Californians come in search of voters

Kirsten Searer

Monday, Aug. 23, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.

Californians have a fine tradition of road-tripping to Las Vegas, though they typically don't have the greater good of society in mind.

On Saturday, though, two recent college graduates from Southern California braved angry dogs, unstable front porches and the August heat (mercifully tempered by a breeze and a few clouds) to help fill out just four pieces of paper coveted in this close election: Voter registration forms.

After a seven-hour trip riddled with traffic and a crowded night at the airport Howard Johnson, Sheiva Rezvani and Katherine Schuler were thrilled that they had registered four people before heading back home to Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

"Four more chances, four more votes," said 21-year-old Rezvani, who just earned her sociology degree at University of California, Santa Cruz. "And that's just the two of us."

It's becoming common for buses and vans carrying Californians frustrated with the Bush administration to arrive in Las Vegas and Reno, ready to roll up their sleeves for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Twenty-four Californians made the trip to Las Vegas this weekend, following on the heels of 105 Kerry volunteers from Southern California who came the previous weekend.

They figure their efforts are better used in swing states such as Nevada, Arizona and Oregon than in California, where Kerry holds a comfortable lead in the polls.

"If I can give my time and my effort to come out here, I feel like I can make a real palpable difference," Gaby Silver, a 30-year-old marketing manager for a biotechnology firm in San Diego, said on his second trip to Las Vegas.

Silver and the other Californians in town Saturday were with drivingvoters.org, one of the largest groups sending Californians to local swing states.

Swingthestate.org (motto: Your Anti-Bush travel agency) and the League of Independent Voters also organize trips to swing states.

Technically, these groups do not tout Kerry, they just attack Bush. Or, they target Democratic neighborhoods, getting Democratic voters excited about the election.

Other groups are grassroots Kerry workers who work phones and walk important precincts for their candidate.

"They get on a bus and go out there and get motivated," said Scott Haas, who has coordinated two trips to Nevada and plans to return on Labor Day Weekend.

Granted, there are worse places to travel to than Las Vegas. But there's little instant gratification here on the campaign trail.

On Saturday morning, a group of several dozen people associated with America Coming Together -- some local people, some the newly arrived Californians -- spent two or three hours each canvassing neighborhoods. in the hot sun.

After lunch, America Coming Together field director Anna Franker announced that they had registered a 22 voters, and the audience clapped as though they were watching Kerry's inaguration.

"These are some fabulous results from just a few hours,' Franker said while volunteers shared stories of registering a 19-year-old who didn't think he was old enough to vote and a woman in her 40s who had never cast a ballot.

Rezvani and Schuler were walking a mostly Democratic, working-class neighborhood when a man in a garbage truck rolled up and asked for a voter registration form. Later, they registered 66-year-old Arlene Wright, who wrote on her form that she wasn't sure where she was last registered to vote.

"Forty years ago," she wrote. "Can't remember."

Registering three voters in a day is "good," Silver said. Four is "excellent" and five is "top-of-the-dial excellent."

In his three trips -- two to Las Vegas and one to Phoenix -- Silver estimates he has registered 15 people while spending $500 of his own money. It's worth it, said Silver, who plans to return to Las Vegas at least one more time.

"There's a strong feeling among many people -- not just progressives, but also conservatives -- that this election is the most important of our lifetime, probably the most important since the Vietnam War," Silver said.

Republicans saw some volunteers from California in 2002, when people from so-called "safe" congressional districts came to volunteer for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said Chris Carr, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party. That could happen again in this year's presidential race, he said.

"There are anxious volunteers who live in other states where it might be safe for us," he said.

Volunteers are a premium resource in tight election states, where small combinations of phone calls or connections at the door could be key. Each Saturday, Republican staff members cook meals such as brisket or enchiladas for the volunteers that come in and sometimes put in a full day of work, Carr said.

Volunteers from California are helped with food and gas costs, but they often end up bunking with other Democrats or paying for hotels. The 105 Kerry supporters who arrived last weekend spent about $50 each for a bus, Haas said.

Northern California volunteers had been making the trip here and back in three days, but they're focusing mostly on Reno now, said Melissa Walker, the Western coordinator of drivingvotes.org.

Traveling here is time-consuming, Haas said, but he hopes to help turn Nevada to Kerry's side.

At the very least, he said, "we're registering people to vote and getting them more involved."