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.

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.

success!

Today, I worked for Barack Obama. Okay, so my work consisted of merging spreadsheets and making contact lists, but in some small way, it will help Barack Obama be elected president. Hurrah!

Yesterday I went to Philadelphia to visit a friend of mine (whom I met while going door-to-door for the DNC in 2004). We talked for hours, I met her boyfriend, saw their adorable red-brick house, and slept on their futon. This morning, after getting coffee, I went to Obama HQ.

I was a little nervous, the way you (or at least I) get before any meeting with people you don’t know. Even though I was going to offer them my help, free of cost, I had butterflies at the thought of walking into a strange environment. The door to the office was covered with “Welcome! Come on in!” signs though, so that helped.

Of course my fears were unfounded. A young woman inside welcomed me and I explained that I wanted to work a few days a week, and I was pretty open to doing anything. She called someone and then told me that the Youth Vote campaign really needed help, and she took me to the state headquarters (the location is a secret so that it doesn’t get overwhelmed by people wanting to give campaign officials their feedback). There I was immediately put to work making contact lists, which took me longer than it should have – I have forgotten how to use Excel. My boss was obviously overwhelmed; every task and conversation she had over the two hours period I was sitting at a desk with her was interrupted multiple times. Before she ran off (late) to a meeting, she told me that going forward I could take charge of a mini-project, or several, or I could just come in and do admin, whatever worked better for me. Real work! Hurrah! It’s interesting too, she’s organizing college and high school campuses, which is great fun – lots of enthusiastic volunteers, lots of opportunity to make an impact.

When I went in to the office I was thinking that I could go to Philadelphia a few days a week, and then spend the other days in New Jersey. The problem is that I don’t have a car, so getting back and forth is a big pain and expense. Plus, there’s really not that much to do for the campaign near my grandparents’ house (and New Jersey is not a swing state, so the work here is a little less urgent). So instead I’m going to try to find supporter housing in Philadelphia and just stay there (maybe with jaunts to NY or NJ for weekend visits, if I have time). They clearly have a lot I could help with there, and Philadelphia seems like a cool city. I just need to find a place to live where the occupants don’t mind me using the kitchen, so I can keep expenses to a minimum.

The moral of the story is: go to the office. I have been sending my resume and emailing everywhere, but everyone is too busy to reply. The way to get involved is just to be there. So now I need to be in Philadelphia.