Tales from the Campaign Trail
It's been almost two weeks since Barack Obama has been elected President, so I thought I'd share with you all some of the more interesting tales I've encoutered in the several months of campaigning for Barack Obama that I've been involved with.
Perhaps one of the more exciting events that I particpated with in was the volunteering at the Reggae Fest back in August when our tent was right next to the drummer who was there with several drum circles throughout the day. Sarah eventually bought a small drum there and I've been thinking lately I ought to call her up and tell her we should get together and do some drumming together since drumming is so much more fun with more than one person.
Anyway, at that Reggae Fest, shortly after we setup, we got a group of three ladies who came to us to register to vote. One of them was 53 years old and had never registered to vote before in her life, but she was so excited about Barack Obama that she had finally to come register to vote.
Later on I was telling Eileen that I really want to setup a voter registration booth at MPC since it's the perfect place for it. What better place to register people to vote than at a community college? After all, most people going to school there are straight out of high school and therefore likely able to register to vote and young enough that there's a good chance they hadn't yet.
Eileen, bless her heart, got the administrative details taken care of so that we'd have a table and chairs for the duration of the time we were there. We registered students there for a full month, mostly just Tuesday and Thursday, but during the last week we added Wednesday and then Monday on the last day to register since we couldn't miss that day of course. Most days we registered 16 or 17 people in our time there. The smallest number of people we got was three people registering once. That was towards the end of our registration period so I had figured most of the Tuesday/Thursday crowd who wanted to register already had.
Our largest two days both got around 30 people, I think one was 30 and the other was 33. I estimate that we got 193 people registered total at MPC. I say we because the other people registering with me were Alex, Matt, Joyce, Delana, and Eileen herself. I was there every day we were at MPC registering people, Matt was there most days, and Alex joined us for the last couple days when it otherwise would have been just me.
We had some interesting conversations over the course of the time we were at MPC. There was one guy who came and argued against Obama with Matt because he said he wasn't Christian enough. I let Matt do most of the arguing because he's much more outgoing than I am. Then there was a lady who came later on for a couple days while we were there and argued in favor of Ralph Nader. Again, I let Matt do most of the arguing. Nader's definitely persistent, I'll give you that, but I think he really ought to find something better to do than keep running for president when he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
The one argument she had that I definitely agreed with was that the third party candidates ought to be allowed into the presidental debates. I've been to local congressional debates down at MIIS where they had third party candidates and it was much more interesting than it otherwise would have been. Actually, she had two arguments that I agreed with - the other one is that we ought to have an instant runoff system instead of the current voting system that we do have.
And then there was the guy who came and said that he'd register except that he was on parole. Later on he came back and apparently he was off parole but said he would rather vote for Momar Kadafi. Yeah, that guy was weird.
We as a club had a rally at Del Monte Avenue right next to the Window at the Bay the weekend before the election. That was pretty entertaining because according to Eileen, we (the Montery County Democrats) were the only ones who had a permit to rally there. However, the McCain people came and rode our coat tails with their own set of signs. Mind you, they had far fewer people in their group, and they got FAR fewer honks. We got so many honks that I could tell that Monterey County was likely to go for Obama.
There was also a bunch of people holding No on Prop 8 signs in our rally. Towards the end of the rally, a couple came up complete in their wedding dress outfit with Yes on 8 signs. Naturally, we saw them, and a huge flood of No on 8 people came to join them since they had setup at a different part of Del Monte Avenue than we were at. It was very entertaining and the guy I was with agreed that they looked quite tacky.
Then, on election day itself, I was hoping to meet with Sarah since I found out very shortly before the election that her polling place is the same one as mine. I called her that day and said I'd love to go with her so if she knew when she's going, we could go vote together. She said she didn't know when she'd vote and to go and vote. I ended up voting at around 4 PM and as luck would have it, when I was walking out of the polling place, none other than Sarah herself said "Is that Evan?". I waited around for her since I was going to go the same direction as she was afterwards as I was heading to the gym for a workout and she was going to the Democratic Headquarters to hangout until the Victory Party.
So I went to the gym and ended up counting the people who were affiliating themselves with Obama. I saw two Obama shirts, plus the lady in charge of the gym was voting for Obama as well. There was also a car with an Obama bumper sticker that I saw on the way out of the MPC parking lot. At that point, I headed back home for dinner with dad and mom and Bill Evans and eventually made my way back down to the Golden State Theatre for the Victory Party.
The Golden State theatre had also hosted a viewing party for Obama's acceptance speech several months earlier. However, the atmosphere was completely different at the Victory Party. I didn't get down there until about 7:30 PM, it started at 6 PM, but I think I arrived at a perfect time. By the time I arrived, Obama had 203 electoral votes and McCain had 136 or so. When the clock hit 8 PM and the west coast states' polls were closed, Obama's electoral vote count jumped up to 293. He needed 270 so at that point he had already won.
...Everyone was clapping and on their feet and the mood was positively electric. The CSUMB jazz orchestra was at the stage and started playing shortly after that. Jane Parker, our local county supervisor, was MCing the whole event. Apparently later on other local representatives came up to the stage, but I didn't stick around that long.
I remember watching first McCain's speech and then Obama's speech and immediately thinking that McCain had a better speech between the two of them. Which isn't to say that Obama's was bad, but rather that McCain really ought to have done more like what he had done that night throughout his campaigning. He might have done better if he did, so perhaps it's best that didn't happen.
Anyway, shortly after Obama won enough electoral votes to become president both Eileen and Sarah came up to the front of the State and then later on to the stage. They were dancing around with Obama signs and looking great. Eileen broke down with tears of joy at one point - she had been campaigning for a full two years for Obama, far longer than me. At this point, we all went out into the street and made a crowd in front of the Golden State theater, attempting to get cars to honk and generally just partying in the street.
It's been a fun campaign, and I made several new friends while I was campaigning for Barack Obama. Definitely like the result a hell of a lot better than in 2004, but then, I like Obama a hell of a lot better than Kerry so there's no surprise there. And as they often say at high school or college graduations, this is not the end. This is only the beginning.
This election was bittersweet because while I was quite excited to see Obama elected president, I was also angered that Proposition 8 got passed. Thankfully, Monterey County voted the right way - it got voted down 52% to 48% locally. There's absolutely no good reason for that proposition to exist, it's pure discrimination. Sarah sent me an invite to a protest in front of City Hall tomorrow about Prop 8 that I'll definitely be attending.
Still, it got challenged almost immediately in the courts by the ACLU and I am confident that it's only a matter of time before this ends up invalidated. I take comfort in the fact that our governor and attorney general are not only standing by gay marriage but also saying that this won't invalidate the gay marriages that have happened and that they'll fight against prop 8 themselves. Having friends in powerful places is definitely a good thing.
Perhaps one of the more exciting events that I particpated with in was the volunteering at the Reggae Fest back in August when our tent was right next to the drummer who was there with several drum circles throughout the day. Sarah eventually bought a small drum there and I've been thinking lately I ought to call her up and tell her we should get together and do some drumming together since drumming is so much more fun with more than one person.
Anyway, at that Reggae Fest, shortly after we setup, we got a group of three ladies who came to us to register to vote. One of them was 53 years old and had never registered to vote before in her life, but she was so excited about Barack Obama that she had finally to come register to vote.
Later on I was telling Eileen that I really want to setup a voter registration booth at MPC since it's the perfect place for it. What better place to register people to vote than at a community college? After all, most people going to school there are straight out of high school and therefore likely able to register to vote and young enough that there's a good chance they hadn't yet.
Eileen, bless her heart, got the administrative details taken care of so that we'd have a table and chairs for the duration of the time we were there. We registered students there for a full month, mostly just Tuesday and Thursday, but during the last week we added Wednesday and then Monday on the last day to register since we couldn't miss that day of course. Most days we registered 16 or 17 people in our time there. The smallest number of people we got was three people registering once. That was towards the end of our registration period so I had figured most of the Tuesday/Thursday crowd who wanted to register already had.
Our largest two days both got around 30 people, I think one was 30 and the other was 33. I estimate that we got 193 people registered total at MPC. I say we because the other people registering with me were Alex, Matt, Joyce, Delana, and Eileen herself. I was there every day we were at MPC registering people, Matt was there most days, and Alex joined us for the last couple days when it otherwise would have been just me.
We had some interesting conversations over the course of the time we were at MPC. There was one guy who came and argued against Obama with Matt because he said he wasn't Christian enough. I let Matt do most of the arguing because he's much more outgoing than I am. Then there was a lady who came later on for a couple days while we were there and argued in favor of Ralph Nader. Again, I let Matt do most of the arguing. Nader's definitely persistent, I'll give you that, but I think he really ought to find something better to do than keep running for president when he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
The one argument she had that I definitely agreed with was that the third party candidates ought to be allowed into the presidental debates. I've been to local congressional debates down at MIIS where they had third party candidates and it was much more interesting than it otherwise would have been. Actually, she had two arguments that I agreed with - the other one is that we ought to have an instant runoff system instead of the current voting system that we do have.
And then there was the guy who came and said that he'd register except that he was on parole. Later on he came back and apparently he was off parole but said he would rather vote for Momar Kadafi. Yeah, that guy was weird.
We as a club had a rally at Del Monte Avenue right next to the Window at the Bay the weekend before the election. That was pretty entertaining because according to Eileen, we (the Montery County Democrats) were the only ones who had a permit to rally there. However, the McCain people came and rode our coat tails with their own set of signs. Mind you, they had far fewer people in their group, and they got FAR fewer honks. We got so many honks that I could tell that Monterey County was likely to go for Obama.
There was also a bunch of people holding No on Prop 8 signs in our rally. Towards the end of the rally, a couple came up complete in their wedding dress outfit with Yes on 8 signs. Naturally, we saw them, and a huge flood of No on 8 people came to join them since they had setup at a different part of Del Monte Avenue than we were at. It was very entertaining and the guy I was with agreed that they looked quite tacky.
Then, on election day itself, I was hoping to meet with Sarah since I found out very shortly before the election that her polling place is the same one as mine. I called her that day and said I'd love to go with her so if she knew when she's going, we could go vote together. She said she didn't know when she'd vote and to go and vote. I ended up voting at around 4 PM and as luck would have it, when I was walking out of the polling place, none other than Sarah herself said "Is that Evan?". I waited around for her since I was going to go the same direction as she was afterwards as I was heading to the gym for a workout and she was going to the Democratic Headquarters to hangout until the Victory Party.
So I went to the gym and ended up counting the people who were affiliating themselves with Obama. I saw two Obama shirts, plus the lady in charge of the gym was voting for Obama as well. There was also a car with an Obama bumper sticker that I saw on the way out of the MPC parking lot. At that point, I headed back home for dinner with dad and mom and Bill Evans and eventually made my way back down to the Golden State Theatre for the Victory Party.
The Golden State theatre had also hosted a viewing party for Obama's acceptance speech several months earlier. However, the atmosphere was completely different at the Victory Party. I didn't get down there until about 7:30 PM, it started at 6 PM, but I think I arrived at a perfect time. By the time I arrived, Obama had 203 electoral votes and McCain had 136 or so. When the clock hit 8 PM and the west coast states' polls were closed, Obama's electoral vote count jumped up to 293. He needed 270 so at that point he had already won.
...Everyone was clapping and on their feet and the mood was positively electric. The CSUMB jazz orchestra was at the stage and started playing shortly after that. Jane Parker, our local county supervisor, was MCing the whole event. Apparently later on other local representatives came up to the stage, but I didn't stick around that long.
I remember watching first McCain's speech and then Obama's speech and immediately thinking that McCain had a better speech between the two of them. Which isn't to say that Obama's was bad, but rather that McCain really ought to have done more like what he had done that night throughout his campaigning. He might have done better if he did, so perhaps it's best that didn't happen.
Anyway, shortly after Obama won enough electoral votes to become president both Eileen and Sarah came up to the front of the State and then later on to the stage. They were dancing around with Obama signs and looking great. Eileen broke down with tears of joy at one point - she had been campaigning for a full two years for Obama, far longer than me. At this point, we all went out into the street and made a crowd in front of the Golden State theater, attempting to get cars to honk and generally just partying in the street.
It's been a fun campaign, and I made several new friends while I was campaigning for Barack Obama. Definitely like the result a hell of a lot better than in 2004, but then, I like Obama a hell of a lot better than Kerry so there's no surprise there. And as they often say at high school or college graduations, this is not the end. This is only the beginning.
This election was bittersweet because while I was quite excited to see Obama elected president, I was also angered that Proposition 8 got passed. Thankfully, Monterey County voted the right way - it got voted down 52% to 48% locally. There's absolutely no good reason for that proposition to exist, it's pure discrimination. Sarah sent me an invite to a protest in front of City Hall tomorrow about Prop 8 that I'll definitely be attending.
Still, it got challenged almost immediately in the courts by the ACLU and I am confident that it's only a matter of time before this ends up invalidated. I take comfort in the fact that our governor and attorney general are not only standing by gay marriage but also saying that this won't invalidate the gay marriages that have happened and that they'll fight against prop 8 themselves. Having friends in powerful places is definitely a good thing.