The victory on Saturday in South Carolina wasn't a surprise to all the volunteers who had been working for the Obama campaign there, but the extent of the victory was.
For the past few weeks I was one of thousands of volunteers working all over the state of South Carolina to make sure we got the result we saw on Saturday evening.
I'll try to give you a little peek behind the scenes of the campaign from my personal view.
There wasn't any new groundbreaking strategy used as far as I could see; the same old tactics to win political campaigns was put in motion: build an army of volunteers, identify your supporters early and then do everything you possibly can to get those supporters to the polls.
When I first got involved with the local Rock Hill headquarters, several weeks ago, the emphasis seemed to be on identifying who would vote for Obama and convincing folks who were still undecided to join our side.
This was done through phone canvassing and door-to-door canvassing. The headquarters were always filled with people making phone calls, sometimes it was hard to find a little corner to sit in and make your calls.
We noted who was already convinced to vote for Barack and the folks who were still doubting got literature in the mail and sometimes a house visit in an effort to help them "see the light".
The week before the primary the tactics shifted to finding volunteers within the group of people who said they would vote for Obama. These volunteers would help on primary day, by phone canvassing and making door to door visits. This time I decided to walk around neighborhoods and participate in the door to door canvassing.
I usually drove to the HQ in Rock Hill where I picked up my "walking lists" and then drove even further south to places like Lancaster and Chester to knock on some doors.
What struck me as I was driving all over the northern part of SC was the hundreds of Hillary signs you saw everywhere along the road. You hardly saw any Obama signs. You see, the Obama campaign didn't invest a lot of money in signs, for a good reason.
Maybe somebody should have told the Clinton campaign that yard signs don't vote and that it's better to invest money in organizing your supporters and volunteers. On the other hand, maybe Hillary's campaign just couldn't find all those volunteers?
Another thing that struck me was the poor state a lot of the areas that I drove through were in.
While I'm sure that the folks who live in Charleston and Hilton Head island are not doing too shabby, it's obvious that the rest of the state is really hurting. Why a lot of them keep voting republican is beyond me. The only reason I can come up with is that probably some preacher told them they would go to hell if they voted Democratic.
The folks I talked to on their door steps were all very nice and I found about a dozen volunteers for election day.
The day before election day most of the people who the campaign had identified as strong Obama supporters got a big personalized door hanger placed on their front door explaining where they had to go vote and how the electronic voting process was going to look. Thousands and thousands of those got distributed all over the state and I hung up a few hundred myself.
On January 26th, the day of the primary, we had the most volunteers working, in an effort to make sure all of our supporters went to vote.
The staging area for the campaign in Rock Hill was moved that day from the headquarters we had on Ebenezer Road to the Freedom Center in downtown Rock Hill to be able to accommodate the hundreds of volunteers working that day.
I was the precinct captain for Precinct 8 in Rock Hill. That day about 60 volunteers were working in Rock Hill alone, going door to door and visiting everyone on their list of Obama Supporters. Many more volunteers were making phone calls out of the Freedom Center as well. The plan was to visit all of our supporters once before noon, once more in the afternoon if they hadn't voted yet and also call them to remind them to vote. So if you waited a long time to get your butt to the polling station you might have been "harassed" 3 times that day.
I walked door to door with a young team member from Pennsylvania from 9 am to 6 pm. What was really satisfying to see was that the work we were doing had an immediate effect. At one point while walking along a long straight street we looked behind us and saw 3 cars pull out of different driveways at the same time, all of them on their way to vote. In my precinct we also had the problem that the polling place was different from the one people were used to. We met a lot of people who said they went to vote that morning at their usual polling place,but found it locked and empty and they had returned home without voting. We were there to tell them where the new polling place was and a lot of people immediately went out again to vote as soon as they found out. If there hadn't been any volunteers visiting those folks that day, they would not have voted.
The 8th precinct is a very diverse area. We walked through neighborhoods that look very much like the one I live in but we also walked on dirt roads to visit people living in totally run down houses with no sewer facilities. They all had a port-a-potty standing in their front yard. This is also America.
My energy was drained by about 6 pm and I drove down to the Headquarters on Ebenezer road that I had worked out of the past few weeks. I found a small group of people watching TV, anxious to get some results. Most folks had driven down to Columbia to join the celebrations there. We ordered pizza for everyone and counted down to 7 pm.
When at 7 pm CNN projected Obama as the winner the roof almost came off the building. All the hard work had been more than worth it.
I'm impressed by the very diverse crowd that volunteered for Obama, from all walks of life and from all over the Country, with folks coming from Texas, Kentucky, New Hampshire and all over the place, next to a lot of native South Carolinians.
I also met several people who had never voted before and a lot of folks who never voted in a primary before.
The headquarters was run by folks who were all less than 30 years old. The energy and excitement was always around.
It's the same energy, inspiration and drive that will help us win the presidential election.
It's the kind of coalition of new voters, young voters and experienced voters that will win the presidential election.
The only candidate that brings all of this together is Barack Obama.
In case you're still wondering why I support Barack Obama, I can just use the words Senator Kennedy used today: "Barack inspires me, it's that simple."
And in the words of President John F.Kennedy:
"The world is changing. The old ways will not do... It is time for a new generation of leadership."
On a sidenote:
You'll remember from my previous post that the Belgian media has been interested in my work for the Obama campaign. You can now see an interview online that a reporter from Public TV in Belgium had with me and my lovely wife by clicking on the following URL: http://www.deredactie.be/cm/de.redactie/mediatheek/1.241790
You'll hear a lot of dutch, but big parts of the interview are also in english, so go ahead and have a peek.
I'll be going to Chicago this weekend with a crew from a commercial TV station in Belgium. We will walk around in the neighborhoods where Obama used to work as a community organizer and also visit the national Obama Headquarters. I'll keep you posted as to how that trip goes.
Monday, January 28, 2008
How I (and thousands of others) helped the Obama landslide in SC.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
What am I doing in South Carolina?
As you know by now, I've been spending some of my time as a volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign in South Carolina.
I thought you might be interested in knowing what I'm doing there.
The Obama campaign has several field offices scattered all over South Carolina.
The main Headquarters are of course in Columbia, but I go down to the Rock Hill field office, since that's the closest. It takes me about an hour and 15 minutes to get there. I mainly go down there on the weekends, but I've also managed to squeeze in a few evenings now and then.
The office is always buzzing with activity and the parking lot is filled with cars that have license plates from across the country. A lot of students that are studying in the Charlotte area come to volunteer there.
What I've been doing is making a lot of phone calls. They have a big phone banking operation running and most of the time all phone lines are in use. Volunteers also bring their cell phones and make calls on those.
I've made about 1,000 "voter ID" calls now and the target group I've been working on is African-Americans, who make up about half of the registered Democrats in SC.
What I ask them is if they have made up their mind yet on who they're going to vote for. If they say they will vote for Obama we will make sure they actually go out and vote on election day (January 26th). If they say they are still undecided they will get some literature in the mail and they might even get a house visit to try and persuade them. If they will vote for someone other than Obama we tell them to go vote in February. Just kidding!
We actually just wish those folks a good day and we won't bother them again.
Most of the time people don't answer the phone or they'll let their answering machine pick up. Such is the curse of caller ID.
In about 20% of the time I will actually get to talk someone.
In about half of those cases they say they are going to vote for Obama.
In most other cases they say they are still undecided. The only other candidate that has been mentioned a few times, but not a lot, is Hillary Clinton.
Some of the reasons people give to vote for Hillary are interesting, like these examples: "I really don't like Hillary, but I like the guy she sleeps with" and "I love Obama, but I'm afraid that if I vote for him he will get shot and I don't want to do that to the guy".
I'm fully expecting to be making other calls starting this weekend, more than likely "get out the vote calls" and trying to find volunteers to help out on election day.
I will also be working all day on primary day, January 26th, and I'll let you know how that goes. We will need lots of volunteers on election day, which is next week Saturday, so if you want to see Obama win, don't hesitate and drive down to SC that day! If you really want to make a change you can just drive down with me or contact me and I will get you in touch with a field organizer.
You can click on all pictures to see a bigger version.
One other thing I've been doing regarding the Obama campaign is give interviews to a bunch Of media outlets in Belgium.
As you might know I spent the first 29 years of my life in that country and I guess the Belgian media likes to report on a Belgian connection when talking about the presidential primaries in the US.
So far I've given interviews to the national press agency Belga, Radio Flanders International and a national newspaper called "De Morgen".
You can see some of the result of all that online:
Video report from the National Belgian Press agency BELGA:
http://destandaard.be/video/videoPlayer.aspx?cat=3&subcat=0&videoId=792
Radio interview for RVI (Radio Flanders International):
http://outpost.vrt.be/privemp3/primaries_20080115_122717.htm
Article on the RVI website:
http://www.rvi.be/rvi_master/insite/rvi_insite_thierrywernaers/index.shtml
Mind you, all of it is in dutch, so you probably won't understand it but you might at least get a laugh out of it.
The most exciting stuff for me is yet to come though. This weekend a TV news crew from the Belgian Public Television will be coming to my house for an interview and they'll follow me around as I go to SC to volunteer for the Obama campaign there.
The weekend before "Super Tuesday", which is February 5th, a TV news crew from the biggest commercial TV station in Belgium is flying me to Chicago to go visit the National Obama Headquarters and the suburbs of South Chicago where Barack Obama used to be a social worker and community organizer. I'll try to give you guys a little update from Chicago when I get there.
So that's what's been going on with me. What's been going on with you?
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The heat is on in South Carolina.
Welcome to all Independent Tribune readers!
You might be visiting this blog because you have read an article about me and My support for Barack Obama in the South Carolina primary.
If you feel like you want to get involved as well, please send me an e-mail.
You're more than welcome to join me and some friends as we head down to Rock Hill, SC to help out in the local Obama Headquarters. I plan on riding down there every weekend. There are also opportunities for you to help out on weekdays.
As you know, the North Carolina primary isn't until May, by then the Democratic nominee will have long been decided on. So if you really want to make a difference you need to join me and thousands of other volunteers in South Carolina.
Are you fired up?
Monday, January 7, 2008
Happy birthday Left on 49!
I almost forgot, but this week marks the first anniversary of this blog.
I thought it might be a good occasion to look at some statistics for this website, brought to you by Google Analytics.
In the past year I had 3,839 Absolute Unique Visitors to this very spot. So i guess that means that 3,839 unique individuals were interested in whatever I write on here.
Combined they viewed 16,650 pages. If only I received a dollar for every page they view :-)
There's one person I need to thank for this relative success: My favorite County Commissioner, Coy Privette.
Before the Privette sex scandal broke I had an average of 5 unique visitors per day. When Mr. Privette's shenanigans were made public I all of a sudden had hundreds of visitors each day.
When the Privette scandal disappeared from the attention of the regular media, so did the visits to my website, but it always stayed way above what it was B.P. (Before Privette). For months now I have a pretty consistent average of 30 unique visitors per day.
So thanks Coy, but you can leave now.
I get my visitors from different sources:
40% through search engines (Google, Yahoo)
35% direct visits (people who just type www.lefton49.com in their browser)
25% from referrals (most of this through the blogger.com search, and some of it through statewide and local blogging colleagues)
So remember, you're not weird and you're not the only one reading this stuff :-)
This might also be a good time to remind you that you can get all new posts on here automatically delivered in your e-mail or to your RSS reader, by clicking on the appropriate link in the sidebar on the right side of this website and signing up!
I'm also always interested in hearing from you. Tell me what's on your mind and what you think I should write about. Leave a comment on here, or contact me by e-mail.
And yes, I already know that all liberals will go to hell, so no need to tell me that again ;-)
I'm looking forward to a very exciting and a very busy 2008 election year. Stay tuned!
Friday, January 4, 2008
2007: Back to the future (3)
In the final installment of my look back at 2007 I want to talk about My favorite chubby and extremely obnoxious hobbit: Bruton Smith.
After his generous efforts in providing a place for people who are physically challenged (they can't make a right turn) but still want to drive really fast, this angel of an individual wanted to build a place for racing professionals who have even worse physical challenges (they can't make a car turn at all). The problem was that he felt he needed to build it in people's backyards and that it's just a tad noisy.
Bruton Smith felt that he could do whatever he wanted on his own land, even though there's a whole subdivision of houses right next to it. Now if I started to build let's say a concert stage in my backyard and had some heavy metal bands play there every weekend, I would guess that eventually some people might complain about that, even though it would be on my land. I have a strong feeling that police might even show up and shut me down.
Apparently you can't apply the same rules to Bruton Smith for the simple reason that he's extremely rich and I'm not.
So when Mr. Smith wanted to build a drag racing strip on land he owns next to his Lowe's Motor Speedway, he decided not to tell anyone but just start building it and see if people would notice.
The rest of the story went something like this:
People did notice that Bruton was building something really close to their house and wondered what it was and what Bruton planned to do so close to the peoples houses. The big bad city council was worried too and they told Bruton that he should stop building and answer some of the questions they had first.
This made Bruton very angry and he stomped his feet and got into a big hissy fit.
He got so mad that he threatened to throw all of his toys away and take away a lot of peoples money and jobs.
The big bad city council realized they made a mistake and wondered how they could make it up to Bruton. Bruton said "why don't you all come kiss my rosy behind and give me lots and lots of money and then maybe I won't be angry no more".
And so it happened; the big bad politicians gave Bruton about 80 million golden dubloons and made planes fly around with banners that said "we love you Bruton". Then they named a whole street after him. They asked for forgiveness and probably kissed his behind too.
Bruton was happy again and said that he would keep his toys here forever. Now he can come to play with his toys by driving over the Bruton Smith Boulevard.
Some blogger man thinks that politicians could save some money on letters by calling the street BS Boulevard, but he's just jealous because Bruton got 80 million dubloons to play with and all blogger man got was higher taxes.
And they all lived happily ever after?
Thursday, January 3, 2008
It doesn't get any better than this...
First you wake up and bring a friend to the doctor, a friend who was almost dead 2 months ago after being involved in a hit and run accident, and see him walk again for the first time in 2 months.
Then a delivery truck drops off a new shiny laptop at your front door (ok, maybe that's not that important).
And then you see the guy who you know is the best hope for our future win by a landslide.
Does it get any better than this?
