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!