Post Election Thoughts
It has been 4 days since Election Day. 4 days since Barack Obama became elected president. 4 days since my role in the campaign ended. Honestly, I am still trying to process everything. The campaign for me was long (February to November) and held moments of joy, frustration, exhaustion, hope and more. Yet, it was all worth it.
I never meant to become a volunteer team leader. I didn’t plan on getting involved in any campaign. Of course, I knew that I would vote for the Democratic candidate but I never expected to be motivated to do something about it. When primary season began, I wasn’t supporting anyone and assumed that Hillary would become the Democratic candidate. Obama quickly changed that. Like many people I was inspired by his ability to speak and his ability to connect with audiences. I knew that he was the candidate for me when he clearly understood what motivated me to become a teacher and what keeps me teaching. He told this fabulous story in early February that totally hooked me. He talked about how he had set up some meeting in the South side neighborhood in Chicago as a community organizer and how his volunteers were so upset when no one came. At that moment, he looked out the window and saw children bouncing a ball against a wall. He made some comments to his colleagues about how those children need them to not give up. I couldn’t agree more.
Thus, when Wisconsin’s primary rolled around, I decided to volunteer. Those early meetings in Madison were exciting but chaotic. This excitement increased when Barack himself came and spoke at the Kohl Center. We waited outside in the cold but it was completely worth it. We got to cheer when he won primaries on the east coast and we cheered when he spoke. Not too long after that, I officially began my work. The day I signed up to canvass for the first time was in between snow storms. It was sunny that day but cold. I grabbed Sara to go with me for moral support and for company. It was a good day and we felt like we reached some voters. Luckily, Obama won here in Wisconsin and it became more and more likely that he would win the nomination. I knew that I couldn’t quit, though. Hillary was a strong opponent. Thus, I worked through both the campaign and through MoveOn.org to call voters in states with upcoming primaries, including Texas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, etc.
In May, the campaign launched their voter registration drive. Again, this seemed to fit his community organizing spirit. My parents and I jumped on board. We attended a rally at the Capitol here in Madison and got deputized to register voters. How cool! We were quickly assigned to a team and an area in Madison to focus on. At that time, I accepted no leadership position. I wasn’t ready to do that. The team began to meet weekly and to try to come up with some logical way of reaching unregistered voters, which turned out to be quite challenging. We spent a great deal of time just trying to figure out our area and figure out how to work with apartment complexes. As the summer weeks flew by, I became more and more frustrated with the lack of leadership and focus on the team. At this point, I began to declare that I would either take over or leave. When our leader had to leave Madison for work, I volunteered to take over.
This leadership position solidified in August in the second campaign headquarters location. There I met Laura, one of the newly hired field organizers. She explained to me that this commitment would require about 10-20 hours per week. I think I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. She encouraged me to do it and I also felt strongly that I could do it well. The teams were reorganized based on neighborhoods and each team were assigned wards to focus on and goals to meet. After a day long training, my team, the Blue team, was officially ready to get to work.
From August through October, my team met weekly. We also canvassed and made phone calls weekly. We held convention parties and debate parties. I set out at least 2 emails a week about the various activities that were planned. I spoke with many different potential volunteers and receive frequent communication with both Laura and later Matt, two of Madison’s field organizers. Truly, the job did require the 10-20 hours a week! Despite some false starts and some conflicts within the team, our team became a strange family, especially during the last weekend. We were successful on Election Day as Dane County went huge for Obama (73% of voters!) and Wisconsin went blue as well.
Ah, that last weekend was an intense one. Actually, the few weeks before it were intense, too, as we pushed to get information, get volunteers and get our plan together. Our team decided to work out of my parents’ house and we had a solid group of leaders (my mom, my dad, Diane, Mike, and Judy with solid help from Sara, Carol, and Maria). The plan basically consisted of knocking on doors 6 times in 4 days and calling potential volunteers until we couldn’t call anymore. My team was so awesome that we were able to knock on average of about a thousand doors per day. 1000! We also called about 200 people a day. We worked incredibly hard. I worked for 46 hours in those 4 days and got about 16 hours of sleep and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Now, imagine that there were about 40 other teams in south, central Wisconsin. Imagine how many doors were knocked on…
There was one other exciting highlight during that Get out the Vote weekend. There was a little conference call with the man himself. The campaign had set up a conference call with all of the team leaders. Barack did not speak to us for long but it was still such an emotional moment for me. He thanked us for working so hard. He told us that he knew that we were the lifeblood of the campaign and that he knew we were tired. He asked us to keep going, especially since victory was so close. Lastly, he told us about how proud of us he was. I will never forget his voice when he said that. He was proud of us. Us.
Thus, when victory came on Tuesday, I was still on the emotional edge from a tough, long day, from two emotional conference calls and from anxiety and hope. Yet, I could barely react. I cried some and have cried a lot more since then. I cry for myself and for my team. I cry for everyone else in the country and for the rest of the world. I have never seen or felt such joy, such celebration. It truly feels like a weight has been lifted off of me personally and off the country as a whole. My friend, Robyn, sent me an article from Salon.com that seems to fit how I have been feeling. Heather Havrilesky said, “We understood, for the first time in our lives, what it means to be a part of something big, without reservation. We saw the joy in that. We knew that history had been made, and we were happy to have made calls and sent money and knocked on doors for this man. We felt like we were really, truly participants in history, that we had a connection to those people in the crowd at Grant Park and those kids crying and celebrating in Compton on the local news. We were all Americans, together, old and young, black and white and Latino and Asian, and it didn't feel hokey or overly earnest to admit it for once.”
Now, I am still processing everything that I felt and feel. I’m processing my role in this historical event. While I’m thrilled that I didn’t have to knock on doors today and excited that my Tuesday night is free, I know that there will be a part of me that will miss it. I will miss the people, for sure, but I will also miss the feeling of being a part of something so much bigger than me. While I’m will always be overjoyed that I joined my voice with millions chanting “Yes, We Can”, I’m also proud that I could chant, “Yes We Did,” on Tuesday, November 4, 2008.