Working these past two months has shown me that even though campaigns approach things differently, they all have one thing in common: the volunteers that keep their campaigns running and the focus on grassroots campaigning.

So I'm a big fan of scary movies.  Zombies, vampires, natural disasters, anything that will make me jump I'll usually watch.  There's one particular genre of movies that perhaps wasn't the best for me to have seen before this trip.  I'm talking about the road trip = 2 hours of horror kind of movies.

Yesterday, we had quite the scenic drive (11 hours total, 9 of which were in the same Texas congressional district) but we finally made it to Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Today we are in the Doña Ana County GOP office making phone calls for John McCain and the local candidates running for Senate and Congress:  Steve Pearce and Ed Tinsley.  I'll admit that calling people with these surveys gets a little monotonous and frustrating, especially when you call someone who feels the need to share a few choice words with you, but I think all of us are feeling more positively about it today.

One of the coolest parts of working for a candidate running for an open seat, or challenging a incumbent Democrat is that we typically get to meet the candidate and spend a little time with him or her.  Yesterday, we got to spend more than just a few moments with Texas 22^nd Congressional district candidate Pete Olson; we spent almost the whole day with him.  While going door-to-door in Pearland yesterday, I had privilege of being teamed up with Pete, and was able to talk to him for a couple of hours.  I wanted to share some of my experiences because after talking to Pete, I see why Republicans are so excited at the prospect of working alongside him.

Today we are in Texas’s 22^nd Congressional district to help Pete Olson, quite possibly Republicans' best opportunity to take a Democrat seat and turn it red.  We had the opportunity to meet Pete Olson last night at a “meet and greet” in Clear Lake, a suburb of Houston.  After seeing him speak, it’s easy to see why Republicans are excited about the prospect of him become this district's Representative.

Steve Grove from YouTube News & Politics had some questions for Where is the Red.  Here's what we had to say.

Enjoy

Thursday, we hit Topeka, KS, part of the second Congressional district.  The Kansas 2^nd was one of the most surprising 2006 Republican losses.   Congressman Jim Ryun, who had been serving the district for 10 years, was narrowly defeated by Democrat Nancy Boyda.  The district is one of the Republican’s top targets to flip back to Red.  We entered the district at a strange time, two days after their primary election.  Jim Ryun was defeated by current Kansas Treasurer Lynn Jenkins and she will now move forward as the nominee to take this seat back from Boyda.

One of my favorite parts of driving is the music.  The radio stations all play the same things and we’re sick of our ipods. So I’m leaving it up to you to give us suggestions for some new music downloads!

One of my favorite feelings in the world is the one you get when someone unnecessarily and unexpectedly goes out of their way to do something nice for you. We all had that feeling tonight when, by complete coincidence, we got the chance to meet one of our donors.

The WITR Crew has had the opportunity to "talk issues" with several congressional hopefuls.  Here are some snippets from these conversations.