A visit from the cousin (and parents) was followed by a visit to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll. It was a madhouse and the first brutally hot sunshine of the year, but still kind of nice to check out Chateau Obama.
And OMG Justin Bieber was so cool.
“Hi, my name is Nick and I’m a volunteer with the Barack Obama campaign. Can the senator count on your support this election?” At least that was what I was supposed to say — although I don’t like asking people directly who they will vote/have voted for, so I would sometimes substitute that second sentence with “We’re in your neighborhood today making sure that everyone is getting out to vote.” I found that people often identify their support without you even asking and this approach makes it feel a little more like a genuine interaction and not as much of a solicitation. And while, sure, the Obama campaign doesn’t really want you to be turning out McCain voters to the polls I’d be happy if I gave anyone information that allowed them to vote and consider it an extra bonus if that person supports the good guys.
One man stands out in memory: a young dad feeding his baby a bottle, his back to me as he sat on the couch near the front window. He came to the door shirtless, displaying half a dozen big torso tattoos and cradling his baby in one arm. His hair was buzzed short and he had a little stubbly mustache. I’d guess he was 25 years old and if I’d seen him on the street I’d have pegged him as a Republican. He was sweetly and enthusiastically supportive of Obama, talked about how he was ready for some change. He was not registered at this address, but he knew where he needed to go to to cast his ballot. I don’t think I gave him any new or important information, but I could see in this young father’s eyes and feel in his firm handshake (baby still cradled) that he appreciated the attention from the campaign.
Other characters: BVH canvassed a woman whom he thinks wasn’t wearing pants (he tried his hardest not to look) and was barely wearing a shirt; Fetch spent over one hour talking to some nut job constitutionalist; Peri and I got an earful from Adam, a black sheriff who strongly supported Obama and felt compelled to tell us about his son who’s coming down to vote and his coworker who’s voting for McCain and the Mexicans who keep on sneaking into Florida.
Am just now back from Florida, where Sarasota County (where most of the Huck the Voters were working) went for Obama by just 237 votes. Some notes from the days on the campaign trail…
Precinct 82, turf 3.
We hit some fertile turf on Election Day morning, a poor and racially mixed neighborhood in Bradenton (just N of Sarasota). The one-story ramshackle duplexes were packed in so it was easy to knock on a lot of doors quickly. And because this turf wasn’t in Sarasota proper (more resources were spent to win Sarasota than Manatee County, which went to McCain by a few thousand votes), most folks hadn’t been contacted at all yet and were happy to have the information about where and when to vote. And, between 10 and 12 AM, there were a lot of folks home.
Not everyone was for Obama, but it was one of those neighborhoods where we’d just start knocking on every door instead of following the list in the walk packet. Bottom line: do what you can to get any of these people to the polls. Screw the collection of data on who supports whom, who actually lives at the address, who isn’t home, etc… We were supposed to be recording all this data, as per campaign protocol, but at this point, what did it matter? Are they really planning on updating their lists? Many people listed in our packets were no longer at the listed addresses and a lot of houses were boarded up or foreclosed or just plain empty. Over the three days of canvassing, I ran into at least five convicted felons who said that they couldn’t vote. Or, in one case, a woman who had “a felony in New York and I don’t want to push my luck.”
Precinct 82, turf 5.
After an energized morning of talking to folks, we moved to some new turf about a mile away, a sterile trailer park retiree community. No one was home (or they weren’t answering our knocks) and we had to walk a while between houses on the list. If they weren’t home, we dangled a little “Vote Obama TODAY” door-hanger and moved on. After the morning’s seeming success, this just felt too sleepy, not enough activity, not enough voter contacts. So we moved on to some more low-income, mixed-race residential turf.
our campaign song is death or glory by the clash. we kick off every national conference call with it.
there are 11 hours left until the polls close in virginia…
here’s a snapshot of life so far this morning:
i started my round of wake-up calls to my directors at 5:30am. i got my wake up call from the national director at 6:00pm, while parking my car at walgreens to run in and grab some election day sharpies.
it’s pouring rain in norfolk. flood warnings this afternoon. one of my directors tried to vote this morning in hampton and there was a 4 hour wait at the polls. she decided her time was better spent making it her business to get others to stand in line rather than standing in line herself. so she and her boyfriend have 200 voters that they are reaching out to for the next 11 hours… the rain makes our work to get people to the polls even more important. (on a side-note, i encouraged kasie to phonebank through her precinct while she was standing in line to vote.)
the first crew headed out into the field at 7:30am with a goal of knocking on their first door at 7:45am. now i’m alone at the office waiting to receive volunteers and collect numbers from the field. coffee is in the coffee-pot, clipboards and walklists are prepped. and just as i was starting to feel a little down, and thinking about starting my wrap-up report, i called my colleague liz for a pick-me-up…
not only did she play a song- barack-steady – to me over the phone, but duh… hop on the phones, jojo, and call voters!
so, here i go. phone. ear. glue.
will check in later.
10 hrs 43 mins.
obama was in norfolk today. since we’re about to embark on a big volunteer-driven GOTV effort, what better place to recruit than an obama rally?
myself and three of our campaign managers packed up our clipboards and sign-up sheets and headed to the rally. we clipboarded for volunteers and members for about 3 hours, but then the doors to the stadium opened and people started rushing in. as the evening wore on obama’s campaing was out in force doing their own volunteer recruitment as well. since there’s no need to compete with our own team, we packed up our list of 64 new members and 40 volunteers and called it a day in terms of outreach.
so, then the question became, do you go back to the office to clean or database, or do you stay and listen to barack’s speech?
the right thing to do from a diligent campaign perspective would have been to go back to the office. the fun thing to do is to stay and watch barack’s speech. we opted for fun.
we hustled through security, and walked out onto the green of the minor league ballpark. there was an amazing high school marching band with a powerful brass section and terrific drum corps getting everybody dancing. we were dancing and grinning as we took in the scene, and then a very official-looking woman pulled us aside and asked if we wanted to sit in the bleachers behind barack obama while he gave his speech… we said sure.
next thing we knew we were getting wisked away to the rock-star seats right behind the podium. we sat there and bonded with the other members of the selected crowd – old, young, black, white, asian, kids in the front row… solid cross-section of society.
organizers handed “change we need” posters and little american flags up through the bleachers, and told us to bunch together closely. i have so often been on the other end of that interaction – felt a little funny to be organized by someone else rather than the other way around. in fact, i watched the event organizers as they walked with giant-cottonfield-steps in a determined and deliberate way that i know myself to be capable of. i was a little jealous, and yet worked to relish the moment of observing rather than acting.
a preacher opened the rally, a 12 year old kid sang a gospel star-spangled banner, an organizer with the obama campaign got thousands of cell phone number through a clever text message organizing trick from the podium. then the secret service guys came out, secured the podium, and there came our man.
he was shorter than i had expected. hair definitely graying. but fiery. and funny. and feisty. and… presidential. i was sitting right behind his right shoulder – when he moved to the left or the right, occasionally i saw myself on the jumbotron. it’s an event i won’t forget for a long time.
needless to say, three-hours of rally indulgence had a cost when it comes to the campaign. we’re behind on databasing, the GOTV plan is still not finalized. it’s 2:05 am as i finish this post. conference call with my canvass directors in 5.25 hours… and with that, 6 days and sweet dreams.
A busy first day (=12 hours) here at the Sarasota Obama HQ:
Highlight of the day was running into Jit (fellow ultimate player, Stanford ‘02 grad, friend and teammate of Kroody, childhood friend of Kevin [who was at our wedding with Beth], and current Revolver player) at HQ and spending the last half of the day working with him. We’re planning on starting early (8am) tomorrow and then taking a midday break to toss around a bit and loosen up the ultimate muscles.
The campaign is running strong — while we were working for MoveOn in ‘04 and not the Kerry campaign, it still seems like night and day in terms of how well things are organized. Here’s hoping it makes a difference.
Off to enjoy one of Matt and Amber’s triple ginger whammy cookies on my drive home. Thanks for the care package!
To top off the free wireless at the Tampa airport, I just scored a Prius rental. It was a $50 upgrade, most of which I’m hoping to get back in gas, as the other cars got dismal mileage.
Off to watch the Rays with some Obama campaign workers.
for those of you who haven’t carved your halloween pumpkin yet, check out:
http://yeswecarve.com/
this came up on our national field call today and we all had a good giggle. so fun!
i might have to carve a squash over x-mas because i probably won’t have a chance to carve a pumpkin between now and halloween.
i tell ya, i’m getting skinny working on this campaign.
this morning my body shut down. i thought i was over my cold, but it came back with a vengeance yesterday. never gave myself the break i needed to recover. the voice in my head kept telling me, “in 12 days you can get all the sleep you want and obama will be president”… so i pumped vitamins into my body and kept pushing. i got 7 hours last night (longest in 4-5 days for sure), but it was fitful. then i woke up with a brutal headache and was dry-heaving as i led a conference call at 7:30am… ugh…
(i get nervous writing details like this on the blog because i fear readers will take pity – especially the moms and other nurturing souls – but i feel like it’s an honest treatment of the campaign experience and it’s not like i felt sorry for myself. it’s more just that my body was sending me a strong message that i was mortal and needed to take care of myself for a bit and so that’s what i’m doing.)
i called off my morning engagements, slept until 12 noon when i had a national conference call. then i got in the shower and hauled myself off to a coffee shop for a caffeine infusion, which helped put the headache to rest.
i have spent the day in the coffeeshop and outrageously good soup shop across the street in the funky university ghent neighborhood of norfolk, participating in conference calls, taking care of e-mail, and getting ahead on planning. but definitely feeling like my head is inside a big ole thunderhead. hopefully the clouds will part and tomorrow i’ll be energized, revived and ready to wield the campaign banner once again.
the cool thing is that even though i’m a bit out of it, the campaign roars ahead. today we clocked 650 hours of canvassing time – likely knocked on 8,000+ doors and dropped literature on why obama is better than mccain, and talked with 3,00+ people. so, it’s bigger than any one person, including the state director. nice to be part of a team.
got really wonderful comments from amber and celia about what i’ve been writing here. thank you both so much for that insight. can’t wait for thanksgiving and a visit to leverett! thanksgiving will provide a get a head-start on my winter chub and rebuild my muscle and aerobic base via 4-square and runs through minnesota landscape.
11 days.
quite possibly one of my favorite ultimate cheers of all time.
i broke it out to my national organizing director last night as our phone meeting was interrupted by news that the mccain campaign is thinking about pulling out of colorado. we just sent ~250 organizers to colorado, who will be working 18 hour days for the next 13 days to put obama in the white house. coincidence? maybe.
it’s not a check mate situation, but the grip is beginning to tighten. obama has more money, more people, more organization, and an increasingly diverse array of ways that he could win the election. by contrast, mccain’s getting cornered. word on the street is that he’s gonna put most of his chips on pennsylvania. but from what i know about the current lay of the land, mccain has about as high a chance of winning pennsylvania as he does canada.
as for me, i’m re-energized by the campaign despite fighting off my second big cold of the campaign. miso soup, vitamin c, cold-eeze, and emergen-c infusions are fueling a strong recovery… and then at night the tylenol PM plays a role too. got a tremendous double-whammy of care packages yesterday. one from nick, with a mix-cd and beautiful wool sweater just in time for the cold weather, and another from susan, chock-full with homemade goodies for the office to munch on. the canvassers (and i) devoured the oatmeal raisin and oatmeal chocolate cookies with ravenous zeal. it was fun to watch…
thanks for contributing to the campaign 
oh, and although we’ve moved a bunch of staff to CO, Team Virginia isn’t exactly chopped liver either. tonight alone we knocked on 5,605 doors, talked with 1.805 likely undecided voter and identified the voting preference of 1,563 of them. in this work, information is power and this identification work will allow get-out-the-vote operations to be much more focused, targeted and impactful.
ok. off to anna-the-kitten and my cozy bed at alex and matt’s. then tomorrow morning meeting at 7:30am and then the little sentra (which just hit 155k miles on the odometer) and i head southeast to norfolk for a series of site visits to my offices in the politically crucial tidewater region of VA.
T minus 13 days. until next time.
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