John Porter is an OffTheBus grassroots correspondent. Each week he contributes a campaign journal documenting his life out on the trail.
"Whirlwind" would definitely have to be in a list of adjectives to describe this past week. On Monday (Oct. 6), I attended the official opening of the Cabell County Democratic Headquarters in Huntington. It was a great experience, especially since I got to meet several candidates. The keynote speaker was Congressman Nick Rahall, who is the Representative of our district in the U.S. House. There were actually several volunteers who showed up early to call for Campaign for Change (which is in the same office). There was much buzz among my fellow volunteers about Sen. Obama's upcoming rally in Portsmouth, OH, which is a one-hour drive away.
Thursday, the day of the rally, I arrived a few hours early at the Campaign for Change office to make some voter contact calls. Sue, one of the other dedicated volunteers in the office, brought in copies of the new poll for the state. It seemed like for the last few weeks we felt like we were fighting an uphill battle, since the previous poll had McCain at an advantage in the state. However, it appears that the tides have changed here in the Mountain State--the new poll has Sen. Obama in an eight point advantage (50-42 percent) over McCain. That served to pump us all up for the big event.
We were further excited to find out that we, along with some of the Students for Barack Obama at Marshall University, would be in the VIP section directly behind the podium. I borrowed my mom's vehicle so that I could take along some of the volunteers from the office. I ended up with five in total, Crystal, Sue, Jeanette, Judy and Bunny. We had a great trip, which seemed short because of all of the great conversation amongst the group. We had a great view of all the action. The evening was great, and Sen. Obama was very energetic and captivating. I got some great pictures of the action, especially some great shots of Sen. Obama. The best part of the entire evening was that I was able to shake the hand of the next President of the United States.
Riding high on the excitement of the rally, Crystal and I decided to distribute campaign materials and register voters at the Fall Festival in the town of Wayne, near to where I live. Our plan was to mingle in the crowd and talk with people who seemed interested. However, when I arrived at the Festival, the county committee had a booth set up distributing information from the local candidates. We worked at the booth the entire day, along with a candidate for county magistrate and an incumbent for the state House of Delegates from the district. It was a great event. We distributed all of our Obama goodies and found a great response among the crowd. We even registered two voters throughout the day.
This week was a great week that really helped me to boost my momentum for the next few weeks of the campaign. I'm excited for what the next few weeks hold for me and the Obama/Biden campaign. I just can't wait for what's to come!
Want to become a grassroots correspondent for HuffPost's OffTheBus? Sign up here to journal your experiences once a week as a McCain or Obama Volunteer.