In the Rough - The Blog of Joel McDonald Jr.

While watching the Super Tuesday primary results roll in courtesy of CNN.com and CSPAN, I realized something. If people, like me, want to see their candidate succeed in gaining a party nomination, they have to be active. Sitting around hoping that a certain candidate will succeed does little to achieve that goal. As Senator Barack Obama has said many times, “everything worthwhile about this country came about because somebody hoped”. I decided on Tuesday, with the margins of the primaries so close, that I needed to elevate my hope of Senator Obama’s success to the level of action. I committed myself to stop waiting for the results to flow across my screen and to go out and do something to influence the results here in Virginia.

My first choice of action: joining hundreds of thousands of individuals and families who have contributed financially to Senator Obama’s campaign. All my life I’ve heard the complaint that campaigns are all about money and those with the most money have the advantage. Well, an advantage they might have. Senator Obama didn’t have millions to put into his campaign. He’s spent his life as a community organizer and civil rights lawyer in addition to serving in the Illinois State Senate and the US Senate. Unlike many politicians, he didn’t take the path to wealth prior to serving the public; he’s always served the public. He began his campaign for president at a significant financial disadvantage. His vow to not take money from lobbyists or political action committees seemed to further limit his chances of succeeding in his campaign. However, people from all across America responded by contributing. An amazing example of this occurred after the closing of the polls on Super Tuesday when Senator Clinton announced that she would be contributing $5 Million of her own money into her campaign. The campaign for Senator Obama quickly organized and encouraged supporters to contribute to at least match her private contribution so that they would not be without the resources to compete. Within 48 hours, individual supporters contributed over $7 Million. Senator Barack Obama’s campaign has been financed by the people of the United States and I am proud to have made my contribution toward his success as the nominee, and then president, of the people.

I also created a profile on BarackObama.com and joined a few local e-mail groups. Immediately, I began receiving e-mails concerning events in my local area and requests for volunteers. I sent in my RSVP for a few events, and planned to volunteer on Saturday, the weekend before Virginia’s primary, at the closest campaign office, in Norfolk. On Friday, I received an e-mail letting me know that Senator Obama was coming to Virginia Beach for a rally on Sunday and that volunteers were needed. I immediately called the volunteer organizer and committed to volunteering at the event and told him I would also be at the campaign office on Saturday.

I didn’t know what to expect when arriving at the campaign office. On television you see well organized offices with people in business dress “working” for the campaign. In reality, the Norfolk headquarters was a stripped down donated office space. No one was wearing a tie, including me. People were working. I mean really working. Some were making signs, some were coming together to go out and canvass neighborhoods, and some were making phone calls. The office was crowded. There weren’t enough chairs for the volunteers, and many found themselves making calls from a spot on the floor. Later I found out that the local organizers were overwhelmed at the turnout of volunteers. Parking and space in the office was a problem. I chose to make phone calls. With almost everyone having a cell phone, phone banking has become a much easier system to set up. Volunteers bring in their phones and chargers, are given a calling list and a basic script, and then they plop down where they can and start making calls. I spent two hours making calls from the campaign office. During that period, the organizers were having a difficult time finding enough scripts and calling lists for everyone who wanted to make calls.

Campaign materials were also of short supply. Signs, buttons, and stickers were no where to be found at the office. I was lucky to have been given a bumper sticker by one of the organizers who told me they were only giving them out to those who were volunteering with the campaign and not those just stopping by for materials. Even then, those were of very short supply.

On Saturday night I attended an event titled “Barcrawl for Barack Obama”. It was organized by a guy who has always voted Republican because he could never find a Democrat he was willing to give his tax dollars to. In Senator Obama, he found that candidate. The event was a great success with around twenty-five people showing up to walk up and down Atlantic Avenue, stopping outside restaurants and bars, passing out fliers, and just showing enthusiastic support for Senator Obama. As you can imagine, this had mixed reactions but I’m happy to report that we received mostly positive feedback from people on the street and from cars honking at they drove by. On the flip-side, Negative reaction included a few singular fingers and the bare behind of a one bar patron. I really had a blast and it was great to meet some wonderful people supporting the campaign.
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