Its been almost a week since the election and I'm still slightly in shock that Obama won. For the entirety of my adult life I've lived under a President that I haven't respected. After the debacle of the 2000 election, the sickening stifling of public debate in the leadup to the Iraq war, to the countless "Bushisms" that have infiltrated our language, I finally have a President who sees the world in more than just black and white. Obama has the idealism in him to reach for peace abroad and prosperity at home, while also understanding the complexity of the real world and the pragmatism that must be embraced to these problems, I think.
The exciting thing to me is that Obama seems to be leading a movement within the Democratic Party. Obama's policies and platform are not the typical "liberal" agenda that has dominated the political discourse since the Reagan years. He embraces economic policies that do not hide from or fear the free market, but rather seek to use government to do that which the free market cannot do for itself. The government can reinforce the infrastructure of the country, not just the roads and airlines, but encouraging education that will lead the next wave of innovation. I won't get too in to policy right now (not my strong suit), but the forward looking vision of the country that Obama articulated in his book The Audacity of Hope and on the campaign trail is why I went to campaign on his behalf.
Anyway, the fruition of all our hard work paid off last Tuesday. The atmosphere of the campaign watch party, surrounded by thousands of my fellow volunteers, many that I worked with closely, is something that I'll never forget. The positive energy and sense of accomplishment was palpable the whole night. We all felt that we had done something more than just win an election, but that we had somehow made a stand and changed the world for the better. We all understand the important role the United States plays in the world. And we were all disgusted at the tone and actions of the Bush administration the had sullied America's good name over the last 8 years. What we all felt was that we had made our stand against a fear-based idealogical unilateral administration that was threatening to drag our world into further wars. Now I don't want to imply that I think a McCain Presidency would have actually been a continuation of the Bush policies, but it certainly appeared that way based on his gut-based approach to strategic decision making and continued pandering to the hardline conservative stance. We needed to send a message to the world that we as a nation were better than this, that we could stand up to fear and intolerance and we would work together for a better world.
I could feel that in the room that night. My fellow campaigner Conor (who I've metioned on here before) is an Irishman now living in Seattle. He stood there that night and proclaimed that he is "now proud to live in this country." My fellow campaigner Freek (think "Frik") from the Netherlands already has noticed a change in America's perception. He writes:
" Many of you have thanked me for coming to the US to help elect Obama for
president. I wanted to let you all know, that my thankfulness to you is at
least as great. And literally billions of people around the world are
thankful to all of you. Because you elected a president that cares about
the world, that sees the shared challenges for the people of this planet,
and puts coöperation over imposition, and words over bombs.
Apart from my most cynic friends America's bad image has already changed.
The enthusiasm about Obama and the movement for change is really big here.
It looks like the USA and the rest of the world can be friends again."
But the election wasn't just important internationally, it was also the next great step of the civil rights movement. I don't think any of us can underestimate the magnitude of the moment when Obama became the first black President. Literally moments after the Pacific polls closed a woman at the party was shouting in celebration to no one in particular, "my President is black! My President is black!" It truly felt as though race had been transcended in that room. The room was filled with volunteers from all over the country and places where racism is still a very real issue. But in that room there were no barriers. Looking around the room the faces changed from white to black to white to latino to black to white and over and over again. We all hunged and cried and celebrated together. This might be cheesy but it felt like we had created for ourselves the reality that Obama had envisioned for us.
Ok, enough waxing poetic and time for some juicy tidbits from the campaign trail. I'd just like to say that I loved this campaign. We rocked, like hardcore. Our organization from head to toe was amazing and we thought of almost everything.
First, a note on strategy. In Ohio, Cleveland in Cuyahoga County has the largest population of any county in Ohio and is also the most solidly democratic in Ohio. In order to cushion against the largely Republican rural and Cincinnati vote, we knew we needed to win Cuyahoga by at least 150,000 votes to have a decent shot of carrying the whole state. Our whole strategy was to turnout as many votes as possible and fight against Republican voter suppression tactics.
So we created a dynamic system of teams stationed throughout the city. From these staging locations, we would launch canvassers into the neighborhoods to educate the voter on his rights and polling locations and ensure that would make it out to vote. We canvassed them to annoyance, we placed vital voting information on doorhangers that blanketed the town, and provided a dispatch service to give people rides. We also had people monitoring the polls to manage the lines and keep citizens around so they could vote. We had people inside the polling locations to check the voter roles to our list of supporters so we could dynamically allocate our volunteer army to those neighborhoods falling short of expectations. I ran one such staging location and broke it down by 2pm and sent all my canvassers to another area to help out.
After my location was broken down I practically ran around the city doing odd jobs. I went canvassing inside an apartment building until a seething mad resident (likely McCain supporter) stalked us and threatened to call the cops on us. I went to the Board of Elections where we had laptops set up so we could redirect voters erroneously believing they could vote there to their proper polling location. We were so helpful to our voters, here's a version of a typical phone converstaion:
[Ring!] "Hello?"
"Hi, Gladys Higginbotham? This is Bill, and I'm a volunteer for the Obama for Change campaign in Maine. Just checking to make sure you're heading to the polls today."
"Yes, I'm heading out the door in a few minutes."
"Great. Make sure you vote for Barack Obama so we can take America in a new direction. Oh, and your left shoelace is untied---we don't want you tripping on your way to the polls. And you have a piece of scrambled egg on your lip---we'll send over a volunteer with a warm towel to help you wipe it off and then give you a quick facial. And don't forget your keys are in your other jacket---we wouldn't want you to lock yourself out of the house, would we?"
"Um, no. I guess not. Thank you."
"No...thank you. And be sure you take Elm Street to the polls to avoid the construction on Route 1. There's a convenient map of the detour under your windshield wiper, along with a new car air freshener---lavender, your favorite."
"My goodness."
"We're here to help, ma'am. One other thing: you might want to wait until you can use voting booth #3. It's got a new magic marker in it and the lighting is 23 percent brighter. Oh, and you'll also need your reading glasses---they're on the nightstand on top of your Pat Conroy novel. That's a great book by the way...you're clearly a discriminating reader."
"Why, thank you."
"Have a nice day! The National Weather Service says it'll be partly sunny and unseasonably mild with highs in the mid 50s. Clear and cold tonight, low 22. Currently it's 48 degrees. Say hi to Mr. Higginbotham for us. We hope his lumbago is better. Oh, and one more thing, Gladys..."
"Yes?"
"Fired up!"
"READY TO GO!!!"Ok that might be a bit of an exaggeration.... but we can thank my good friend Ethan Pollack for sharing the humor. Thanks Ethan, good stuff.
In all seriousness though, in the end I was impressed with the citizens of Cleveland because they were the ones who actually got out there and voted. We had nothing to do for the last 2 hours precincts were open because everyone had already voted. We drove by 3 of our higher density polling locations at 6pm and there were no lines. Everyone we canvassed had already voted. The only non-voters were the people no one could have made vote. In the end McCain got 196,000 votes, Obama 441,000. That 245,000 vote margin that was reported shortly after polls closed caused even Fox News to immediately call Ohio for Obama. Woot woot!
On that note I think I've lost narrative focus for this post and will stop here. I might try and post again with idle reflections on the campaign soon. If anyone has a particular topic that you'd like a comment on, let me know and I'll do my best. I know I've had to remain tight-lipped about our campaign design so if anyone has further questions, let me know. I have a bizillion stories from the trail that I haven't blogged on so I still got material to work off of.
Oh and I want to list some thank yous.
Thank you to Pat and Jeanne Conway for welcoming me into their home for 5 weeks. Thank you to the people of Cleveland who were so receptive and thankful for our volunteer presence. Thank you to Brian and Andy Morrisson, who drove all the way from San Francisco to volunteer for the cause. Thank you to Julianna Poindexter and Sean McGuckian who volunteered in Madison, Wisconsin and to Clare Robinson who volunteered in Pennsylvania. Thank you to everyone back home that gave me your support and encouragement. Thank you to all who donated for the campaign.
This was truly a group effort, a political awakening that I haven't seen before. I feel as though this campaign has raised the political consciousness of this country and I hope that we can keep that ball rolling. Obama has given many Americans hope that we can change this country for the better, that all of us working together can overcome the deep infrastructure level problems that have grown while we have remained apathetic. My feeling is that this historic election has galvanized millions off people to strive reach for that better tomorrow today, that if we all work together that yes we can make a difference. I hope that we all try and remember that feeling we had Tuesday night, when this country sent a message to the work that we're better than war and fear, and we demand more from ourselves. I hope we each do one thing everyday that helps those around us, that sets a higher standard for those we work with. I think that one deed at a time change this country.
Ok whoa I definately went melodramatic there! Ok I'm done.
Night all!
