More Election Reflections

This campaign has been a major focus in my life since last spring when I signed on to go to Asheville, NC and work in the primary. I have knocked on doors, made phone calls, cheered and held signs at rallies, and spent countless hours keeping tabs on the campaign's progress as reported by the media. At times, it seemed that the election could not come soon enough. Now that it's over, it almost seems like a dream that Barack Obama will be our next President!


But it's finally sinking in - and now the real work begins. One of the things President-Elect Obama wants is for all of us to stay involved in our government, and as proof of this please check out the website Change.gov from the office of the President-Elect. As he says, "Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today." On this website you can find anything you want to know about transition plans, the inauguration, press releases, cabinet offices, biographical profiles, and you can even apply for a job in the new administration. But the most important feature of this website is that it asks us to share our vision for what our country can be. I recommend that you spend some time exploring this site, bookmark it, and go to it often during the next 4 years.


There are so many memories from this past 6 months, but some of the best are the people I have met and worked with along the way. Last week, I knocked on doors and made phone calls along side Daidee and Steve from Chattanooga. We rode to Charlotte together, shared a guest house together, and celebrated together at 11 pm on election night. Our hosts, June and Phil, also joined in the champagne toast. Their "labradoodle" Dawson was so excited he jumped up in June's lap.


Kevin, our intrepid field organizer, never let us forget that we were making a difference in NC, calling us in from a late lunch at 4pm on Tuesday afternoon to go back out and find voters who had not yet made it to the polls which closed at 7:30 pm. At 6:45 I knocked on a door and a young woman answered and started apologizing that she had just gotten home from work and hadn't voted. I simply said, "Get your shoes on and let's go!" We made it with 10 minutes to spare. Kevin was right - NC was so close that those last-minute voters gave Obama the extra edge needed to squeak out a victory in NC.



As I walked through the phone bank room, back at headquarters, at about 8 pm, I noticed that the basketball hoop used by Senator Obama was still on the wall. How can I ever forget being in that room with him and his tossing the ball up in the air and then into the hoop.



And the most exciting surprise - finding my picture on the front page of the New York Times on Nov 4!! That's definitely a first and perhaps the only time that will ever happen to me.


Another first for me was the paid TV ad. The local Grundy County TV station (GCTV) offers local community programming and our Cumberland Plateau for Obama group thought it would be a good idea to place some local spots for Obama on the air for the 5 days preceding the election. I was one of 4 people who did 1-minute spots - my topic was the economic crisis. Other topics included health care, education and religion (no, he's not a Muslim!)


I'm sure this afterglow will eventually mellow, but I hope that my renewed enthusiasm for participatory democracy will burn brightly for the rest of my life - "government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth." Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

My Incredible day with Barack Obama!

OK - Well, it wasn't the entire day. It was actually only 30 minutes, but a half-hour I will definitely remember for the rest of my life!

I have been in Charlotte, NC since Saturday night, knocking on doors, making phone calls and doing anything I can to help North Carolina go for Senator Obama. Yesterday, the field organizer (Kevin) in the Charlotte office asked if I could do some special phone banking on Monday afternoon to some still-undecided voters. I was to show up at 2:30 pm along with 14 other volunteers where we were given lists of undecided voters to call. There we are in the picture to the right. The fellow in the lower left corner of this photo is from Bristol, England, and came to Charlotte to spend 10 days working on the campaign!

Now, the twist in all of this was that Obama was coming to Charlotte for a campaign rally at 5:30 this evening, and I surely didn't want to miss this rally. Kevin promised me solemnly that I would not miss the rally as long as I promised him solemnly that I would show up at 2:30 and make phone calls until 5:00. He further said that I would have "almost VIP" seats."

Yes, I would call sitting right next to Barack Obama VIP seating! At 5 pm, Senator Obama walked through the back door of the office. Of course, we all erupted into huge cheers and he was so genuinely grateful for our work and our support. We started asking for autographs and photos, and he very promptly and kindly said, "We're here to work - this isn't an autograph party.

He asked us to go on with the phone calls we were making and to get some voters on the phone so that he could talk to them. I talked to a 3-time Iraq veteran who had questions about the length of the war and was concerned that it was time to bring it to a close and, at the very least, be sure that repeat assignments were not so close together that he had no time with his family. I handed the phone to Senator Obama who began by thanking him for his service and explained his policy regarding this voter's concerns.

I was so impressed with his genuine conversation with us. As hard as this may be to believe, after a few calls, it was almost as if he were just another caller in this campaign. There was no self-serving, photo-op, attention grabbing from this man. He even joked with one of the voters who was celebrating his birthday and whose wife and daughters were planning a party for him. I'm not sure what the man told him, but his response was - "It sounds like you are like me - surrounded by some strong women. My advice is - do what they tell you to do!"

If you are still an undecided voter, and if you still haven't voted, please consider voting for Senator Obama. He is the real deal!! I can't wait to see the change in this country, and in our politics and in our lives when he becomes our President!

Barack 'N Roll

Saturday was a great day on the "rock" - as we say here on the mountain. The Cumberland Plateau for Obama sponsored the Barack 'N Roll Music Festival this weekend. Our headliner was Milele Roots, a band started by our good friend Morris Thuku who is currently visiting here from Kenya. Morris (in gray shirt) was a college student in Chattanooga when he started the band and it has survived and thrived in his 10-year absence.

Milele Roots is a fabulous reggae band based in Chattanooga. They have been together for about 15 years and four of the original band members were there yesterday: Christian Craan (awesome dreadlocks!), Antoine Williamson, Morris and how great was it to see Earl, now in his 70s, who played awesome Caribbean drum beats in the original band, but now enjoys cheering the guys on.

The purpose of the festival was to pump people up to get out and vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday. There were lots of people in and out during the afternoon, and some stayed for the whole 2-hour show.

Morris had not sung with the band since he left the United States 10 years ago, but he was definitely back in the groove. The band led off with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Answer: Obama!

Meanwhile, the McCain-Palin folks are very active - mostly with negative tactics. I don't want to join the negativity - so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

I'm in Charlotte, now. And, Obama will be here for a rally tomorrow afternoon - one of his last stops before he heads back to Chicago to vote on Tuesday! I knocked on 67 doors today and will head out again to go out putting door hangers on doors reminding people to go vote! I am totally pumped!!

Friends on the Mountain

Our friends, the Stohlers and the Dillards, had planned for weeks to come to see us during the fall color change season. Wouldn't you know it - they got here on Thursday night, it rained all night and was rainy and cold for most of the day on Friday! Not exactly what we had envisioned when we had made these plans weeks ago.

After the rain stopped, at about 4:00 in the afternoon, we were determined to enjoy a bottle of wine on our 3rd floor deck and enjoy the fall colors and the sunset.

It was a valiant effort, and we finally broke out the winter coats. But, by golly, we enjoyed the wine and the sunset!!

For some reason, we are having a very late fall color change. Stay tuned for some beautiful pictures once the leaves finally do give up their green and this mountain bursts into red, orange and gold!

On the Campaign to Charlotte

The Obama campaign is working very hard to win the state of North Carolina. Supporters from surrounding states are being called in to help knock on doors, make phone calls and recruit other volunteers. Last Friday, I was part of a group of UTC students who went to Charlotte to help in the campaign there. Even CNN took notice of our group. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/23/king.north.carolina/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

There were about 50 of us who made the 5-hour trip. My hat's off to the drivers of the vans who carried the students. I decided early on that driving a van full of college students was something I might have done 25 years ago, but not now. I took my SUV and followed with their luggage - which is much more peaceful than the live bodies!!

Again, as with my other experiences with this campaign, the group in NC was enthusiastic, well organized and we were all united toward the common goal of getting Barack Obama elected as our next President.

Along with my canvassing partner, Daidee, we knocked on about 200 doors encouraging eligible voters to vote early. Early voting started in NC on October 16 and continues through November 1. One-stop early voting is a great option in NC- an eligible voter can go to any early voting location (public libraries in Charlotte) and register to vote and then cast their ballot immediately. I wish TN had that option!

The campaign headquarters was absolutely full of volunteers and field organizers, who are mostly young college graduates, like our organizer Kevin, who have signed on to work in the campaign as interns. They work about 18 hours per day and told us that they will be on 24-hour shifts as the campaign comes to a close. The office is definitely not fancy - note the cardboard and duct tape cubicles for volunteer phone canvassers. Rented tables and chairs are the only equipment - didn't see one executive desk or padded chair! I don't think any of us care about luxurious work space nor did I hear one request for brie or latte - no intellectual elites here!!

Daidee and I plan to go back for the last weekend of the campaign and work through Nov 4. The Charlotte office tells us that there is no celebration party planned - they think it will be a race to the finish and there is no letting up. Yes we can!!

Weekend with Will

We are totally exhausted, but we have had a great weekend with Will! We picked him up yesterday after school and he wanted to go to the Riverpark. The favorite artwork of the day was the fish constructed from bricks on which he climbed and sat and rested. A large plume from the nearby beargrass became alternately a fan or a sword, depending on the direction of his imagination.

We drove to Knoxville on Friday night, and got up Saturday morning for an early breakfast with Dad who had to work at the Knoxville Brewers' Jam. Our plan for the day was to go to the Knoxville Zoo and do whatever Will wanted to do. The zoo was all decked out for Halloween Boo at the Zoo, from jack-o-lanterns to witches and scarecrows, you could hardly take a step without seeing spooks and ghosts.

The first place Will wanted to go was the reptile exhibit. Believe it or not, this time last year he would not go near a snake. But, this year his mission was to find the coral snake (of course, there wasn't a coral snake to be found!), but we found plenty of rattlesnakes, constrictors and gila monsters. We also spent a good deal of time in the dark rooms with a skunk, bats and perhaps the fattest raccoon I have ever seen. The dark rooms were not a place he wanted to go a year ago either. It's so much fun to see him grow and change.

No zoo visit is complete without a visit to the Kid's Cove. There are always so many kids to play with and Will always finds several friends who are ready to run, chase, climb, splash and slide. It's very hard to leave this fabulous playground to see the animals. However, eventually the reality sinks in that we haven't seen the elephants, giraffes or tigers, and off we go to the African savannah.

I was pretty impressed that Will had a list of animals he wanted to check out this year including the lion, the tiger and the snow leopard. What a memory! I guess it's more impressive to me at my age when short term memory seems to be a fleeting luxury. Will is also getting quite adept at spotting the animals camaflouged in their surroundings - he spotted a cougar that I would never have found on my own. This is probably a sad commentary on my sharpness of vision (or lack thereof!).

We managed to make it back to the hotel in time to watch the TN vs GA game. The final score was 26-14 in favor of Georgia - not the result we wanted, but not an unexpected result. Will and I spent most of the time playing hide and seek, working puzzles and reading books. It's fascinating how many places you can find to hide in a hotel room.

Dad picked Will up at the end of the day and the two exhausted grandparents drug ourselves to dinner at Chesapeakes and celebrated surviving a fun-filled day with Will. There is really nothing to compare to being a grandparent. The relationship is nothing but pure joy and love and we are most fortunate to have this little boy in our lives.

Presidential Debate

What a great trip to Nashville! The Nashville for Obama group sent out a request for volunteers to help with visibility before and after the debate. I had no other instructions other than that we were to sign up for 4-hour shifts and report in at Belmont University. My assignment when I got there was to join others at the MSNBC set and wave signs and cheer during their live broadcasts during the day, doing all we could to keep the McCain/Palin supporters at bay.

On my way to the MSNBC set, I spotted these dead ringers for George Bush, Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton. Absolutely hysterical! And while I'm at it, Belmont did a terrific job of hosting this event. Student volunteers were everywhere and very helpful in getting us to the right spots and answering any questions we had.

When I got to the set, Andrea Mitchell was interviewing former Congressman Harold Ford, then Senator Lamar Alexander. Chris Matthews of Hardball arrived early in the afternoon and spoke to several of us before he started his live broadcast. It's always interesting to compare what these "talking heads" look like from the neck down. Andrea Mitchell is really tiny; Chris Matthews is really tall and Chuck Todd is pretty much as I expected.

In the middle of the afternoon, the skies opened up and it rained hard for 2 hours. Thankfully I had looked at the weather forecast before I left home and had my rain gear and others had really big umbrellas. There's a real bonding that occurs when you are wet and miserable - we survived and kept our front row perimeter.

Actually, there were only a few McCain/Palin supporters there, so it wasn't too hard to do our job. At 4 pm, about 500 Obama supporters started from Legislative Plaza and marched to Belmont to join the 300 or so of us who were already there and the whole quadrangle became one big Obama rally.

As you probably know, I have been involved in this campaign since last spring and my impression remains that this is really a different campaign. This movement has surprised and shocked a lot of people - including, but not limited to, Clinton and McCain. It's not hard to understand when you are in the midst of these people who have believed from the beginning that Barack Obama is the right person at the right time and have put their feet to the pavement to be sure that he is elected as our President.

Yesterday, I got an email from the North Carolina group asking for volunteers there - and I will probably go. Only 26 days to go and North Carolina is a dead heat!! YES WE CAN!!