I got a phone call over the weekend. It was Newt Gingrich and he was trying to organize (or lend his support to some people attempting to organize) a little get-together for tea. The weird thing is that when I tried to talk back to Newt, he just kept talking as though he couldn’t hear me.

I’m not sure how I ended up on Newt’s Rolodex. He’s probably giving me calls for the same reason that Steve Forbes is sending me mail. Mr. Forbes apparently thinks very highly of me. On course to discussing some previous get-together for tea, he gave a glowing appraisal of me as a “patriot”.

So I’m not sure why I’m getting the sudden interest from former Republican Party big-wigs. I suspect that it has to do with my donation to Jim Murali’s GOP primary compaign. The odd thing is, though, that I made that donation while living in Estacado. Mr Murali used to send me regular updates on his campaign but if they got forwarded after the move, I’ve never received any of them even as the election was growing extremely close (during a period in which other mail was being forwarded).

Somehow, though, Gingrich and Forbes have only become aware of my patriotism and love of tea up here in Cascadia after the election was had and lost by their compatriots. I figure that it just took them a while to catch up with me. I’m a little impressed that they did.

I haven’t been officially registered with a political party since I left Delosa. Mostly related to laziness on my part. Delosa doesn’t make you register. You vote in the primary and you’re automatically registered. I wouldn’t even know how to register in Cascadia. If they have the same methodology as Delosa, then voting in the a primary could put me on some lists, but I don’t know that I was here in time to vote in any primaries and I didn’t bother in Estacado.

I haven’t received any nice letter or phone calls from the Democratic Party. The last time I ended up on some list, it was at least a bipartisan list. I think that one was related to a subscription to The New Republic. That subscription got me an “autographed” photo of the President as well as letters asking my help to unseat him. I guess the overall liberalism but hawkishness of TNR gave both sides the idea that I was interested in their causes.

I also received pretty regular dispatches from the Democratic Party in Estacado, but they were rather impersonal. Instead of calling me a fellow proud American and a patriot, they called me “Current Resident”. I’m not sure, but I suspect that they might have just assumed that I was one of them because I lived in a primarily black neighborhood without much Republican presence. I got more of Mr Resident’s mail up here, for the same reason. Oh, and shortly before the election I got a call from the now-first lady. She didn’t bother to tell me to vote for her husband, since there was not any doubt he was going to win Cascadia. She was pretty jazzed about getting me to vote for Cascadia’s current government. It was awkward to hear Mrs. Obama talk about the importance of change while encouraging me to vote for an incumbent.

As with Mr. Gingrich, she just kept talking regardless of what I was saying. I told her it was a pleasure to hear from her, but she just kept talking. How rude.