E-Mail This Article to a Friend ACTIVISM One man’s crusade against Bush BY CAMILLE DODERO

Michael John Dobbins really, really doesn’t want to live under four more years of the Bush administration. The 25-year-old Worcester denizen so desperately doesn’t want to see President Bush elected in 2004 — that’s right, he says, "elected," not "re-elected" — that he’s willing to do whatever is necessary to help thwart a "Republican dynasty." That includes quitting his job.

Last spring, Dobbins taught at Nature’s Classroom, a woodsy environmental-education program in Charleston, Massachusetts, leading a sort of basic-activism class for kids called "Take Action." After months and months of schooling children in the tenets of activism, and squirming while the Bush administration sprayed bullets overseas, the Albion College grad was sick of talking about action and decided he actually wanted to take action. So he came up with the idea of assembling a straightforward manual on exactly how to oust Bush, a handbook that would become the aptly titled Stop Bush in 2004: How Every Citizen Can Help (iUniverse, Inc.). He’d compile the various methods available to an ordinary citizen, like "educating yourself," registering new voters, fundraising, canvassing neighborhoods, and boycotting Bush donors. Then he’d anchor the pamphlet to an online political-action center. But first he had to jettison his income to free up time for the project — a choice he speaks of as though it were a calling, even though living without money has been difficult. "[Defeating Bush] just seems so important to me," he says over the phone. "I don’t want to sound too dramatic, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I just had to do it."

One of the many things Dobbins wanted to emphasize was what he calls "a naïveté" about protesting. "People think that protesting is going to change things alone — it’s not." The Illinois native knows a thing or two about public dissent. Before the 2000 presidential election, he held a "one-man protest" advocating open debates when then-governor Bush flew to his Naperville town to lead a Labor Day parade. "He actually spoke to me," says Dobbins, then a Nader supporter. "I asked him the question, ‘Why don’t you debate Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan?’ And he was like, ‘I have to get that other guy to debate me first.’"

That sort of patronizing response — a stupid half-truth — is one of the many, many reasons why Dobbins has devoted his immediate future to evicting the current administration. It’s also why he’s not yet backing any of the Democratic contenders — he wants to unite, not divide. As for supporting a third-party candidate, Dobbins says now is not the time. If he could do it again, he wouldn’t have voted for Nader in 2000 — even though he voted in Illinois, a state awarded to Gore. "I still feel guilty," he says, sounding heavy-hearted.

Hate to ask — but what will Dobbins do if President Bush, ahem, wins? "Okay, okay, gosh, well," he stammers. "Okay, I’m going to do everything I can to educate the American people so they’ll know what’s going on and so that they’ll put the pressure on Bush." He pauses again. "Of course, I dread the thought."

For more information on Stop Bush in 2004: How Every Citizen Can Help, visit www.stopbushin2004.com