Volunteering for Obama for America: Some General Impressions

On Thursday afternoon I took the CTA to the Obama for America headquarters in downtown Chicago. Interestingly, my bus ride to the green line EL took me past the block on which Obama's house is located. It now has very visible police protection and in fact the entire block was cordoned off to traffic. I wonder if it's going to be like that for the remaining 2 months/4 years, or only when he's at home. No doubt there were a lot of tourists driving by out of curiosity (I admit I was one once when we had some interested visitors over). A co-worker of mine said he'd been walking by Obama's property a while ago and got a good glimpse of it, and found that the bit of land that Obama bought from controversial Tony Rezko was actually a thin strip of land beside the house that basically just widened his plot. He said that anyone looking at it would think that it made perfect sense to buy it, as it creates some distance between one wall of the house and the boundary line that separates his plot from Rezko's.

Back to my afternoon at the Obama for America office (which by the way, is just off the CLINTON stop on the green line... just left of Clinton, if you will): it's a basement office that is much, much less fancy than I expected. Your $5 donation isn't being wasted on rent, let me assure you. It was just BUZZING with activity, with a constant, steady stream of volunteers coming in. (They have a fantastic multi-tasker of a receptionist there). On their website, they have you sign up for the time slot during which you'd like to work (which I did) but really, you're allowed to come in whenever you want and stay for as long as you'd like without signing up at all. Without saying anything too specific, let me just tell you that the work I did was easy. It was structured but didn't require training.

I was expecting the majority of the volunteers there to be under 30, but that wasn't the case at all. Every demographic I can think of was well-represented in the time that I was there. Given that there was a constant flux of people coming and going according to their own schedules, every time I'd look up I'd see a whole bunch of new faces around me, completely different from the last time I looked around. A totally motley crew. After the first two hours there though, I started to feel that perhaps the one group that was kind of over-represented was the hard-of-hearing over-seventy white female population! Amusing and kind of endearing, actually. It was also a pleasant surprise to find that the whole show is being run by my old immigration colleague, Scott S., who gave up immigration work last October to be hired full-time by Obama.

There are actually things you can do to get involved with or without going to your local office, wherever you are in the US. If you want to find your local office though, call 1.866.675.2008. I'll probably make this a regular thing because I have the time now so if you'd like to join me here in Chicago, let me know... it would be fun to do this with friends! The office address is 566 W. Lake St. (Lake & Jefferson), and they're open M-Sat 9am-9-pm, Sun 12 noon-7pm.

Therapy for Obama Supporters

Has this week been one of mild anxiety for you, as it has been for me? Have you been wondering why the Obama campaign has been doing NOTHING to counter the Sarah Palin phantasmagoria, and thinking that each ticking minute is a minute towards certain loss on November 4? Well, relax. My friend Fuz, from Dubai, sent me this bit of good cheer from the New York Times' OpEd section. There's a couple of things that the writer, Gail Collins, says that I find comforting. One, that the Obama campaign is indeed doing things, but in the swing states, not in states like Illinois where we are considered to have voted already. And the second thing I find mysteriously comforting is her observation that both sides are convinced they are going to lose. Oh, good.

If that wasn't enough therapy for you, try some Deepak Chopra. I'm kidding! Actually, no, I'm not. As irritating and as cringe-worthy as the man is, he's also apparently capable of some surprises; here's his take on Obama and the Palin effect. Voila! The healing power of Deepak Chopra!

Volunteering for the Obama Campaign

Today should be interesting. I've been looking forward to it for days. It's the first day that I'll be going to the Obama HQ in downtown Chicago to volunteer. It will just be a few hours for starters. I'm actually not supposed to blog about it so I'll be sure to find out today exactly what I can share (general impressions?) and what I should not.

It's 8:31 am Chicago time; we're an hour behind NYC. Seven years ago almost to the moment, I went to drop off my dry-cleaning before catching the bus to work, and the dry-cleaner asked me if I'd heard the news that a plane flew into the WTC. I remember so vividly that bus ride up Lake Shore Drive. It was an impossibly clear day, with the sky bluer than I'd seen it in a long while, and the greens of the trees brighter than ever. Well... it's hard to believe that it was seven years ago that our lives were turned upside down. And it's harder to believe that all of what happened that day has gone unanswered.

Neck and Neck

The current Gallup Polls show Senator McCain with a 5-point lead over Senator Obama in the presidential race. I only discovered the Gallup polls website yesterday and have been quite enamored with how they present all sorts of breakdowns such as Candidate Support by Age, Candidate Support by Gender, Candidate Support by Education, and a whole bunch of other interesting variables.

So why the 5% lead? Post-convention "bounce?" In trying to understand this, I found a very good election analysis website, the Princeton Election Consortium. Apparently Gallup polls aren't the be-all and end-all of polls (the reason for this has to do with using median-based statistics which, according to PEC, anyone who attended 7th grade in Canada should be able to explain to you). The Princeton Election Consortium did an analysis today of five different polling sources and found that McCain and Obama are neck and neck as of today. If you like statistics, PEC's website will be a total love fest for you.

The bigger question is, why are they neck and neck?? One candidate may be leading over the other in the case of certain demographics, but overall, they've been neck and neck for a while now. If anyone has any insights, please click on 'comments' below and share them.

Jon Stewart on Sarah Palin

Are you sick of the dominance of spin doctors and windbags on the news channels here in the US? One of the reasons I watch Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central (apart from the fact that my husband seems to switch on the TV at precisely 9:59pm every night to tune in to that show before I can have any say in the matter) is because Jon Stewart is the only person who actually calls these people on their hypocrisy. This video is a week old but worth a watch:



Thanks, Renu, for sending this to me! And you didn't even know I'd just started a blog!

"Community organizer? ...What's THAT?"

asked Rudy Giuliani in his Republican National Convention speech last week, thereby deriding Barack Obama and anyone else for that matter who has ever organized a grass-roots community movement, or ever even done any volunteer work for a cause. (This snarky tone was not just present in Giuliani's speech but in a number of other speeches at the RNC too, most notably in Sarah Palin's speech. As I said earlier, attack is their only recourse for this election). Republicans should feel disparaged by Giuliani's comment too; volunteering one's time, energy and/or other resources to a deeply-felt cause, be it the issue of domestic violence, of poverty and hunger, of literacy and education, or even a political cause isn't the domain of any one group of people.

Giuliani got to the point a little later: "[Barack Obama has] never had to lead people in crisis. This is not a personal attack....it's a statement of fact - Barack Obama has never led anything."

Oh, yeah?

I could make many arguments against that, but the most obvious one that comes to mind is that this entire campaign is in fact an example of Obama leading people in crisis. Not just Americans, but the entire world. We've all been watching the last 7 1/2 years in horror and despair as Bush turned the US into a neo-imperialist power, attacking and occupying a sovereign country for absolutely no reason and for no gain (except perhaps for contractors like Halliburton), taking us from $0 in deficits to $4 trillion in deficits, and burdening us with a recession. I've been working in higher education for 20 years now, and my current job involves talking to high school students from every part of the country about their lives, their passions, and their futures. One thing that I have been utterly struck by is how politically engaged today's 17- and 18-year-olds are in comparision to students of past years. The vast majority by a long shot are those who have figured out for themselves that there's something very wrong with the trajectory we're on, and who have found Obama's ideals and his proposed plans to be their hope. Why do you think they're volunteering for Obama's campaign in record numbers and making this such a historic campaign? If you want to see community organizing at its most impressive, visit http://www.barackobama.com and look around. Do a little web surfing. JFK's daughter, Caroline Kennedy said at the DNC in her endorsement of Obama that she would often hear people say that her father was such an inspiration to them and to their generation, and that she always wished there was someone who would inspire her the same way. Now finally, she said, someone does.

You don't have to be 17 to get involved. Or even 26. Or in your 30's for that matter. If you're 42 like me and are interested in getting involved, and wish to not kick yourself for having done nothing if/when McCain wins in November, then HERE is where you click to explore your options. Also, if you're a U.S. citizen (either here or abroad) and aren't sure if you're registered to vote, or aren't sure where your polling place is, HERE is where you click to find out.

Hyde Park, "that elite enclave"?!

So after starting this blog yesterday, I did a vanity google search. Of course this new-kid-on-the-block blog of mine didn't show up but what did show up were a number of anti-Obama blogs that mentioned Hyde Park. One characterized it, bizarrely, as "that elite millionaire enclave." What?? Not only has this critic never been to Hyde Park, he's clearly never been to Chicago or even talked to anyone from Chicago. Another one described it as a liberal elite neighborhood, home to the University of Chicago.

One of the reasons my husband and I moved to Hyde Park twelve years ago is because it is not just diverse in the ethnic sense, but also in the socioeconomic sense. I've been saying to friends for years that we not only have neighbors who are African American, Asian, Latino, White, etc. in proportions that are unmatched by any other urban neighborhood in the country, but that it is also the only neighborhood I know of where you can buy a home for less than $100K or one for a million. Taking a look at this week's Hyde Park Herald, I see properties for sale that range from $92,900 (a 2BR co-op apt) to $1,300,000 (a Georgian mansion)... and everything in between. The median home price is $240,000. That's a pretty diverse price range, especially considering that Hyde Park is small: roughly ten blocks by ten blocks.

As for the liberal elite criticism, of course we have liberal thinkers here. That's what keeps the place a cultural gem. But let's not forget where Reaganomics all began: the University of Chicago's Dept. of Economics. Remember Milton Friedman? Where would Republicans be if not for the conservatism that has arisen, and continues to arise, from that department? Yes, Hyde Park has its Nobel Prize-winning "elite" here, the ones who dreamed up "trickle-down economics" by cutting taxes for the rich. Here's a very interesting Wall St. Journal article by an ex-resident of Hyde Park that sheds light on these completely nonfactual criticisms of Obama and his home base. Worth a read.

A brief word about the conventions

My favorite speech during the Democratic National Convention in Denver was Bill Clinton's speech. It did what it was supposed to do: endorse Barack Obama. It also reminded me, after 7 1/2 long years, of what it's like not to have to cringe and change the channel when a president comes on. Hillary Clinton's speech the night before was not so much about Obama. She seemed to still be campaigning for herself. And Obama's speech was powerful (although as someone who has been following his career for the last 4 years, it was hard for me to tell whether it introduced him properly to the country. It probably did -- look at the numbers) . I noticed immediately though that he did not mention Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by name but only made a reference to "a preacher" who had delivered a speech 45 years ago to the day. It's harder to be the 'black' candidate than it is to be the 'woman' candidate here.

The moment John McCain announced that Sarah Palin was to be his running mate, I turned to my husband and said, "Oh shit. We're screwed." A moment later, I shrugged and thought, "Well, you've got to hand it to him for his stategery" (as his friend Bush might call it). Well, my thoughts about it changed over the course of the next few days as it became clear who Palin was. I was, of course, outraged that he would bring in this extreme right-wing woman and think that this was going to fulfill anyone's need to have a woman in the top ranks. As I heard someone say, "Hillary did not create 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling to have someone unqualified like this go through it." I'm more confident now than I was before that the women who supported Hillary but weren't sure about supporting Obama would not, in their right minds, think that Sarah Palin was a worthwhile replacement for Hillary. She's anti-reproductive choice, a creationist, anti-gun control, confesses that she hadn't really thought much about the Iraq issue... need I go on? No surprise that the Republicans in hoisting up a woman in the wake of Hillary's departure have failed to understand even the first criterion of affirmative action: equal merit. Only in America would Caribou Barbie, as my friend Michel calls her, be nominated as as a serious vice-presidential candidate. The fact that McCain is our oldest-ever presidential candidate and would therefore need a VP who could step in for him, makes Palin all the more an irresponsible choice on his part. But you know what? It works for them. Palin is the extremist that makes the Republican support base more accepting of McCain. She's the female version of Bush: an inexperienced, and therefore ideal, puppet-in-the-making of the Republican machine. She can deliver a good speech, as proven this past week and play the attack dog (which is, as the strategists themselves admit, the Republicans' only recourse this year). But if anyone believes that Sarah Palin wrote that speech, then they deserve her as their Vice-President.