Redstate

By Remington Steele Posted in 2008 — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

As I was watching the news tonight, one of the pundits was going off on how tired the candidates are starting to look. I figured all the candidates are starting to "feel" the burn of campaigning constantly. I know the guy I favor in this contest has made a huge number of visits in early states and some surrounding big states. I figured his jet lag had to be catching up with him, and I wonder if any of the candidates are scheduling naps and extended recovery periods between campaigning.

I left the TV and went online. I got quite the surprise when I came across a link to a small personal blog. It was a personal journal of a resident in San Diego who had fire damage from the recent fires. He got a call from his local church about some folks showing up to help with a tree that had been damaged in the fire and the stump needed to be removed. This guy was astonished at who he saw when he arrived, one of the presidential candidates with his son.

Here is this candidate in between campaign stops with a chainsaw working on this guy's tree stump. The amazing thing is there was no national or local press, no posse or entourage. Just a few Secret Service guys, the candidate and his son along with others from this poor fellow's local church.

I could not help but smile at his disheveled hair. I kept thinking about the video clips of Senator Edwards in his crisp clean jeans helping others a while back with all the press there snapping pictures.

I've been on these types of service projects and I'm happy to help a neighbor out, but it can be an imposition on my time. I am impressed with the real "pressless" example my candidate gave to me tonight that although I am busy, I can certainly help someone out even if I may think I'm too slammed with projects of my own. This was on some backwater blog. It was good for me to see that although I can be busy, I'm never too busy to be a good neighbor.