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spin doctors

We joke a lot about spin doctors in relation to politics and journalism, and how anyone can spin a story to make it sound totally different. Dan Quayle complains about the practice quite a bit in his book Standing Firm.

I've been thinking about that a lot the last few days. Mainly because Tuesday is election day here, meaning I go on call in about an hour and will have the "calm before the storm" (which is ironic given the thunderstorms out there) tonight.  Several years ago I had two opportunities to work in early voting (a special feature NC has that I love). Both places had what we call observers (where people representing a party or candidate come in and "observe" the process to make sure it is fair and honest).  The difference was in how the leadership perceived them.  At one site, our supervisor's response was "It doesn't matter whether we have observers or not. We're still going to be following the manual and our checklists and doing the best job possible. But having said that, you do need to read you manual on these pages about dealing with observers."  And at the other site, the supervisor had an attitude along this line: "I hate to tell you this, but we have observers trying to catch us doing something wrong. So be on your top behavior and don't let their mind games get to you. I hate it, but we'll just make the best of it."  Do I need to tell you which polling place was the better one to work in?

I've tried to emulate that positive and efficient site leader. I want to be the positive person tonight and tomorrow.  I don't want them groaning when they see me pull up and come in for inspection. Some will; some resent my presence. But I want them to know I see this as a team effort. I'm there to help them and if there are any problems, to effectively correct them. And I'm not very good with confrontation. It's not first nature to me.

But my goal and my prayer for tonight and tomorrow is that I will be firm, yet kind. That my brain will be free from "brain fog" when asked questions and that I can clearly articulate answers. That at the end of the day they will view this process as thorough and just to everyone...that we've put our best forward, regardless of whether anyone was watching or not.

And even though I can't/won't say this, when it's all over, I really do believe someone is watching and recording what we do and say, even if we call him God instead of "political party observer".

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