The following piece was produced through OffTheBus, a citizen journalism project hosted at the Huffington Post and launched in partnership with NewAssignment.Net. For more information, read Arianna Huffington's project introduction. If you'd like to join our blogging team, sign up here If you're interested in other opportunities, you can see the list here.
After Barack Obama's September 7 speech in San Francisco, I met with three students from Humboldt State University who had driven the six hours down from Arcata to hear their man. If Greenwood, South Carolina is "an hour-and-a-half drive from everywhere," to quote Barack, double that for Humboldt County, California. From the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in the east to the rugged Pacific coast, Humboldt is tree country, home to the hardy few, many redwoods, and some mighty fine weed. Its inaccessibility is part of the point of Humboldt. And so I knew when I emailed the students to invite them for coffee that they had to be dedicated Obama supporters. Nobody heads south from Arcata on a lark.
I led the intrepid three, in their Obama tees, to the cafe at the Asian Art Museum, where we settled in for a chat. Scratch chat. It was an interview, for I have acquired a Bandaid-sized tape recorder. Moreover, the atmosphere was solemn, in the way that the young on their best behavior can color a mood. Leslie, the chairwoman of the Humboldt State chapter of Students for Barack Obama, not surprisingly took charge. A poised senior, Leslie is an archeology/anthropology major planning to do research in Belize before going on to graduate school in forensic archeology. When I asked her why Obama, I got the expression, the shift in gaze to somewhere over my shoulder, that I often receive in reply to this question. Clearly, she had been Obamitized, so I knew generally what she was going to say. Her words also encapsulate much that I've found to be significant about the Obama campaign itself. Therefore, since I now have this nifty new recorder, I'll let Leslie speak for herself:
"I grew up in a Republican household, and as soon as I was old enough to register, I registered Republican, because that's what I knew. And I worked on a couple of local campaigns, and I was active with Humboldt State University's college Republicans, and I was just very disheartened by the experience. I felt like I was a nameless body. They would give me a sign and tell me, 'go stand on the corner, right there, hold up the sign for a couple of hours, that's your job.' But they never really asked who I was, what my ideals were; I never got a thank you. So I kind of got out of politics for a couple of years.
"And then I happened to hear Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004, and thought wow! This guy is different. He instilled this excitement in me, and he had this passion about the way he spoke. And I just felt like he touched me, and so I kind of followed up with him here and there; I saw him on the Oprah show, and saw him in the newspaper here and there, and I happened to be online, and saw the Barack Obama web site, clicked on it, looked around -- very easy for you to join on at the campaign -- and once again I thought I was gonna be a volunteer where they just told me where to go, that's what you're gonna do, but instead, the campaign calls me, and said 'hey, Leslie, we hear you want to get involved. Would you like to come to Camp Obama?'
"After Camp Obama, I went right to the post office and changed my voter registration to Democrat so that I could vote for Barack in the primary. And I have a completely different outlook on politics now. . . . Just Camp Obama, and the Obama Campaign, I found my voice through that. Before that, I was kind of afraid to speak to other people. I didn't know about politics, because it's such a touchy subject, people get really heated, but with the Obama Campaign, they're encouraging us to do that, and it's okay that we have differences, because we still have common goals as well. And it doesn't really matter what political party you are, we all -- we all have this excitement about Barack, and this passion, and, I don't know, I'm touched by him."
All the elements are here: the personal, almost mystical connection to Barack Obama, often beginning with that convention speech; the importance of the Internet for this presidential race; the Obama campaign's emphasis on each volunteer's "story" (translation: the dignity and worth of every single American that the Democratic Party hasn't really believed in since the Depression); the sharing of stories leading to the transformative experience of Camp Obama; the acceptance of differences between Democrats and Republicans, balanced by an acknowledgment of common goals -- core to Barack Obama's message and the man himself. Leslie's story also includes the significant note for this presidential race of voter re-registration, which I talked about in an earlier blog on the tabling at farmers' markets.
A lovely irony for me about Leslie is that she, a twenty-something college student, is the first Obama operative I've met who is concerned that her group toe the line with the FEC. She had wrestled with the pros and cons of registering Students for Obama as an official campus club. As a club, her group could table on campus. However, they wouldn't be able to ask for donations. Leslie sought advice from Meredith Small at Obama central. "You don't want to be a solicitor," Meredith told her. "That was huge for me," Leslie said, relieved to be relieved of the burden of fundraising.
Indeed contact with Obama Central may be the key to the engine of Students for Barack Obama, which has chapters at all 23 (number courtesy of Leslie) California state universities and colleges. "The California [Obama] team is so available to us," Leslie said. "They'll call and ask, 'How are you doing up there?'" Every Tuesday there is a conference call among the chapter leaders and the older folk with Obama California. By now Leslie knows some of the other student leaders, especially the ones who were with her at Burbank Camp Obama. "I talk to these people on Facebook all the time," she said. The last weekend in September, Leslie's group from Humboldt State and Obama supporters from other colleges in northern California will be driving to Reno "to support Nevada." The gas money alone is an act of commitment.
When Leslie and I first sat down together, she said that her goal -- and remember she is only a student -- is to bring all the Humboldt County Obama groups together, because "all the little groups in CD1, everyone is doing their own little thing." Here, as I've said in previous blogs, is a weakness of the Obama campaign in California. On the college campuses, however, the campaign seems to have its act together. Professors at Humboldt State are asking Leslie and her friends how to get involved. Administrators are offering to help with the phone banking.
The above piece was produced through OffTheBus, a citizen journalism project hosted at the Huffington Post and launched in partnership with NewAssignment.Net. For more information, read Arianna Huffington's project introduction. If you'd like to join our blogging team, sign up here. If you're interested in other opportunities, you can see the list here.