Our small contribution with the canvassing trip to Green County in the battleground state of Missouri was an equally inspirational experience. Our 45-person bus group was perhaps the most diverse we have been involved with since Sharon & I returned to the States almost ten years ago. Diverse by gender, race, age and country of origin. Diverse, that is, in all ways other than politically. And I have to say that I think a majority seemed to be from backgrounds in education, social work, the arts and philanthropy.
 |
| From Election 08 |
The five-day commitment and the 13-hour bus rides each way were worth it, even though it appears that Missouri will be eventually lost by the very narrowest of margins. Talking about the energy of a group is admittedly a well-worn cliché but that was the reality. The group seemed tireless except, perhaps on the return trip but even then the adrenalin ran high. We had boarded the bus on Friday as strangers and disembarked on Wednesday as friends.
 |
| From Election 08 |
We were all distributed with host families around Springfield. Our gracious hosts, Doug and Barbara, were so generous and we are grateful to them. They have a wonderful house .......
 |
| From Election 08 |
......... and are clearly Halloween aficionados ............
 |
| From Election 08 |
I think that all of us had similar experiences with the warmth and hospitality of our new Springfield friends who opened up their houses to strangers.
And then there was the huge added bonus ….. Obama was to attend a rally on Saturday night and we were invited to the volunteer enclosure so we were three rows away from the podium.
 |
| From Election 08 |
 |
| From Election 08 |
Sharon and I had seen them both twice before in San Antonio but that in no way diminished the excitement of another rally so close to polling day.
 |
| From Election 08 |
 |
| From Election 08 |
The canvassing itself provided us with a curious vignette on far-right evangelical communities in the mid-West. Most were in extreme McCain country and it was sometimes rather unnerving to be wandering around some very conservative areas wearing Democratic attire and bedecked with multiple Obama pins.
 |
| From Election 08 |
Our job was no longer conveying The Message but rather simply “getting out the vote” ….. ensuring that both committed and Democratic-leaning registered voters were planning to be there on Tuesday 4th. Missouri is not a state that offers early voting and so it all came down to that one day. The local campaign headquarters had done a good job of providing us with databases that identified the likely Obama voters but the data were inevitably not perfect and there were instances where we unknowingly approached hard-line Republicans, asking them for support.
In these cases the response was undoubtedly very cool but generally not outwardly hostile. In other situations I was rather glad to be leaving the property. One volunteer was branded as a Satanist, Sharon was virtually accused of being a baby-killer and in another instance I was I was told to get the hell back to Chicago, Obama’s home state. Usually, however, the response we got from the people on our list was positive and in some instances quite ecstatic. It rather blew their minds that we had come all the way from Texas to do this.
 |
| From Election 08 |
On occasions, the only resident of a household on our database was a young person, usually late teens or early twenties, the implication clearly being that his or her parents were McCain supporters. In all these situations, it was a parent that answered the door and in no case was I allowed to talk to the young Democratic voter. This also happened with a few redneck husbands who made it quite clear that their wives were “unavailable”. In one sad instance, an 86 year-old woman was clearly being browbeaten by her family and I am convinced by the look in her eyes that she would have welcomed an opportunity to talk to me. She did not get a chance and I wonder if she was able to even get to a polling station on Election Day. I doubt it.
Election day evening found us at the Clarion Hotel watching events unfold on the three huge screens.
 |
| From Election 08 |
The celebration became inevitably rather wild and all were pretty giddy when it became clear that Obama was indeed President-Elect.
 |
| From Election 08 |
 |
| From Election 08 |
 |
| From Election 08 |
Sharon and I were somewhat restrained in that we were in bed before 1 am. I suspect that some of our group barely made it to bed that night, if at all.
In Texas, Obama won Bexar (San Antonio; 52%), Travis (Austin; 64%), Dallas (58%), Harris (Houston; 51%), El Paso (66%) and Presidido (The Valley, 71%). So we can surely, before too long .....
 |
| From Election 08 |
No comments:
Post a Comment