From Obama Supporter to Volunteer in Three Days

My younger sister called me Saturday afternoon from Denver, Col. with excitement in her voice.

"I just got back from phone banking, and it was awesome," Sarah said.

Phone banking and awesome aren't two words anyone would expect to hear in the same sentence. For anyone who has done phone banking (and I have in the past), it goes right up there with cleaning behind your toilet. Most of the people you call have already heard from a political campaign, they just don't want to be bothered or they want to rant.

But Sarah enjoyed her hours on the phone at a Barack Obama office in Denver. She called people about a caucus training event on Monday night in Denver that will be hosted by actor Forest Whitaker, who campaigned for Obama in Iowa and is joined by George Clooney, Will Smith, Scarlett Johansson and others in Obama's Hollywood endorsements. Colorado will hold caucuses on Tuesday.

Obama supporter and caucus training host Forest Whitaker in his Oscar-winning role as Idi Amin.

"It's kind of cool I get to see Forest Whitaker," said Sarah, 29. "I'm so psyched."

OK, well the actor thing is kind of a fun, but what about making all those calls? Sarah said she called 85 people, talked to about a quarter of them and left messages with the rest. She said she really liked talking to voters and other volunteers.

"Most people were like 'yep, I'm going to vote for Obama," Sarah said. "Only one person who I talked to who was undecided."

Sarah said she then went to work on persuading that person, who said health care and education were top issues.

"I said how I work in health care and I thought that Obama's plan was better," she said.

Sarah has come a long way in terms of political activism in a few days. On Wednesday, Sarah went to her first political event - a speech by Obama at the University of Denver. So many people attended that the basketball arena filled up and a large crowd had to go to the school's lacrosse field. Obama first spoke to the people in the field, where Sarah watched the senator from 10 feet away, and then gave his main speech in the arena.

"People were chanting, 'yes we can' and 'Obama, 2008,'" she said. "It was like a rock concert, people were just jammed in there."

In the three days since then, she's volunteered, met with a precinct captain for Obama and even tried to sway our mother, Janet, who remains undecided, into voting for Obama.

"I'm like Obama crazy," she said.