FINALE

So I realized recently that I have a problem finishing things. In fact, I remember on election night as we were going house to house in the very last hour before the polls closed, Peter telling me, “aw Christie, you’re never going to finish that blog!” And so in the days and weeks and months after the election, and even on the night of the inauguration, I probably wrote this blog a hundred times in my head but never finished it on paper. Until this week, when I learned about “Be the Change North Penn” and was so awed and inspired and proud that I knew it was time to give this blog the proper closure it deserves.

But let me back up a bit. There’s still the last chapter of a story to tell!

The last 4 days before the election, known as “Get Out The Vote” or “GOTV” were a whirlwind. We had hundreds and hundreds of volunteers come through the Lansdale office, many of whom stayed all four days from first thing in the morning until last thing at night (which was really early morning too). We ran one of the largest staging areas in the state of Pennsylvania, in one of the most critical counties for the election. Four days prior to the election, the polls were showing McCain closing in on Obama in PA, and we could see for ourselves the evidence of McCain’s camp throwing every last bit of anything they had at voters right in our own backyards. Election history in PA had shown that it’s never over until it’s over and never to completely believe the polls, so we knew that we had to leave it all on the court or else.

Of course, not to toot our own horns or anything, but by Sunday we had surpassed all of our canvassing and phone targets and had unscheduled volunteers walking in by the droves. No one had ever seen anything like it, and it wasn’t only us- the other offices in the area were having the same thing happen, so we couldn’t even reroute our volunteers to them because they didn’t need them either. By Sunday night the campaign staffers in Norristown and Philly were so stumped at our success that they couldn’t figure out what to tell us to do on Monday! But anyone who knows anything about volunteer management knows that the cardinal rule is not to ever turn away volunteers, and in our case, we had colossal volunteer needs for Tuesday, election day, so we couldn’t afford to lose momentum on Monday. It was a weird, anti-climatic feeling to be honest, because we were prepared to “leave it all out on the court” and yet by Monday afternoon we were *gasp* to say it, a tad bored. But campaign HQ came through with new plans for public visibility activities, among other things, which turned out to be the perfect mix of keeping volunteers productive, and upping energy levels. We basically sent groups of volunteers, especially younger ones, to busy intersections in the town with large signs, to just jump up and down and yell and get people to honk. Turns out the excitement was contagious and a ton of fun. We practically had to drag Dan (our staffer and my boss) kicking and screaming back to the office after an hour. And it was what we needed to get us into the election day mindset.

An important note here is one thing that happened Saturday night. We were doing so well with our canvassing targets that we realized we’d be able to finish all of the neighborhood canvass packets…..except at about 5pm or so we found one last packet in the box. We all agreed it had to be done- there were still a few hours left, though most of the canvassing would have to be done in the dark. All the canvassing volunteers were out so we knew it would have to be one of us, the more full-time volunteers, and we were all absolutely exhausted. Peter and I peeked into the box to see what it was, and of course, damned if it wasn’t a portion of a precinct in Harleysville. We looked at each other and with a knowing glance of acknowledgement, nodded and I said, “I’ll get my coat” as he said, “I’ll grab my keys.” And so the two of us split the pack up (mainly either sides of the streets) and schlepped those neighborhoods door to door for almost 3 hours, mostly in the dark. The nice thing about canvassing in the early evening on a Saturday is that people tend to be home. Anyway, after we went back to the office and worked for a few hours planning for the next day, we all treated ourselves to beers at a nearby pub, sang some really bad karaoke, and then continued to canvass by debating politics with some undecided folks sitting at the bar.

Election day dawned crisp, clear and mild, though we did have a bit of drizzle in the middle of the day. Although we were getting reports of long lines first thing when the polls opened, they thinned out after an hour or so in our area and just stayed steady and moving for the rest of the day. The day went by with few glitches, despite us being prepared for every possible problem at the polling locations. At one point I did get dispatched to one very old school republican precinct where a lady vehemently complained of voter intimidation. They had put these really graphic abortion photos with Obama-Biden next to them and pasted them very close to the voting booths, and were telling democratic voters the wrong information about what identification they needed. When I got there things seemed to have settled down, and the posters had been removed and put in a closet (I did see them). I gave my best “I’m from the campaign- behave yourself or you’ll regret it” diplomatic smile to the local republican representative there. I suspect the woman who had reported the trouble had already given him an earful earlier about the rules at polling locations, and he seemed to get the point. Anyway, small incident that it was, we were glad that it was probably the most dramatic thing that happened for the voting portion of the day.

By 5pm we still had some canvassing packets to go out, but burnout was high and everyone just seemed a bit lackluster. But Dan and Ben were determined, no, we were not going to finish like this. THIS is not leaving it all on the court. And before we knew it, Dan was standing on a chair in the middle of the entire place, calling everyone’s attention. With probably 200 or so people listening, Dan gave the speech of a lifetime about how we had 3 hours to go and we hadn’t worked this hard for so long for a man we believe in so much, to fizzle out in the end. We couldn’t stop pushing for a minute until we were sure we had done everything in our power to get our voters to the polls to elect Barack Obama. It was incredible, within minutes we had every last canvassing packet out in the field, and were able to pull up earlier ones where no one had been home. We pretty much cleared out the office, leaving just a handful of people to hold down the fort. Peter and I, paired up again, headed just a couple of blocks away and in the dark and drizzle, hit house after house as fast as we could, to make sure those people from our lists whom we hadn’t yet confirmed, had indeed voted. As we passed by a polling location, the polling officials standing outside told us they had voter turnout of 70% and rising, which is just incredible. From calls back to Dan and others, we heard similar stories from other area polling locations- unheard of levels of voter turnout.

By 10 minutes to 8 (when the polls in PA close), Peter and I realized we had accidentally crossed into another precinct, for which we weren’t 100% sure of the address of the polling location. Stopping by to pick up some beer on the way, we headed back to the office, prepared for potentially a few hours more of work calling voters in western states, and buckling down for a long evening of watching the returns slowly come in. As we pulled up to the office, everyone was yelling and spraying confetti and hugging and yelling. And yelling and cheering. And cheering and yelling. We were told they had just called Pennsylvania for Obama. No way, we said, it’s barely 8pm. There are still people in line at the polls in Philly. (the law is that as long as you are in line when the polls close, the polling location has to stay open for all those people in line to actually get to vote). The news agencies started calling other states faster than we could believe. We forced the crazed crowd to put down the champagne until we could confirm this officially. We’d seen the news agencies jump the gun before, and be wrong. It was all so astonishing we just couldn’t believe it.

And yet, little by little, we realized it was true. Even Ben, the ultimate skeptic, with his subtle turned almost giddy smile emerging. It happened in a slow, gradual realization that, holy cow, we had won. We had really won. We really did it. And then channel after channel started calling the election for Obama, and it was a sense of euphoria that words cannot express. But don’t get me wrong, the best part actually came when I made Dan call Betsy, the Democratic Committee rep for Harleysville, to get some of the actual precinct result numbers. Harleysville, the holy grail of Republican stronghold. The township whose welcome sign I photographed and put on the wall as our goal, and featured earlier in this blog. And yes, by a handful of votes, we won Harleysville. By a handful. We didn’t win every precinct in that part of the county we were targeting, all of which were old school republican areas. But call it irony, fate, or hard work, we really did win Harlesyville. (which by the way, is a township that is spread across two voting precincts, so we had to add the votes together to be sure if we won the township). I have to believe that Peter and my last packet canvassing trip a couple days before, maybe made the difference. Maybe. In any case, we knew without a doubt that we had helped Obama with the election. All of us in that room owned a little piece of that victory.

And you know the rest of the story. McCain’s gracious concession speech and Obama’s historic acceptance speech, one which is printed out and taped up in the wall of my office now. You know the story of several months of a transition team, and of course a once-in-a-lifetime inauguration. By then I was back in Thailand, settled into work and life in a country that had its own issues to deal with, and people who, although they liked Obama, never really understood the monumental transformation that had taken place in me, or in my country. The Lansdale team all got together on inauguration night for a party, so I called them from Thailand and they passed the phone around to say hi, though we had all been emailing from time to time since the election.

So what was it that made me finally finish the blog? An email from Patricia, who had been one of the other staging managers (we were divided into 3 teams), to say that she and her husband had finally been given their citizenship swearing in dates (today, as I write this, as a matter of fact!). Patricia and Martin were British but had been living in the US for a long, long time, and unfortunately despite being the most dedicated volunteers I’ve ever seen on a campaign, were unable to actually vote. So their citizenship swearing in is a wonderful thing. But that’s not it. It was the email attached below to her message. Patricia had added me and a few others to a “reply all” email from Peter, with notes about the latest “Be the Change North Penn” meeting. As I scrolled down and read the lower email, I realized that my co-volunteers, the most empowered, motivated and amazing people I had worked with in a long time, had indeed kept the campaign spirit and momentum, by forming a community service group. They had recognized the value of the human resources that had come together for the campaign, and the potential shame of just letting things end there once Obama had won and the campaign was over. Now I know they are in the early stages of formation still, but they’ve already organized a couple successful community service days, and had several planning meetings with active participants of 30 people or more. And they have a blog!

And so with that, I bow my head and tip my hat to the new “Be the Change North Penn” group, which for the first time in my teenage or adult life, makes me wish I was living back in Lansdale again. Good luck to you my friends, you make me so proud. Don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything I can do to support from way over here, and know that I’m thinking of you!

The Eve of E-Day

I wish I had an inspiring, poetic quote to start this posting with, but I’m so exhausted that it’s an accomplishment to even have opened my computer to write at all when I got home. But it’s barely midnight of Election Day, and I had to write something. The last 3 days have been chaotic, crazed, incredible, energizing, inspiring, and exhausting all at the same time. I wanted so much, so many times, to stop and write to capture the moments, but even upon taking a quick breath there was something else urgent to do. So I’ve been keeping in mind the topic headers, and I’ll do my best to go back and write things in the few days following the election (so keep checking back) but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to recreate it all the same. All I know is that this has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and although I’ve sacrificed a lot of time with friends and family that I only get once a year, I do think it was worth it. I owe a special thanks to my husband Steve for all his understanding and loving support. I made the commitment to do this over a year ago (thanks Pete, I owe you one), and to this day I don’t regret a single hour I spent working on this campaign- I believe in this election that much. And I say “this election” because although I really do believe with all my heart in Barack Obama, my volunteer experience has been as much about the power of local, community volunteerism as it has been about a national level political movement. We’ve got a whole day yet to go, with a lot of work to do tomorrow. But I have faith that our work tomorrow, and every day thus far, will prevail for us. So get out and vote!

Snow Day in PA

On Wednesday it snowed. Yep. Remarkably unseasonable for our area- we often don’t get snow until after Christmas, and even then only a few times a year. But no, all of the sudden on Wednesday morning, we realized that the rain was slowly getting heavier, and next thing we know we look outside and it’s a virtual blizzard. Most of the flakes were heavy and wet though, so not much stayed on the ground. But what a crazy thing! We were so proud of Barack because he was having a rally that morning somewhere near Philly (too far for us to go), where it turned out that 9000 people turned out in the freezing rain to hear him speak, many of them waiting for hours in the cold. Can you believe that? 9000 people! McCain was also supposed to have a rally in the area, but canceled it due to the weather!

The unfortunate thing about the cold, snowy day was that we learned the hard way that the office doesn’t have heat. Guess that’s what you get with donated space. For some reason the bathrooms and the hall to the bathrooms have heat, but none of the rest of the building (which is essentially an old car showroom floor). By 2pm we were guessing that it had dropped to about 50degF and we were all shivering and chilled to the bone. But of course, Hugh to the rescue!! We have this volunteer called Hugh, who has a small business hauling junk away like old furniture, and selling it. He has brought us a lot of our tables and chairs, plus shelves and trash cans, etc. One time he brought the biggest box full of post-it notes that I’d ever seen. So we called Hugh and asked him to bring over some space heaters, which he had previously asked us if we needed any. He not only brought over like 7 space heaters (which barely do the job), but also the extension cords to go with them. And he checked the circuit breakers to be sure we didn’t blow a fuse. Actually, that’s how he learned we don’t have heat at all, since he checked the wiring in the fuse box and figured out that it had indeed been disconnected a long time ago. The space heaters have made it just barely tolerable in the office, especially after dark, so we are just crossing our fingers that this coming weekend is a lot more mild!!

Dry Run GOTV Day 2 - Lessons Learned!

Okay so I guess a clear pattern is that I’m always behind in updating this blog. So...to close out last weekend, I’ll say that Sunday dawned sunny and cool and overall a beautiful day. We figured out our system better, and I was even able to sneak out and have lunch with my nephew, sister and mom, which was a small make-up for the fact that I won’t be able to take my nephew trick-or-treating like I originally promised, as I’ll be stuck in the office most of Halloween evening doing the Friday night prep work for our big GOTV weekend. We had a great team meeting at the end of the night, where we all processed the weekend and discussed key things we wanted to change for GOTV, or remaining issues or questions we had. We hit our targets considerably better than the day before, and overall, felt good about what was ahead of us.

The funny part of Sunday evening is that both Ben and Dan really grumbled about having the meeting, but myself and a few others insisted. When at various points during the meeting both Ben and Dan were getting up to take calls and me and Kelly were left to run the meeting, it dawned on me the irony of our team’s structure. We had three early 20-something men as paid field organizer staff, with three 30-something (and older) women as deputy field organizers/volunteers, and all the rest of the core leadership team (except one) of about 12 people as older women. (I say older but it is a range- mid-30s and up- and most of them have kids who are grown, but a few have younger kids too.). It makes sense that a campaign would recruit young people to be paid staff, since I’m sure they are getting paid peanuts and don’t have families or other jobs to deal with. And I was trying to figure out why the volunteers were all women, most of whom are empowered, reliable, dedicated types, and I’m not sure about that one. All of our husbands are good men, and Obama supporters, but somehow don’t have the zeal for volunteering on the campaign like we do. They all seem happy holding down the fort at home, which I am so glad my husband is willingly doing while I “work” 7 days a week, 14 hrs a day. Of course Kelly on the other hand is not so sure, when she came home the other day to her six-year-old eating a dinner of Nilla wafers with jelly on them!

Anyway, it made me think a lot about my own job in Thailand (and previously in Sri Lanka), and the assumptions that we also often make about volunteers. We staff our provincial offices with young, energetic field officers who often don’t have a lot of experience, but are reliable, and trainable. And yet they are expected to go into communities and work with volunteers who are well-established, experienced and considerably their senior. In many cases, they are supposed to be directing, training, or coaching these volunteers. And then we expect the volunteers to take on all this extra stuff themselves, and more or less do things our way. We do try to use participatory processes to integrate better into local ways of doing things, but its tough. Kelly was telling me a little bit about what it was like after the primary when she and Kathy and a few of the others single-handedly ran the staging area for Obama this spring, with no help from the campaign. Then the campaign came in with their way of doing things and their systems and plans (and 23-year old paid staff!) and ruffled everyone’s feathers who had been working on their own there since the beginning. I was thinking to myself, “Well I’ll be damned, that sounds familiar!”

Nearing Celebrity?

Today this guy came up to me in the campaign office and said he wanted to meet me. Turns out he was on the internet, looking up the address and phone number of our office. When he did a search, he saw my blog listed on several hits down the page, and clicked on it out of curiosity. He said that it was reading my blog that put him over the edge to come in and volunteer! Wow! Now my readership must be a total of 13! And like all the volunteers that get cycled through Sheila, Ash (that’s his name) said he was stopping in to sign up for another day, but ended up “just doing a few calls.” I’m guessing at least an hour or two later……we locked him and his girlfriend in for a canvassing shift tomorrow, as he was leaving.

In all seriousness though, we are starting to learn that all this work is paying off. We are seeing volunteers coming in to make calls who come in as a result of the recruitment calls we make. Plus people who come in because someone came and canvassed their door. And after leaving a voicemail or two with someone, a bunch of them call us back. Yesterday Dan had a guy who came in to volunteer because he said we had left him so many messages he figured that he really better just come in and volunteer after all. Of course, on the other hand, yesterday I had an angry volunteer read me the riot act because she called a few people to recruit them to volunteer, who were already regular volunteers. Ooops. Admittedly, we do have a glitch in our system, which is that some people who are already scheduled to volunteer with us, are getting cycled back into the volunteer recruitment call pool. Today I even crossed my own name off a volunteer’s call list, which I happened to notice as I was training her. But at the end of the day, the worst that can happen is that they get annoyed. Most of them still volunteer and they’ll all still vote- at least this way they won’t forget!

Dry Run GOTV Day 1 Saturday– Utter Downpour!

The entire second half of last week was spent preparing for the out-of-state volunteers to come work for us, plus the number of local volunteers we had lined up. We were still doing persuasion calls and neighborhood canvassing, as this was the last big weekend push to persuade the undecideds. But more importantly, it was our “dry run” for the big GOTV (Get out the Vote) weekend, November 1-4th, where we expect to have hundreds of volunteers, and have very specific and formal data we have to report about every hour in to the regional headquarters. So we had to get the system straight of how to manage all these people, and all the information. Basically, there are three teams being run out of Lansdale- Ben, Dan and Chad’s teams, all of which cover different portions of our part of Montgomery County. Within each team, there are canvassers and phone bankers. So it can get a bit chaotic, and it’s really important we keep all the information straight of who’s doing what and who’s already done what. So we spent a lot of time color-coding the 3 teams and everything in the office, and mapping out a floor plan and step-by-step process as to how to manage volunteers coming in and out. Each of the 3 teams identified key leadership positions as well, for this weekend and for the GOTV weekend as well. My job is Staging Location Manager, which means I’m like the conductor of the orchestra. I manage the canvass coordinator and the phone bank coordinator, and I make sure that all the numbers are correct and ready to be reported at regular intervals (almost every hour). Basically I’m managing the floor while Dan deals with his bosses and any other major fires. Thank god for Kelly, who is Ben’s Staging Location Manager, who has done this before in the primaries and knows a lot about how this really works.

So Saturday morning started with a record number of volunteers showing up for us, some from PA but many from out of state. We even had 2 dogs! Note the photo of the dog with a little sweater that says, “Bark for Obama!” And a little girl from NY who came with her mom made us a Barack gnome for the office. A bit weird, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. By 10am Dan and I were high-fiving up and down the office, realizing that our marathon phone call stretches to potential volunteers all week prior had paid off, and people were coming in droves. We had a target 56 number of “turf packets” or sections of neighborhoods, to be canvassed for the day, and with approximately 30 people arriving in the morning (assuming 1 packet per person), we figured that we could hit 56 no problem, considering most people would come back to do another packet in the afternoon, plus some local volunteers were coming in just for the afternoon.

And then the rain started coming down in droves, and everything went haywire! We finished off the day with a mere 26 or so packets complete (a far cry from our intended 56), as the rain really slowed people down. Well, that and the fact that everyone thinks canvassing is a fun thing to do with their friends and family together, but we had calculated it as one person-one shift, so that two people going out together would get two packets, with the idea that two people can go twice as fast as one. Yeah, except when both people go together to knock on every door- that’s HALF as fast! And the list goes on- we learned a lot about how our plans and calculations had been well made, but needing major tweaking in a number of areas. Oh, and we knocked our phone calling targets out of the ballpark since many of the cold, wet canvassers gave up by mid-afternoon and stayed inside to do phone calls instead. Can’t say I blame them.

What I can say is that I admire and continued to be inspired by the dedication of our volunteers. It’s hard to tell, but some of these photos are of soggy and cold canvassers who have come back to return their packets, finished. House by house, street by street, dozens and dozens of canvassers went out on Saturday to do their best at locking in any remaining undecided voters, reinforcing our reminder to vote with Obama supporters, and recruiting new volunteers like crazy. And many of them want to come back again next week! No wonder they say the Obama campaign has the best “ground game” ever. They say that Obama’s community-organizing approach to campaigning is revolutionizing presidential campaigns.

Today, Barack spoke at a rally just outside of Philadelphia. The weather here all of the sudden turned rainy and cold, an in fact we had snow flurries for a bit in the morning. Nonetheless, 9000 supporters came out for an outdoor rally for Barack and waited for hours to hear him speak. NINE THOUSAND PEOPLE! In the cold, sleeting rain! That’s just amazing. The first question is, how do we make sure they all show up to vote? And the second question, how do we keep this momentum going after the election, to capitalize on the volunteers’ enthusiasm and put other community issues at the forefront?

Obi the Cat

A black and white cat has just started coming into the office regularly. It's the strangest thing. He seems sweet. Everyone thinks it's a good omen- a white a black cat. After much discussion, we named it Obi- for Obama-Biden (Ob-bi). The other day, he just climbed into a box that we use to put completed canvass packs in. It was pretty cute, I have to admit. Everyone's very attached to Obi now, but when one of the volunteers offered to give him a home, we agreed that it was a good idea since it's getting colder outside, plus one of the regular volunteers is very allergic. So now Obi has a new, warm home and loving owner, but everyone in the office is sad and lonely and wondering if we should ask to have him brought back!