I used to make phone calls to help get out the vote. It’s a terrible volunteer job. Lots of people yelled at me to stop calling, even though I had never dialed their number before. The worst, though, were the ones who hung up on me.
Sometimes, I went through my whole spiel, waiting for their response at the end. Dead air. I didn’t even know how long I’d been earnestly talking to myself about the importance of exercising the right to vote.
When I received an invitation from Marie Salerno to join a get-out-the-vote project at The Tamalpais retirement community, I was wary. The charming resident called twice.
Then, she forwarded an email that said the group writes postcards to registered Democrats and Independents who vote intermittently, encouraging them to cast their ballots in November. Postcards can’t hang up on me, a clear benefit. The email also said that sometimes chocolates appear while they work. That clinched it for me.
The next day, I found myself schlepping up a hill in Greenbrae to scrawl on a few postcards and learn more about this project. Marie promised to show me a stack of already written postcards that measured six feet high.
When I arrived in The Tamalpais’ activity room, Marie introduced me to the two residents organizing the postcard project, Kent McDonald and Eugenie Yaryan. They’ve named their group Democracy ACTION Tamalpais.
Within two minutes, out came the publicity stunt. The six-foot stack of postcards I was supposed to photograph turned out to be a tall cardboard rectangle marked with lines to resemble a pile of mailers. Well, Kent explained, a real stack would be flimsy and just fall over. I believe him because he is a scientist who ran the electron microscopy research facility at UC Berkeley on and off for 40 years.
Surveying the room, I saw people busily writing postcards and eating fresh cherry tomatoes from Kent’s garden. Not a piece of chocolate in sight, I might add. I asked how many people were participating.
“Sometimes we have five tables,” Kent said. “Today we have four and a half.”
The man is nothing if not precise.
After we were done counting tables, I was instructed to share with Pacific Sun readers that Democracy ACTION Tamalpais is independent of The Tamalpais.
“We’re using the name Tamalpais, but so does the mountain,” noted Eugenie, who originally organized the crew of seniors.
The group’s story starts with President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Marie summed up their feelings.
“I just think Trump is a disaster,” she said.
The project has gone through a few phases. Eugenie tells me that they initially used petitions to protest the inspector general firings, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation, Medicaid and Medicare cuts, gutted social services, the Caribbean boat bombings and other grievances. They mailed the signed petitions to the speaker of the house, while copying every member of Congress via email.
Next on the agenda were pink postcards printed with “Donald Trump, you’re fired!” The White House received more than 150 of them, each individually hand-signed by the volunteers.
Trump wasn’t fired, prompting the retirees to take to the streets and protest. They joined hundreds of others for the No Kings marches in Corte Madera.
“We had over 70 people at rallies,” Marie said. “Walkers, wheelchairs, canes.”
When the demonstrations slowed down, they began writing postcards to voters. Eugenie pointed out that Kent handles the group’s advertising, management and logistics.
“Logistics, yeah,” Kent said. “So, I collect the postcards.”
Every Monday, Kent arrives at the Bon Air Center, where Swing Left Marin has tables set up to distribute packets of postcards with the names of registered voters in swing areas. He picks up several hundred a week for the Democracy ACTION Tamalpais members.
I’m told that one volunteer, Jane Kerr, deserves a prize for the most prolific postcard writer. When I finally meet the group’s overachiever, I can’t get a response on the number she writes each week. Kent throws out guesses.
“More than 100, less than 200? More than 200?” he asked.
Jane simply smiles, keeping her success a mystery.
Group totals, I hoped, would be easier to pin down. I ask how many postcards the members will send out this season, foolishly expecting a firm number. Instead, I become involved in a committee meeting.
Someone offers 500 a week. Another revises it to 450. A third person, doing the math out loud, briefly lands on 70,000, a figure that quickly gets shot down. Kent carefully recalculates. A thousand every two weeks, two thousand a month, times four months, landing him at 8,000. The final answer, arrived at by committee, splits the difference at 10,000, padded by the month of writing still ahead of them.
Although I’m concerned my next question will cause further ruckus, it’s the one I really want them to answer. Does sending out postcards work? Will people who vote intermittently cast a ballot in the midterms because a stranger wrote?
“They look at it; they throw it away,” Kent said. “In the best cases, you hope that they’ll say, OK, you know, I’ll do it.”
An optimist, Marie remains convinced their efforts will make a difference.
“I think they go out in the street and say to their neighbor, ‘Did you get one of these? I got one too,’” she surmised.
Eugenie closes out the question with some math of her own.
“Would you rather affect one voter, or a thousand voters, or none?” she asked.
Activism doesn’t stop at the mailbox for Marie. It follows her to the checkout line.
“Every time I’m out, at the store, Trader Joe’s, anywhere, I say to the cashiers, don’t forget to vote,” she said. “And they go, ‘I will.’ Now you’ve got to tell one other person.”
This group is serious about protesting Trump’s actions, and the members hope to help Democrats hold or flip seats. Yet, they’re warm people with good humor. I enjoyed watching them poke fun at each other and themselves as they worked.
Kent ranked my postcard writing in the top 20%. I’m not sure how to improve myself to get into the upper echelon, but I’m going back next week to try again.
