Getting a little weird

Got this in my email just now:


A special Halloween request from author Stephen King:

Dear MoveOn member,

If I know anything, I know scary. And giving this president and this out-of-control Congress two more years to screw up our future is downright terrifying. Thankfully, this national nightmare is one we can end with—literally—a wake up call.

My friends at MoveOn.org Political Action are organizing a big round of national phone parties this weekend before Halloween, Oct. 28th & 29th. We'll be calling progressive folks in key districts who may not turn out unless they get a friendly reminder or two.

And since it's almost Halloween, we'll celebrate with an optional costume contest, some pumpkin carving (I'll be making a Jack-Abramoff-O'-Lantern) and—of course—plenty of candy.

The rest is essentially the standard MoveOn emails that have been going on about their phone party campaign. Sign up to make calls or have your own party. Well I was going to have one of those parties and now is probably a good time to 'splain what happened.
When I first got the email asking me to throw a party for MoveOn, I didn't naively believe that I was the only one they asked. I did however get the impression that it would be a good idea to open my home to some MoveOn types to make phone calls to get people to vote. Unfortunately, I confronted two snafus. First, I was going out of town that weekend and while I intended to get home in plenty of time for the party Sunday(I didn't) I was nervous that I would wind up behind schedule(I was). Second, I started to feel a bit uncomfortable with the campaign's objectives.
The first problem really provided the reason why the party didn't happen. I wasn't home when the party would've started, so had I not cancelled it I'd have a bunch of people waiting to get into an empty house in the rain. The second problem is the part of the story that matters though. While I still support MoveOn's overall positions and I appreciate the work that they've done to bring certain issues into the spotlight, I don't appreciate broad partisanship anywhere in politics. That's a personal thing. I'm an independent voter. I don't have an allegiance to party particularly because I don't support any party's platform completely. There are things I like from different candidates, but I can name just as many Dems on my shit list as Republicans. Those that know me well know I'm definately in the "throw the bums out" position when discussion is about this administration. By that I don't really mean we need to remove the Republicans, I mean throw the bums out... all of them. So what does this have to do with MoveOn? Well I found out in the middle of the week that we weren't going to be calling people and asking them to vote, we were going to be calling people that were registered Democrats and telling them to vote for the Democratic candidates in their area. Well that's all fine and good for partisan politics, it really isn't an agenda I'm comfortable with. While I'm definately anti-Bush and certainly don't sit on the conservative side of most issues, I don't believe in pushing candidates on people. I believe in people voting. If someone wants my recommendations, I will give you what I can. But I'm not completely sure who I want to vote for in my district, let alone someone else's. So endorsing candidates in anothe region doesn't fit in my comfort range.
Anyone that doesn't have my qualms should definately sign up and make some calls. It's a good campaign, it's just one I can't support because of personal politics. So sorry for those that signed up(even those that did so after the party was declared "private"), I hope I didn't spoil your weekend.