Welcome Aboard the Payne Train

June 27

It’s 2008, but I get this eerie feeling that I’ve acquired first-hand knowledge of what it must’ve been like to live in a little house on the prairie (not just because of the movie). Obama fellows pay for everything except housing. Housing is provided by volunteers and Obama supporters who live in the same area as the fellows work. The responsibility of the housing volunteer is to provide a bed (or a couch) and a bathroom with a shower/bath. In Columbus I was housed with a very generous, friendly family. I slept in their son’s bedroom because he was still at college, provided with towels, clean sheets, wireless internet, and even food (my goodbye dinner was a nice New York strip steak!). Once I moved down to Athens my luck disappeared. At first I slept on the floor because there was no volunteer housing. Eventually people began to offer us space in their houses. Not enough, however, to accommodate us all. As a result I slept in another organizer’s apartment since he was an Ohio University student. What resulted was a slightly below average living situation but a wonderful bonding experience that resulted in a solid friendship. Unfortunately, that student’s lease expired today so I packed my bags and travelled to another address (with a different volunteer, Jennie) owned by a very friendly person, Jonathan. What we are currently in can be described as nothing short of nature.

The town is Guysville, 15 minutes east of Athens. The house is in the middle of fields of grass on a winding country road a couple miles off of a county highway. There’s no A/C (I can make myself used to that), no beds (mattresses on floors would be a generous way of describing the situation), no screens with the windows resulting in an abundance (an understatement) of bugs flying inside the house and myself getting bitten at least twice while writing this entry, ants crawling on the floor, and a warning from the owner to watch out for wasps in the floorboards. He even told us the story of when his kids (who are not here this week) were 5 and woke up in the middle of the night screaming because they were being stung by wasps. The blankets are dirty to the point that I held one up to a fan and debris blew in my eyes. To top it off, the “bed” (the term is used liberally) I’m sleeping in is covered with Jon’s son’s underwear. I improvised a different solution for my sleeping area for the night. I don’t want to sound as if I’m Paris Hilton in The Simple Life but when you walk into the kitchen and see dirty and clean clothes scattered across the dining table and a floor that requires to wear shoes at all times because there is no floor then you know you’re experiencing a different way of living. It’s not that Jon is poor; I think it’s just the way he likes to live. It’s the modern day little house on the prairie. I could cope with this situation for a week, but a month is a little too long, especially when you’re working 13 hour days and at night just want to come to home and comfortably relax. If everything works out, Jennie and I should be back in a more comfortable situation on Monday (3 days from now). Admittedly though, it’s a tiny bit of fun to live through this experience with a friend. In fact, if I were doing this on my own it would be nothing short of a nightmare.

I’ve been writing for the past week about the experiences I came across in southeast Ohio while volunteering for the Obama campaign during my summer vacation. That’ll continue with the next post, but tonight I’m watching the Republican National Convention and listening to the jabs being thrown by Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, and can’t stand much more. Attacking your opponent is part of politics, it works, it will always be that way. Attempts to take the high road are lauded by some but appear too weak to most. I understand that. Attacking energizes the base, but what Giuliani said and what Palin is saying, some of it goes too far.

To both Palin and Giuliani: Why are you insulting someone for being a community organizer? For all your praises about faith based initiatives, why are you insulting someone for dedicating part of his life after college to do exactly what you preach? What makes it better to be mayor of a city than to be an organizer for a beaten-down oppressed community? Since when is it all right to make fun of a person who helped thousands of victimized citizens find their voice? Why is this bad? Why is registering thousands of people to vote so they can speak out against steel mill closings and fight for what they lost bad? Why do you mock Obama for being a community organizer?

Palin: Saying Obama hasn’t done one thing while he was in the senate (state or national) while flat out wrong in the first place (welfare reform, energy and nuclear policy at that, ethics reform while he was in Illinois, and ethics and nuclear proliferation policy while in the US Senate) doesn’t do you service when Biden calls you out on this misinformation during the VP debate. You also need to clear up your whole “I’m against earmark spending” stance. Something about hiring lobbyists to obtain $47 million or some other insane amount for a town of 6,700 people is clouding my understanding. What exactly about earmark spending are you against?

Giuliani: It’s borderline comical that you’re the one saying “the other side” is asking if Palin can take care of her children while being VP, that this question is never raised towards men. You’re the spokesperson for advocating the equal respect and treatment of women when you cheat on your wives (emphasis on plural) and half of your kids don’t like you? You’re the one labeling Obama as cosmopolitan when you were mayor of NYC? Listen to yourself.

Attacking Obama understandable, it’s part of politics, but why chastise him for being a community organizer? Do you feel proud of yourselves?

June 25

Every night from 5-9pm us Obama fellows have call time. During this massive, enduring four hours our job is to go down a call list, and depending on our objective, discuss with those on the other end different topics. The goal could be persuading former Clinton supporters, getting to know the issues in a certain community, or asking others to volunteer with the Obama campaign. Whatever the case is, it is a very trying four hours. I thought I’d be prepared for the occasional angry, obscene person who answers my call thanks to my tour guide training in the call center at Cornell. But call time doesn’t come close. It’s like call center on every steroid or human growth hormone you can imagine.

There are some people who just say no and hang up, others who say they’re voting for Obama but please don’t call back, some supporters who volunteer, and others who screen their answering machine then pick up at a time they desire and curse you off. EG: “John McCain you dumb ass.” Every now and then, and it’s more frequent than one hopes, one of us callers comes across the “openly racist voter”. Once in a blue moon there’s an “openly racist voter” who decides that calling back would be a great way to vent their frustration and starts cursing at you, calling you and Obama names, and ends by saying you’re a n***** lover. These are the times where you just have to take a break and recover or else you start thinking, “ Do I really want to call another person,” or “Is America really ready or are we just fooling ourselves.” Eventually I come across the ever anxious volunteer who is just as ideal and excited as I am and that conversation revives my spirit.

However, two nights ago I talked with an 80 year old woman who told me a story I won’t forget, a story that will keep me going no matter how many racist McCain supporters or angry cursing citizens I come across on my nightly calls. I don’t need to hear anything else for as long as I live.

Her name is Mary Ritchie. She’s a lifelong Republican, but this year is voting for Barack Obama. My call with her lasted 12 minutes. She did all the talking…all the talking being the roughly paraphrased story below. She cried at the end, my throat choked.

 Every time I see Barack Obama walk on stage I can’t help but think of little Eddie. Eddie was black and a brilliant boy. He died when he was 7 after excessive bleeding during surgery. My son and Eddie were best friends in Belpre, Ohio while growing up. Every day they’d walk home from school with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Mind you this was in the early 50’s. Every white person walking along the street craned their necks to look at them. I wasn’t raised in a bigoted family so I didn’t know until then what racism was. Even today people say they aren’t racist, but when they let their guard down you can tell they are. My son and Eddie would play in the yard when they got home. On Sundays we would go to church and I taught Sunday school. For a couple years Eddie didn’t come and I asked his parents why. They said they were afraid for my safety if I were seen teaching a black kid. I told them, hell no I’ll protect Eddie and if that ever happened I’d walk up to the front of the church and tell everyone what happened. Then I’d walk out and never come back. So then Eddie started going to Sunday school with my son and I was able to teach that brilliant boy. One time afterwards I was walking with Eddie’s mom and invited her to the pancake house to eat breakfast. We walked there and she said she couldn’t go in. I asked why, you got two legs. She said black people aren’t allowed in there. I said well hell then let’s leave. So we did, and I never went back. Eddie died sometime later and I brought my son to his funeral. I tried to explain the difference between the body and the soul, but he didn’t understand so he brought two cookies to the funeral. We walked up the hill and he tried giving one to Eddie. That’s when he understood the difference between the body and the soul. After the funeral we went home and he ate both cookies while he was crying. Anyway, I know Eddie would’ve been a wonderful person and when I see Barack Obama walk on stage I can’t help but see Eddie and the person he would’ve been if he were still alive. I’m so glad I’m alive to see this moment.

Its people like Mary Ritchie who have grown up in an ocean of racism but still maintain the moral high ground that makes me believe our time has come.

June 22

Sunday was probably the easiest day that us fellows will have in Athens, Ohio. Our day started at 11, which gave me the privilege of going to the later Sunday morning mass. I’m writing this at 9:20pm and I was free to leave for the night two hours ago. That means we worked an 8 hour day. Our shortest yet. I thought of doing the laundry with the spare time I was handed, but I decided to put it off for at most 1 more week since I’d be paying $1 a load or $3 total, and every penny is key (speaking of that I found a dime on the sidewalk today…that’s 12 minutes of metered parking). Maybe by then I’ll actually have a family to live with so I can piggy back off of them and use their washer and dryer. Aside from relishing from the short 8 hours I worked on Sunday, my day wasn’t so successful. I managed to register 0 potential Obama voters. Of course my car not starting didn’t help. Hopefully the volunteer that I recruited had more success. I’ll say this though, my day would’ve been pretty bad had it not been for the great people I’m working with. The work I’m doing is rewarding, and at any moment I can tell any of my friends that my boss is better than theirs (even the one who works for Tom Coughlin’s son), but the days are long and I’ve never encountered so much hostility/failure/open racism(it’s pretty prevalent) so it’s great to meet nice friends and cherish that 1 in a million person that I come across who has just as much enthusiasm for Obama as I do or the other that says that he’s been a Republican for life, but is voting for Obama this election. A comment like that keeps you going.

June 21

We got a new Regional Field Director, Joe Boswell (Dartmouth grad…reminds me of the episode where Andy Bernard meets the Dartmouth grad for golf), and he is great, all the attributes of a great leader. So it should be fun to work with him for as how long as he will be with us. Some of us might be moving to other south east regions in Ohio. I really hope it’s not myself since breaking up this group that has become so close would kind of suck. We still don’t have an office, which means we’re continuing to work out of the back of a coffee shop who’s owner is an Obama supporter. This is good since he gave us two $75 gift certificates and will continue to give us more. That means I get free breakfast. Anything free at this point makes my day. My financial situation is extremely tight at the least. I got a parking ticket yesterday for parking in a loading zone. What makes the feeling worse is that I already paid $1 to park in that spot for 2 hours. I didn’t see the red sign underneath the meter that said “loading zone Monday-Friday 9-5pm”. That pivotal mistake cost me $30. That’s 3 days of food or ½ of a tank of gas. I haven’t figured out which I should sacrifice first.

June 19

Ohio University has the same characteristics of Cornell, except Ohio makes Cornell look like it’s on steroids. So instead of walking up Libe Slope I’m walking up this miniature hill that my other friends from Texas on the Athens team think it’s the biggest hill they’ve ever climbed. They haven’t seen anything. I’ve also learned that I’ll be working with Washington County to organize people. Washington County is the next county to the right of Athens County and borders West Virginia. Marietta is its most populous city of about 16,000. Problem is it takes 1 hour to drive there, so my gas costs have just increased. Otherwise, I’m excited. I’ve already scheduled two volunteers, registered four people and set up one house meeting to discuss the promises of the Obama campaign.

June 15

Today was the first day of actual grassroots activity. The Obama campaign asked us to hold voter registration drives. We had two-and-a-half-hours to reach our goal of registering 7 people. My group was responsible for a stretch of 3 blocks along High St. which is in downtown Columbus. Now even though Columbus is the capital of Ohio as well as the largest city in Ohio don’t fall under the assumption like I did that Columbus must be like New York City or Washington, DC in terms of pedestrian traffic or activity. In reality, downtown Columbus on a Sunday afternoon looked like New York City in the movie I Am Legend, and I was Will Smith. Absolutely deserted. I must’ve walked 4 miles in a circle; I swear if I walked straight I would’ve reached Ohio State. I had conversations with and talked to 25-30 people. My end result was 0 registries. I was kicked off the property of an Episcopal church even though I believe I wasn’t on their property. Sorry Mr. Layperson for trying to enfranchise members of your congregation. It’s not like I went to them. They came up to me to ask to fill out the form. Maybe the guy didn’t like me because I was Catholic. I almost had one. I met a homeless guy by a bus stop. He wanted $.54 for a bus ride. I told him I didn’t have any money (I really didn’t. I didn’t plan on bribing people to register…I think that’s illegal anyway) but if he’d like he could register to vote. He gladly accepted. Problem was he was drunk. So his handwriting was illegible. I saw him stumble twice. So I told him that he could sit down and I’d fill out the form. That led to another problem of his lack of knowledge of his street name and zip code as well as many other pieces of information. So I decided trying to sign up a drunk homeless man wasn’t going to work out. I met this other homeless man. Very nice, having a smoke. He said he wanted to register. I told him he could put the homeless shelter as his address. So he started filling out information, stopped, and told me he had to turn himself in two days from now. Another disheartening blow. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be out by November 4^th. We still talked about how both of us hated Bush and the war in Iraq. I left smiling and laughing, but without a completed registration form. Those were my two best chances. This one very well dressed man going to a play at the Palace Theater, which is one of the nicest theaters in Ohio, was walking with his family. I thought it would be a nice civics lesson for his kids to have a volunteer approach him to ask about registering to vote. He, very smugly, brushed me aside. I later overheard him say to people he was standing in line with, “They’re supporting that Muslim guy for president. I was shocked, not because of the statement (it’s expected) but because HE said it. I guess that was a prejudiced decision on my part. Just because you’re well-off, or at least show the appearance of being well-off doesn’t mean you’re informed…or have half a brain. How I wish that the homeless guy about to go to prison magically swapped places with that “rich” a**hole.

On another note, my host family was nice enough to drive me to Ohio State University, what will be the new Columbus Clippers stadium, and the Columbus Blue Jackets arena to give me a tour since they know I love sports. Their son pointed out the Horseshoe with its gigantic stained glass windows (amazingly beautiful), the basketball arena, and the academic part of the campus. In all honesty, I have to give OSU the edge on quality of the football stadium over Michigan. But UM definitely gets the nod of having a nicer campus. Of course Cornell has the best campus of all three hands down. Not even close.

June 14

The first day of training was exhausting, but a great experience. The people (volunteers and staff) were extremely nice and very well organized. What was even better is that the conversations we had were so stimulating. Aside from cracking political jokes that made us look like nerds that should be at politico.com I was able to get to know people who were just as excited as I was explaining how they were feeling on super Tuesday at 2am in the morning when the race was decided to still be a stalemate, or during the Indiana primary when it all came down to Lake county at 2am as well. At Cornell I have my select friends where I can explain my excitement about these nights, but even they weren’t up that late watching the returns come in or deliberately put off their homework just to hear Chris Matthews’ analysis or see John King’s smartboard. Here, it was like everyone was doing the same thing. Ask what they thought about Lake County, Indiana, some random story about a guy in one of Obama’s stump speeches, and they could tell you without thinking twice. If I were to yell “fired up!” in some classroom at Cornell a handful of people would’ve responded with “ready to go!” Here it was almost everyone in the room! Barack Obama himself even had a conference call with all 3000 fellows across the country who were training today. It was quite an awesome experience. Even more energizing is that I found out I’ll be headed down to Athens, Ohio for the next six weeks to organize volunteers there and do Get Out the Vote campaigns. Athens is in southeast Ohio where Kerry lost the counties there on an average of 60-40 in 2004, but I’m still fired up, ready to go! Except I can’t quite go yet. I still have two more days of training.

June 13

The drive took 9 hours, most spent on Route 80. By 6:15pm I reached Obama’s Ohio headquarters in Columbus, OH. On the way I mistakenly thought the Columbus Crew stadium was the Horseshoe (where Ohio State plays football)…big mistake in Ohio (I’m trying to keep my Michigan Wolverine allegiance a secret, kind of like I kept my democratic affiliations on the DL in high school). It was ironic that the Obama office – small, but homey – was directly across the street from the Ohio Republican office (not to be mistaken with John McCain’s headquarters, which I haven’t found nor do I plan to take the effort to find), but not so ironic that it was big and beautiful seeing that the RNC has all the money. At Obama HQ I met several others who were volunteering like myself, one from Louisville, another from Nashville, a couple from New York, and another from the great state of New Jersey.

A Google Maps print out was given to me. These were the directions to where I would be staying for the first 3 days of the program in which they are to train me for whatever they want me to do. Bear with me, at this point I know as much as you. The family I am living with is extremely nice. I am sleeping in one of their son’s bedrooms. All I know is that he is not here, I think still at college. They bought me pizza and cooked me brownies. I can only consider myself lucky I am living with such nice people, but hope that a big bowl of salad comes around eventually seeing that the last thing I want to do is gain 15 pounds while working for Senator Obama. For now the calcium enhanced orange juice I drank with my dinner will have to do. Tomorrow (Saturday) starts my first training event. 8:30am to 8pm, how am I looking forward to it. Note: That is not a sarcastic comment. I am really looking forward to learning how to campaign for my guy. That’s right. Obama is my guy…well Michelle’s technically.

And what a great day to do it on, the start of the Democratic National Convention! This summer I volunteered for the Obama campaign in Ohio. I’m from Jersey but thought of the excitement that working in THE electoral state would bring and decided I’d drive to Ohio to work there after I was notified that I was accepted for an Obama Organizing Fellows position. Throughout my six weeks in Ohio I kept a journal fully intending to use the entries I wrote for my Cornell blog as well. I didn’t write one for every day but I did keep a steady rate of 2-3 per week, sometimes more. As a result, for the next several days I will be posting blogs that are about my experiences working for the Obama campaign in the Appalachian (southeast) region of the Buckeye State.