Let's get this (election protecting) party started

Three days ago we stepped off the street and into the Webb campaign headquarters. HQ is a series of offices, carpeted in grey, with the walls plastered with Webb stickers, corners piled with signs, and every available inch of desk space taken up by computers, campaign literature, and notebooks. So far we have worked mainly on snacks - donuts the first day, water in 32-packs that would make a thirsty man smile with glee, chips and lollipops, candy-bars, and pizza. Our political dream-world was a diabetic's nightmare.

We came to the campaign to help organize a voter-protection effort here in Virginia - an effort to put bodies at the polling places throughout the state, to make sure every vote gets counted, and to ensure that Virginia doesn't turn into what happened in Ohio in 2004. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be bringing you stories from the field, memories from the last election, and whatever else occurs to us between phone-banking, lit-dropping, door-knocking, and exhaustion.