Partisan Minds Think Alike

Julian Sanchez | September 1, 2004

At the College Republicans party I attended earlier this week, Karl Rove suggested that activists in non-battleground states "think about getting in the car and filling it up with gas" to come assist in the swing states next door. It's a great idea, but I think this time, Rove may have been out-Roved by some young Democratic activists.

Among the folks I met in Central Park on Sunday were Josephine Saltmarsh (28) and her husband Matt (29), Seattle natives who got sick of feeling like their votes didn't matter and launched DrivingVotes.Org. The site helps people to organize "road trips for democracy" in which folks in, say, California or Washington or New York grab some friends and caravan to Nevada or Oregon or Pennsylvania to register potential Democratic voters. Matt, Jo, and a few others had left the rest of their team with their two RVs in Philadelphia and come up to Manhattan, where they met with their Manhattan chapter. This is actually probably the most effective activist idea I've heard in a long time—if all the people out there chanting a vaginal double entendre or waving a puppet signed up at this site and loaded up their cars instead, the GOP would be in serious trouble.