I’m voting for Obama, which is no secret to anyone who knows me. I agree with his policies and I’m impressed by the man. Over the last two years, he’s run an excellent campaign, going from underdog to all-but certain victory. Clearly, he has executive ability.

Moreover, McCain is the wrong man for the job. I strongly disagree with his policies (es­sen­tial­ly Bush’s), his campaign is thrashing spas­ti­cal­ly, and he dis­qual­i­fied himself by picking that blithering idiot Palin as his VP.

I’m more worried about Christine Gregoire, who is running for re-election as Governor of Washington. She’s un­com­fort­ably close in the polls to Dino Rossi. The Building Industry As­so­ci­a­tion of Washington and the Republican Governers’ As­so­ci­a­tion have dumped $7.5 million into Rossi’s campaign in the last few weeks. You are known by your enemies, so she must be doing something right. Gregoire, alas, is a competent governor, but an in­dif­fer­ent campaigner.

Darcy Burner is running for Dave Reichert’s Congress seat over on the Eastside. She too is polling un­com­fort­ably close to her opponent. Burner is a strong candidate, a former Microsoft manager, and someone who’s already made her mark. Her Re­spon­si­ble Plan to end the war in Iraq has been signed on to by dozens of Con­gres­sion­al candidates. Reichert has been a mediocre rep­re­sen­ta­tive, ranking around 400th of the 435 Congress members in influence.

This afternoon, I walked about half of my precinct, trying to talk to voters who’ve been identified as Leans Democratic. I’ll finish tomorrow, and try to get to some neigh­bor­ing precincts over the next ten days.

What can you do?

First of all, vote! If you have an absentee ballot, turn it in as soon as possible. King County can only count so many votes per day; the sooner the absentee ballots are mailed in, the sooner the final tally. BTW, the first all-mail election in King County will be February 2009.

Second, spread the word. Talk to all your friends who are per­suad­able and get them to vote for Obama, Gregoire, and other good Democratic candidates.

Third, volunteer for the next ten days. The campaign will be glad to have you. Most of all, they want people to go door to door. They also need people to call voters. (I believe you can do this from your own home.) If you’re not com­fort­able doing this—though, really, it’s not that bad—they also need people to do data entry.

Fourth, volunteer on Election Day. They need people to be poll watchers, to go door to door to get people out, and people to drive in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed voters to the polls.

Finally, send money, if you can. Cam­paign­ing is hideously expensive. I’d love to see full public funding of elections, but that’s not what we have to work with this year.

Go to the Washington State Democrats to sign up.