A man raises his voice to a woman at the table across from me at the Starbucks about Palin's lack of qualifications. The mothers huddled at my daughter's ice skating rink express horror at the even poll pie charts. My law school colleagues decry McCain's lipstick smears in their offices. Everywhere Democrats are crying out like Chicken Little, seeking out sympathetic ears to commiserate about Democratic ineptitude and Republican manipulation.
Even within myself, flashes of political frustration shoot through me like none I've ever experienced. I'm generally pretty calm when it comes to politics. Yet my temple throbs when the CNN commentator notes how misleading McCain ads suggest Obama supported sex education are for kindergarteners. My lower back stiffens as Palin continually claims she said, "Thanks but no thanks to Congress" on the Bridge to Nowhere, in spite of clear evidence of initial Palin support. I want to howl to anyone who will listen.
Yet with less than a half dollar of days left, stewing in my emotions is useless. I was in a community leadership training this past Friday, where the facilitator dropped a large rubber chicken in front of us and asked, "Why did the chicken fall?" A participant quickly replied, "Gravity." The trainer then asked, "Any other reasons?" "You dropped the chicken," came from a person to my left. "Too many people in life constantly focus on gravity and not on holding on to the rubber chicken to keep it from falling," the wise consultant opined.
That training moment sped me back a few months to late April in the Democratic primary season, which now seems a decade ago. Hilary Clinton was coming off big primary wins in Pennsylvania and Texas (though Obama eventually won the caucus). Most of the effort was focused on the upcoming primary states of North Carolina and Indiana and rightfully so. But in between the Pennsylvania and those two state primaries was tiny Guam. My wife grew up in Guam, so we thought it would be great to work on that island's caucus.
The two of us with the help of the Obama Guam coordinator set up a phone bank from the continental United States. Most people are probably not aware, but Guam long distance calls are included in wireless national plans through Sprint and AT&T, making it reasonable for folks to call. We organized approximately twenty volunteers, some of them friends and relatives and we started calling. As far as we knew there was no similar phone bank from the Clinton campaign.
The calls were great. Guamanians were so amazed that people were calling from San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles about a primary election. My wife and I did not receive a single hang up even though we made close to two hundred calls between us. Many people who live in Guam are Filipino, so my wife who speaks Tagalog was able to speak to many in their native language. Because Guam residents cannot vote in the Presidential election, many adamantly believed they could not vote in the caucus. Much of our persuasion was on this point.
Volunteer callers were equipped with their polling places, so we were able to direct many to the time and place they could vote, which was highly appreciated. I remember being especially proud that after a day of canvassing in Indianapolis, I was making calls at midnight in my bed in the Indianapolis Hyatt while Hillary Clinton was in that hotel. She had spent the day there stumping for the Indiana primary.
So on Saturday May 3, Guam voted. Most Americans probably had not heard of Guam, let alone know that it votes count towards the presidential nomination. At 9 am Sunday Guam time, which was 4 pm Saturday Pacific time, we found out via the internet that Obama had received 2264 votes and Clinton had received 2257 votes, a difference of 7 votes! That day the twenty of us were all so excited that we made a difference. Because of the closeness of the vote Clinton and Obama received the same number of delegates. Still, it was awesome to break Hillary's momentum just a little bit and to get the upside of the Saturday afternoon news cycle.
That memory and others guide me now to focus on holding onto the rubber chicken rather than gravity. Waving an American flag in Denver's Mile High Stadium honoring our Democratic Presidential nominee and clarifying facts on Obama's stand on the military for a neighbor that persuaded her to vote for Obama also stand out for me. My bet is most active Obama supporters and staff can share similar stories that they will treasure for a lifetime and motivates them today. People are working tirelessly. Obama is a great model for not getting too high or low. These moments inspire me to work in big and small ways each of these last fifty days to contribute to making this dream a reality.
McCain is running as the incumbent.
His policies are the same as Bush/Cheney's policies
Given McCain's biography as a former POW and the length of time McCain has been in Washington and considering this is McCain's second time running for president plus, the fact that the main stream media loves McCain (to quote MSNBC's Chuck Todd "McCain can say anything and get away with it because the press is his base," and "McCAin has plenty in the bank with the main stram media');
Why is it that McCain can not pull further ahead of a neophyte, elite, black politician with an arabic middle name?
I am confident that the Obama campaign has planned out multiple paths to victory should one not work out. Seriously. If you want to help, go to the campaign website and give $25. I just did and a guy named Erik matched my contribution. I asked 7 friends and family to join me at the end as well. If they were to all give the same amount, adding in matching contributions, I will have affected $400 in contributions from my small effort. Can you do the same?
i have obama bumper stickers on my car. went to regional political picnic where they were available. HOPE on front of baby vw and yes we can (some engineered that so it reads backward also! thru rear view mirror since i have it on back window) and regular obama rectangle below it.
have to explain that cause today at a subway restaurant, this guy said hi, how are you? i barely said hi. he waited then said i see you have an obama sticker on your car (he was already inside bldg when i came in; had he been following the sticker on the car?). i said a slightly suble YES. he quickly said you'd better check this guy out. he's not what he says. i said with conviction, i have spent LOTS of time checking everything out. i suggest you do the same. he said at least mcC is pro-life. he then left. IF i were competent to do it, i'd type LOTS of words to show why pro-life needs to be consistent in every way of life. not just words to scare people on one issue this guy was trying to intimidate me on!!!
anyone who reads this and has influence in the area, please use the info to go with it... with thanks.
Voting early or absentee ourselves and getting everyone else to do so should be part of the GOTV strategy. It also ensures if we have a personal emergency or difficulty getting to the polls on election day, we will have already voted. Early voting starts in just a few short weeks.
Although you have heard about the fund raising record Obama broke in August ($66 million to McCain's $47 million), Obama needs to repeat or beat that for each of the months of September and October to compete with the $84 million federal money McCain is getting plus the huge $$ advantage the RNC has over the DNC. If you want to win this, volunteer every hour you can spare and give as much and as often as you can. Tell your freinds.