Welcome To Our Very Own St. Crispen’s Day

So yesterday I wrote a diary pleading for lawyers to help the Obama campaign ensure the vote on election day and the response was overwhelming and heartening.

Lots of “I just signed up” and “I’m in” and “They’ve got my info”, and yet, for every person who stepped up, there was another who said, “I want to help and have sent an email, but no one has gotten back to me.”

Well, to that, I smile and say… we are reaching the St. Crispen’s Day in this election.

St. Crispen’s day?

Henry V. The English badly outnumbered by the French. And in Shakespeare’s retelling, Westmoreland, cousin of King Henry, wished for more troops…

WESTMORELAND

O that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England

That do no work to-day!

…but Henry did not share Westmoreland’s need, wanting instead to hoard the glory…

KING HENRY

What’s he that wishes so?

My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;

If we are mark’d to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

There is lifetime of honor… of kinship… of “I was there when America finally woke up and chose to better itself,” for those who DO NOT WAIT, but instead step forward and DEMAND to be put to work.

Overwhelmed campaign staff CAN put off responding to an email.

Overworked volunteers CAN miss a phone call.

But YOU standing in the doorway of a campaign office… that cannot be ignored.

Where are  those offices?

They are here.

ALAKSA, ARIZONA, ARKANSAS, CALIFORNIA, COLORADO, CONNECTICUT, DELAWARE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, HAWAII ,IDAHO, ILLINOIS, INDIANA, IOWA, KANSAS, KENTUCKY, LOUISIANA, MAINE, MARYLAND, MASSACHUSETTS, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, MONTANA, NEBRASKA, NEVADA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEW JERSEY, NEW MEXICO, NEW YORK, NORTH CAROLINA, NORTH DAKOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, OREGON, PENNSYLVANIA, RHODE ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, SOUTH  DAKOTA, TENNESSEE, TEXAS, UTAH, VERMONT, VIRGINIA, WASHINGTON, WEST VIRGINIA, WISCONSIN, WYOMING

I write this KNOWING FULL WELL that there are bills to be paid and kids to be picked up and commutes to be endured and, to quote another bit of Shakespeare, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” to be overcome, but also understanding that ten, twenty, thirty years from now, we will all want to have had our boots on the ground; to have been one of, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.