Get Out the Vote Day 1

I actually got home early today, and thanks to Daylight Savings, I have a few minutes to write an update (and just to be clear, by “early” I mean around midnight).

All I really have to say is: Being in the field is awesome!  Granted, I am exhausted, and my legs hurt from standing all day, and I had to drink four shots of espresso (altogether, not at one time) to make it through the day… but I had fun, and I felt like I was accomplishing something all day.  I’ve been assigned to be a Canvass Coordinator for a staging location near U Penn (in the University City neighborhood of Philly, so near where I am staying).  A staging location, for those who don’t know the jargon, is where canvassers and phone bankers come to be put to work.  It differs from an office in that it is only open for GOTV, and it’s set up solely to move people through as quickly as possible.  To that purpose, there are no chairs anywhere in the office – we want people to come in, get trained, and go out, not to sit around.

As Canvass Coordinator, I am one of a couple people training volunteers on what to say and how to record their results.  I also replenish packs of literature for them to take with them, answer questions, etc.  It’s fun, if slightly repetitive, and I think a good position for me as I’m pretty good at explaining stuff and also energtic and upbeat (at least when I am pumped full of caffeine and GOTV adrenaline).  We had an amazing day – our office sent out volunteers to knock over 3,000 doors, and the state as a whole knocked on around 900,000 doors, which is almost three times what we did in the entire last weekend.  It’s game time.

I landed in a good place.  The people I’m working with are mostly Penn students, who have stopped going to class.  They’re smart and fun and super organized.  Our office runs very efficiently.  When I left – early! – tonight we had everything laid out for tomorrow, so all we have to do is get there and start handing out packets to our volunteers.  It’s a lot of work, but there’s a lot of excitement, so it doesn’t feel as arduous as I thought it would.  It’s possible that I’m just coasting on the first day high and will crash tomorrow, but I’m going to bed now and will actually sleep a decent amount, so fingers crossed tomorrow is another good day.

(I like how this was supposed to be a short note.  I am incapable of writing just a little.)

Three days!

so much for that plan.

We’re down to the wire.  That means: leaving the office at 1:30 am (for me) or 3 am (for my boss).  That means no days off, not even Sundays.  That means: no time to cook, no time to shop, no time to do laundry.  It’s amazing how life can narrow.  It is inconceivable to me how people can go about their normal business.  There are six days left.  I don’t have an hour to spare, or a minute.  I have bought in to the mindset.  Right now I am taking time from sleep, just to write this, to say: yes, I am alive, and no, I have not managed to keep in mind that I am just a volunteer and I deserve time off.  What does “deserve” mean anyhow?  We all deserve a better future, which we will certainly not get with John McCain.  (I am perhaps a little delirious.  GOTV is mood swings: laughing fits and fifteen minute bouts of depression.)

If I can work 15 hours a day, you can give an hour.  Claim a piece of the beautiful madness: make some calls, knock some doors.  If not now, when?

hopefully this is the nadir

One of those days that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, that circles back and back on itself.  I spent all day working furiously and had nothing to show for it at the end.  I gave up tickets to see one of my favorite bands to stay at the office and fight with the printer.  It jammed every 150 pages.  I was trying to print 4000 pages.  That’s a lot of paper jams.  To un-jam it, you have to take all the pieces out, one by one, and pry at the hot metal with poor scorched fingertips.  Then: place everything back inside, walk away, wait ten minutes, go back, and try not to weep.  Jammed again.

It is hard to feel like you are changing the world when you are pulling ripped paper out of a machine for the tenth time in an hour.

I am sick and tired.  Only twelve days left but it feels like an eternity.

EDIT: Just to throw salt in the wound, my google weather just told me that it is currently 72 degrees in San Francisco.  I am huddled under four blankets and drinking hot tea and I AM STILL COLD. UGH.

EDIT2: And then I watched the video below and felt better.  Twelve days.

road trip

The PA Youth Vote team took a road trip this past weekend.  We drove to State College, which is – wait for it – the home of the largest state university, Penn State.  They are not very imaginative with their city names here.  (In Pennsylvania’s defense, I also saw road signs for a town named Desire, which given it’s location, I’m guessing is the result of excess creativity). The road trip did not start off particularly well, as we got on the road late, got stuck in Friday afternoon traffic, and then missed our exit by about 40 miles, and ended up taking five and a half hours for a three and a half hour drive (we made it back today in three).  Overall I’d say the weekend was a success though.

It was about fifteen degrees colder there than in Philadelphia, so it really felt like fall, verging into winter.  It was Homecoming weekend, and on Saturday the streets were full of college students and families in blue and white sweatshirts and hats and mittens.  We mostly hung out in the local Obama office, in the student room, where we we got to know some very dedicated volunteers.  I’m talking college students who pretty much lived at the office, including late Friday night and early Saturday morning.

I took Saturday night and Sunday morning off to visit an old high school friend of mine who lives about an hour away from State College.  Small town Pennsylvania is beautiful this time of year, so I have to admit I would not want to live out there (she doesn’t really either).  It was a really nice visit; she’s one of those friends that no matter how long it has been (two years in this case) there’s no awkwardness or introductory period, we always fall right back into sync.

Now I have a cold and am battling a sinus headache to try to write something of interest, since I have been rather lax at updating this blog recently (even without the weekend trip I’ve been very busy, staying later at work as the election approaches).

Right now we are struggling to keep up the intensity of volunteer (and staff) efforts, given that the polls all show Obama with a solid lead in Pennsylvania.  I’m glad of that, but also terrified.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I’m afraid it will drop on our heads.  But it’s very alluring to relax, to get excited, to count the chickens, etc.

Speaking of chickens.  We stayed with a retired professor and his wife on their little farm near the university.  They had chickens in their front yard, and a bee hive.  Upstairs, where we stayed, there was a deep bath tub and large windows without curtains.  From the bath I looked outside at the bright frosty morning, and a horse wandered by, and I thought: what a lovely place to be right now.  But I am glad to be back in the city too, and not to see my breath when I walk outside.

Voter Registration

Today was the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania.  The official numbers are not in yet, data has yet to be entered, but unofficially, tallied up over the phone with all the Regional Field Directors from around the state…we registered almost 200,000 people.

!!!

To give that number some perspective: Kerry won Pennsylvania by 140,000 people in 2004.

My personal contribution to that number was somewhere around 10-15.  Not huge, but something.  I am happy and proud of everyone on the Obama team here.  We’re going to win this thing just this way: by being out there, by being passionate, by being annoying sometimes, by asking over and over again, by dragging every single one of these new voters to the polls come Election Day.  We’ll win this thing.

day on

Sunday, traditionally my mental health day (and by “traditionally” I mean, for the past month while I have been working on the campaign), was today just another day of work.  I did manage to escape by 9 pm, so I could go to the grocery store and do laundry, but I only managed to make one dish (a rather haphazard concoction combining acorn squash and broccoli – good enough, but I wouldn’t make it for other people) to see me through the week ahead.

Things are heating up around here.  Tomorrow is the last day of registration in Pennsylvania, which means it is time to start thinking about getting out the vote (GOTV).  We have a brief pause for “persuasion” (vote Obama because he’s much much better than the other guy) and “voter education” (you will NOT get arrested if you go to the polls with an outstanding parking ticket!) and then it’s time to start bugging the hell out of everyone reminding them to vote.  At the moment we (in Youth Vote) are making a plan for those three stages, and trying to gather information from the big colleges so we know what they each need.

Yesterday Bruce Springsteen played an acoustic set at a rally for Obama here in Philadelphia.  The city shut down the parkway (a large road running through town) for several blocks, and I heard a crowd estimate of 30,000.  I went down to work the event early, helping volunteers with instructions (grab the people! make them register!) and passing out extra stickers and registration forms.  I was on my feet for about five hours before Bruce came on, and got separated from my fellow staff members, so by the time of the actual concert I was wandering around dazedly and found a patch of grass near the back.  I wanted to close my eyes and sleep right there, but I had my clipboard which marked me out as a volunteer, and I didn’t want to give the impression that Obama volunteers were sleeping on the job.  It was warm, but not hot, and there were little children and dogs and people selling T-shirts that said “No more drama, Vote Obama” and I registered a few people, and the Boss closed the show with “This Land is My Land.”  So it was a good day.

No time for writing, since last I posted.  It’s funny to think back to when I planned this, and thought I would come in and work 30 or 40 hours a week, and have lots of time to write and get to know the city.  Ha.

decisions, decisions

Last night I was offered an interview for a Field Organizer position in Nevada.  This was entirely detached from the work I’m doing in PA; mostly likely they got my resume from submitting it online a month ago.  They were hiring last night, so I had at most a couple hours to decide.

To put this in context: yesterday was a bad day.  My boss was out of the office, and since most of my job is helping her respond to crises, I had nothing to do most of the day.  I tried to go home early, but ended up sitting in the subway for a half an hour, then waiting fifteen minutes for a bus, only to get off the bus a mile or more early, because I could not see the street signs and did not know the bus route, and having to walk home – a total trip of almost two hours, without dinner.  I was not in the best space to make decisions.

A Field Organizer is given a piece of turf – a neighborhood essentially – and is responsible for getting it organized, and getting as many votes as possible out of that turf.  That means: recruiting volunteers, running phone banks and canvasses, making phone and door goals every day – in the hundreds or thousands – and working 14 or more hours a day 7 days a week from now until Election Day.  It is a hard job, especially coming in 6 weeks before the election and not knowing your area.  The Field Organizer is the person who gets everyone else excited to do tedious work, every day.  It requires a lot of energy, and a lot of extroversion – my impression is that as an FO you are talking to people pretty much all the time.

So, the first question I asked myself was: could I physically do this job?

Followed by: would I be good at it?  Would I really be helping the campaign by putting myself in a position that I might not be able to handle?

Followed by: but wouldn’t it be nice to be paid?

Followed by: could I handle another wrenching transition right now?

I am not, really, a transitory person.  I like to be settled in one place, and have a routine.  I do not thrive on change.  Change scares the hell out of me.  I do not thrive on meeting new people.  New people scare the hell out of me.

I believe that we should all face our challenges and fears.  But should we face them just because they exist, or because facing them is going to get us something else we want?  I would lean toward the latter.  In this case, as I talked it over with my mother and various friends, I began to feel that I was pushing myself to do this because I felt like I should, rather than because it was the right thing for me to do.  I need to acknowledge my own limitations, as I have tried to do in this blog; I am no good to anyone if I am a wreck.  When I am overtired and sick (as I would inevitably become with that kind of schedule) I am not good at putting on a brave face and pumping up a bunch of other people.  So I did not call back and tell them I wanted the job; I went to bed, after much mental anguish.  They will hire someone else, and I will keep working for free, and the campaign will be better off with me here in Pennsylvania.

So then the issue is how to not have frustrating, wasted days, here.  My boss promised that we would sit down today and talk about how I can take on more responsibility.  Unfortunately, she is not here, so I am still sitting, wasting time.  I am going to give her this morning.  If she does not show up, if things don’t change, I am going to talk to someone else in this office and see what I can do for them.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll go to the field office and ask if I can help them.  And if that doesn’t work, maybe I’ll call Nevada back and beg.

what DO I do all day?

I have not been writing very much about my actual work – which was what I planned to write about when I started this job – because I am unsure of where the line is regarding public and private knowledge. I think it’s safe to say that I work on Youth Vote (which pretty much means college students in the context of a campaign, since non-college young people are mostly reached in the same ways as everyone else that’s not in college). The calendar is divided into three basic stages: Registration (until October 6), persuasion (Oct 7-Oct 31), and get out the vote (GOTV – Nov 1-4). Registration, which is what we’re doing now, is particularly important for young people, since many of them: 1) are not registered, or 2) if they are college students, are registered somewhere other than where they live. If they are registered somewhere else, they are likely not to vote, because requesting and sending in an absentee ballot is a pain.

I was going to write about the structure of the campaign and how Youth Vote fits in and what our ground organization looks like… but then I thought maybe that is not good stuff to put online. Not that there’s anything wrong with it – or particularly secret, I’m sure the McCain people know how to run a Youth Vote op, though I’m not sure they’d want to as Obama has a 15+ point lead in people under the age of 44, which I’m sure is higher for people under 25 – but there are all kinds of legal and political issues around campaigns, and students, and so on, and I don’t want to step on any toes.

So I’ll just say that I help the people on the ground, registering young voters, by getting them posters and buttons, and planning events, and facilitating communication with other parts of the campaign here in PA. There’s a lot of emailing and calling, a lot of asking my boss questions, and a lot of staring at a computer screen and trying to come up with brilliant, exciting plans to make previously apathetic college students want to register and vote. The days go by really fast. The calendar on the wall keeps counting down.

my limits

Today is my day off. Since I am a volunteer, I have no official days on or off, but today I decided I needed a day off, so I took one. It’s amazing how quickly one can gain appreciation for open time. A week ago I was bored and restless, ready to get back to work. Six twelve-hour days later, free time feels miraculous.

When I was planning this fall, way back in the spring, I decided not to try to get a campaign job. Partly, this was to hedge against failure. Mostly, it was because I knew that I physically could not keep up a campaign schedule. (I was working full-time at a regular, 40-45 hour-a-week job when this decision was reached.) Then I had a bunch of time off. By the time I came to Philadelphia to start work, I was refreshed and ready. However, I was also worried about money, more than I had anticipated I would be when I was drawing in a salary, before my car was stolen and needed lots of repairs, and when I thought I would be living and eating with my grandparents. All last week I was worried and a little upset that all the people around me were getting paid, while I, putting in nearly as much work, was not. Some people are obviously far more qualified than me, but some people are right out of college and getting stipends. I could do their jobs! I wanted a stipend!

But I get it now. I took a day off today. The paid staffers did not. They were at the office all day today, and late last night when I went to a party with a friend. I work twelve-hour days, but they work fifteen or sixteen, every day. Those four hours a day are important: those hours are my sanity and my health. What I had figured out back in May turns out to be true: I could not keep up a campaign schedule. I can come close. I think I can handle six days a week, twelve hours a day, for the next month and a half (50 days!). I don’t think I could handle seven days a week, sixteen hours a day, not for 50 days, not even for a week. I am not built for that. I will do what I can, and encourage everyone who is heartier than I to work as much as they can. We need them now.

coming and going

I carry my computer back and forth to work every day. It weighs down my shoulders, I shift it from one side to the other as I walk, ponderously, trying to hold my back straight.

At work, I open one by one every day the same online documents, working spreadsheets and planning documents and letters. When I get home, at 9 or 10 or 11, the first thing I do is close them, one by one. I know I will open them all again tomorrow, but it is the only way I know how to detach, to say: I am home now. I have a few hours to myself. I have a few hours to just be here, before sleep, and the day begins again. Those few hours are a luxury, but a necessary one for me; I would not take a campaign Blackberry if they offered it.

I click the tab x’s, watch the pages disappear. I arch my back like a cat, trying to work out the soreness. I roll my neck, and wince when my chin meets my shoulder.

Work, sleepiness, etc.

Despite a cup of coffee (I have become a morning coffee drinker *gasp*) and an energy drink (they had them at the office for free! and it was fruit punch flavored!) I am very sleepy.

(And if you think that is because I am posting this at 2 am, don’t be fooled! WordPress refuses to believe that I am on Eastern Time, and thinks it is 2 in the morning tomorrow. It is actually 10:09 pm.)

Today was my fourth full day at the PA Obama office. I went back to New Jersey over the weekend and had an extremely lazy weekend – one day curled up on the couch doing the Sunday crossword while it poured outside, one at the beach reading in the bright sunlight – so I really have no excuse. Everyone at the office is running on very little sleep, a poor diet, and no exercise. Also, it occurs to me, very little sunlight, since they seem to be inside from 9 am to 1 am every day. They probably need Vitamin D. Anyway: I am better off than them. But still tired.

Work is great though. I am organizing a big voter registration week for Pennsylvania campuses. That means brainstorming events they can hold, mocking up publicity materials and working with designers to make them, working with student leaders to figure out what they need and how to get it to them. I’m going to be drafting letters to the editor for students to send to campus newspapers. I’m doing real campaign work! And campaign work that is better suited to my skills than going door to door, which while important, and fun for a few days, I am not good at doing day after day (I learned after doing it for 10 weeks one summer). Things are definitely picking up; the office had half again as many people today as it did last week. Chairs have become a precious commodity.

Well, having been distracted (in a good way) by my hosts/new roommates, it is now 11 pm, and I am going to sign off. My goal for tomorrow is not to drink any energy drinks (free or not), so I have to at least try to get some sleep.

three worlds, one day

I woke up this morning in New Jersey, spent a lazy half hour reviewing my dreams, thinking about a story I am working on, and generally drifting in and out of reality. I took a shower. I read the front section of the New York Times. It was too hot to read in the greenhouse, where my grandparents usually eat dinner, an airy glass room off the study with wicker chairs and two passionflowers currently on the vine.

Near the end of the front section, my grandmother came in and we discussed the use of her car. With a little negotiation about how she would complete her errands, she agreed that I could use it to come to Philadelphia if I wanted to. I checked on housing: I have a place to stay tonight and tomorrow, at the least. Nothing was holding me back. So I packed a bag, and I drove to Philadelphia.

The second world was the Obama state office. This is not the office that people can walk into – or the one I originally walked into. This is the serious office where the serious business of running the Pennsylvania campaign goes on; that is, it is the office where everyone is very very stressed out and has a Blackberry. I am being overdramatic – there are lots of young, cool people – but it felt very different from the environment I have been in, or even from a work environment in California. Everyone just has too much to do and not enough time or brains to do it – which is why I am here. So I stayed until 10 pm and then snuck off (my boss, the Youth Vote coordinator, just emailed me at 12:30).

I got half-lost on the way home and called my host for directions. He directed me home but added that he was going to see some Brazilian music that was on my way if I was interested. I was feeling exhausted and wound up, and I thought: a drink and some music might be nice. The music was upstairs in a bar – an Ethiopian restaurant was downstairs. The upstairs space was tiny, with the musicians crammed into a corner, a little bar, and four or five tables. There were probably fewer than 30 people in the room total. It was dark and the walls were painted dark pinkish red, with white Christmas lights and funny signs hung around them. The people looked like those I would encounter in the Mission (in San Francisco): a collection of overgrown beards and skinny jeans, thrift store dresses and funky earrings. I squeezed into the back, by the fan, and watched the white twenty-something musicians sway and shimmy and sing. My host showed up a little later, and knew everyone at the bar, but made a point of chatting with me and introducing me around.

This host is a friend of a friend, and they (there are three roommates) have an extra room in their house – filled almost completely with a double bed. I am staying here for a few days at least, and he said that I could make this my home base though they had other people coming once in a while and I might have to shift around. He left me a public transit map, and a schedule of events at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival (he is a photographer, and obviously embedded in the indie art scene). I think I will like to be here, swinging between the intensity of the campaign and the different intensity of a new city, a new place to explore.