with the Congressman's staff to lead an out of state volunteer group of 30 or so kids. We covered a great deal of ground. Nathan managed to pawn off about two hours worth of work on Hunter, Brennan and I. For that little move, I am granting him cover/label making duty through the New Year.

After the campaign let us go for the night, we decided that since it was Halloween, we needed to celebrate (work hard play hard, right?). So we found a Wal-Mart on the way back to the hotel and stopped in to gear up for the night. After nearly an hour (I took the longest to figure out my costume. Father Time and I wanted to go as Mario and Luigi, but the necessary clothes were not in store, so we had to come up with new costumes on the spot), we settled on our respective attire for the evening. Brennan and Hunter went as "Team Newhouse," dressed up as basketball players, with headbands, baggy shorts, rec specs and all. Nathan went as Batman (for you Blizz and Gramps). I donned golf attire. Lisa went as, well, Lisa. Creative.

After some pictures in the hallway, the four guys made our way down to the hotel bar. Let's just say there was an "interesting" mix of people. It provided us with a great deal of entertainment and conversation material. The bar had karaoke and we figured we should go ahead and delight the crowd with a performance. So Nathan, Hunter and I sang "Friends in Low Places," by Garth Brooks. Yes you read that right. Nathan sang karaoke, and it was a country song.

When in Rome right?

On Saturday we woke up early and headed over to the campaign HQ. From there they sent us off with our teams to drop lit. My team headed up to Butler County, where the Congressman has a small percentage of voters (most of Butler County is in John Boehner's territory). The Congressman came and spoke briefly to a small group of volunteers that were doing phone calls for McCain. After that we headed out into the district. This time was a little different than the previous lit drops we had done. Because we were doing it in conjunction with the McCain campaign, we were asked us to go door to door to talk to voters. We were in the middle of nowhere and split up from each other. It was great. The precincts went house, half mile of nothing, house. Awesome. Most of the people were supporters, but I came across a few that weren't so welcoming. I told the ones not supporting us that no matter who they were backing, it was important for democracy that they voted on Wednesday, November 5.

Kidding.

In the afternoon, Joe the Plumber stopped in with the Congressman. They did a rally at the campaign headquarters and then again at a local restaurant.

Later on Saturday, we went to hold up signs to the incoming 10,000 fans at the Elder high school football state playoff game. What's important to note here is that Elder high school is Steve Driehaus's alma mater, so we knew he was going to be there with all of his people. All 10 of them. We had a much larger group of supporters than they did and we had MUCH more energy. Oh and we had Joe too. You could see the difference in the two candidates as they stood 10 feet apart from each other. Chabot was smiling and charismatic and having fun, while Driehaus looked miserable. Advantage, Chabot.

After the rally we went out with a group of the Chabot people to a bar down the street from headquarters. After a night of a few drinks and dancing, we headed back to the hotel and to bed. (Author’s note: This post would have gone up sooner, but I couldn't hear myself thinking over the sound of Father Time snoring last night).

Today Hunter, Nathan, Angela (one of Chabot’s people) and I headed downtown with the Congressman to hold up signs for Bengals fans that were going into the game. Nathan and I separated from the others and made our way around the stadium, where we had mostly positive responses from people. One guy told me he didn’t support Chabot and was going to vote for “Drysanhoose.” I asked him if this was a write in candidate I hadn’t heard about. He didn’t find this amusing.

A few Driehaus people showed up with signs. One lady I recognized from the football game last night kept moving to block my sign out. I countered by doing the same. She eventually moved to a spot where there was a guy playing the bongo drums for people coming into the game and began to dance while holding the sign. It looked something like this. Yep, I’m pretty sure she pushed some undecideds towards us.

After the game we headed back out to walk around different precincts and hand out literature. I handed one flier to a mom who was sitting outside with her very young daughter. As I was walking down the driveway, I could hear the mom explaining the ad and why we were passing them out to her daughter. A child’s first political ad. It was a beautiful moment really.

After we finished, we made our way back to headquarters, ate dinner and then headed back to the hotel. The five of us are sitting in the room, blogging, and watching 27 Dresses. Just a usual night for Nathan.

Random thoughts/observations/questions from the past few days...

*I wonder if the Joe the Plumber phenomenon would have caught on if he were an orthodontist or accountant. Joe the CPA just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

*The Congressman is one of the nicest and most gracious people I have ever met. But I have to mention that we have had so many people comment on his comb over that I’ve lost count. So I wanted to compare the Congressman to the legend of comb overs-The Donald.

We win. (I'm Steve Chabot and I approve this hairdo).

*Dave, what the hell happened to UGA yesterday?

*While there were a couple of snide comments made about the Congressman today at the Bengals game, I noticed that no one made them when we were walking with him. I have two theories for this. Either people are respectful of the office, or Nathan's reputation as a sniper precedes him.

*Throwing objects at a snoring roommate ends the snoring.

*People around here have been so bombarded with political ads (we've probably seen over 150 on tv, and we're not usually anywhere near a tv) that they have become confused...

At least this guy can say he supported the winner.

Your move Mississippi...