I'm back on the phones again, calling for Obama, and I'm glad that I am. It's tempting to do nothing but endlessly following the news, clicking on blog after blog as I root for Obama like I root for my local baseball team. But that doesn't actually change anything. My donations do more, and I love being able to match the contributions of new donors and even hear from them by email--I've done that a dozen times. But what's really great is talking with ordinary voters.
It's always a little scary, but also fun, and I've always felt my efforts made a difference--far more than sitting passively hoping that the voters of this or that state will go my way. I called Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, knowing that the voters I convinced were multiplied by maybe a hundred thousand other volunteers and that if we each shifted a couple of votes it could help shift an election. It's an easy enough process, even for those initially intimidated. The numbers come up on your computer, and the campaign gives you a sample script for Obama voters or Clinton voters or just if you're a leaving a message. I usually come up with my own version, stating why I'm volunteering, but it's nice to have training wheels if you need them. And if I compare the apprehensions that keep me from calling with the actual results, I always end up feeling glad that I participated.
In the last few days, I've been calling Indiana, and have been delighted when undecided voters took the time to listen and respond. I also convinced some enthusiastic Obama supporters to sign up online and themselves volunteer--a great way of broadening the activist circle. That doesn't count the endless answering machine messages, which at the least remind people to go to the polls, and a high school junior who vowed to use my arguments to try and convince her parents. No one I reached was nasty, not even the nice Republican for whom abortion was everything. As always, I felt I'd gotten a brief window into the decisions people make that cumulatively shape our world--I'd connected through phone and cyberspace with a random slice of Americans who actually responded pretty decently.
Now it's election day, and I'm back on the phones, knowing that the more people who do the same, the greater the difference we'll make. To hold back because I'm busy, distracted by the political horse race, or afraid that people will disagree, would be to abdicate my chance to help shape history.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, and Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org