Running a table for the Democratic Party is one of the ways most of us have cut our teeth on the craft of politics. You never get to experience it too much. It’s retail politics at its simplest and best.

One of the lessons I’ve learned in my short career as a political operative is that these lessons can be very simple while also being baffling. One of these quandaries arose for me recently when I was asked to table at the Horse Cave Heritage Festival.

It was the hottest day of the year and if you don’t know what tabling involves it’s like this: put up a canopy over your table, put up a sign, put up some chairs, and engage the public in conversation. It’s a great way to get your name out there and to meet people It’s also a deep way to learn about the people you’re trying to reach.

This essay as about what I learned from tabling.

First, I learned that this work is humbling and hard. Talking to folk off the cuff can seem very insincere. It is a bit artificial to ask, ‘“Too hot, for you?” Or “Would you like to sign up for a drawing on an Igloo cooler?”

Instead you try to observe and listen and look for the cues that will tell you if you’re on the right track I take my cue to talk from something I sense in their look or what I see in their body language. Yes, I do say, “Nice tattoo.” Or “Drinking enough water?” I have learned that most people are turned off by political jibber jabber from the ‘get-go’

Second, I learned from tabling that I am not alone in my ‘politicking’. Your opposite number at the table down the row is probably thinking the same thing you are. We share more in common than we think. We are all humans just trying to get by. Our common struggle should be about making the world a better place. That definition of a ‘better place’ depends mostly upon how we view our humanity. My guess is that 70-80% of that better place is shared. It is almost invariable that even folks we disagree with politically actually share values with us—we just call those values different names. At least that’s what I’ve learned in my years of tabling.

Third, sometimes you get to share in what some writers call an epiphany, a surprising moment of clarity or insight. I had one of these recently at the Horse Cave Heritage Festival. It was late in the day and the sun was beating down. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be surprised as I counted down the minutes until I could strike the tent and fold up the table. That’s when a young woman came up to our table and said, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been so betrayed by Republicans and especially by how the Epstein files have been protecting Trump. I voted for him three times and never got my tariff and doge money. I will never vote for a Republican again.” I was stunned by her epiphany. It was a moment of clarity and a moment of hope.

I was being hard taught once again that we are all humans just trying to get by and struggling to make it make sense. She went on in the fiercest way to tell us that she felt betrayed by a long list of promises broken by Trump foremost among them is his protection of the Epstein class.

If we had packed up and gone home before she arrived we would have missed the moment, missed the epiphany. I am reminded of a quote from comedian Jimmy Dore referring to how Chris Smalls organized the Amazon labor union on Staten Island, explained:

“He didn’t go to the shop floor and say, ‘Hey, who here doesn’t support LGBTQ? Okay, you’re out. Who here’s a gun nut? Okay, you’re out. Who here agrees with me on immigration? You don’t? You’re out. Okay, now who’s left? Let’s organize against the man.’ That’s not how it works.

You go, ‘This is the idea: we all have a shared economic interest. Let’s organize around that interest.’ And that’s how it works.”

Yeah. We look for common ground and when we find it we share and act together. That is an epiphany. We can work together. I was taught this lesson by a random table visitor who was seeking to make sense of the world and looking for others of like mind. We don’t have to agree on it all.

Maybe we can just follow Frederick Douglass’ advice: “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
So be it. Start by getting shut of Flock cameras and banning data centers?

I will work with anyone to do right. You come, too.