Shazam.
He promised us if we all worked everyday to spread his message of Hope, that Change would come to this country. He was right.
My experience with this campaign, the Primary and General Election GOTV staging areas, and Election Day 2008 are forever with me.
I arrived at 4:45am to our staging area on Election Day. I was exhausted, excited, and yet ready to go. It had come down to the final few hours, and our country was about to elect its next leader.
Upon my arrival, my field organizer pulled me aside and asked me if I would be willing to be a jumper rather than a driver for the pre-dawn canvassing. She explained to me that there was a woman named Helen who was in her eighties and wanted to help distribute door hangers but only wanted to drive. I of course agreed and thought it was sweet and admirable she wanted to be a part of our movement.
Helen and I loaded up our materials, grabbed our turfs, checked our flashlights to make sure they were in working order, and wished the other teams good luck. Team Obama was ready to roll.
Helen had a lead foot. I could have lived with that, but she also drove down the middle of the road. The punch line here is that even while sitting on a cat-print rocking chair cushion, Helen could barely see over the steering wheel.
So there we were, driving in the dark at light speed, in the middle of a windy back road, when suddenly I saw a family of raccoons ahead. I knew instantly it was not going to end well.
Sure enough, Helen never slowed down, not even a little, and we hit the biggest raccoon head on. I think some of the smaller ones went flying off the road as well. The sounds of the hit and the squealing were more that I could process at 5:10am. I could feel the pumpkin spice coffee start to come up into the back of my throat.
"What was that?", Helen asked me.
"You.... killed a raccoon. I think it was a mother. We sent some smaller ones airborne as well." I replied.
"Oh. What is the name of the first road we are looking for?"
I managed to stay in the car with her for an hour and get one of our turfs done. We drove on sidewalks and knocked over garbage cans- at least I hope they were garbage cans. I even received a goose-egg on my forehead when I leaned forward to get paperwork off of the floor....just as Helen decided to slam on the brakes. No kidding.
Finally- when I could take it no longer, I told her that we were going back to HQ and re-grouping. She wasn't pleased with my decision, but she complied.
I shared the experience with my field organizer and told her that I needed some time alone. I asked her to give me my own turf, explained I would canvass that area, go cast my vote at the polling station, and then return to pick up my team for the afternoon/evening canvassing.
The rest of the day went well, and I canvassed until 6:45pm before going back to our staging area, turning in the paperwork, and saying goodbye to everyone. I was toast. Burned toast.
I decided to go back to my house and watch the returns from my living room. My inbox was filled with supportive emails from friends, and my cell phone was ringing with calls wondering how I was doing. My friends are fabulous.
I will never forget when ABC News reported "Obama has taken New Hampshire." The tears started flowing down my cheeks and did so intermittently for the next 24 hours. I went to bed that night knowing that we had won New Hampshire and the country. I cried myself to sleep with tears of joy and hope.
The following day I received a congratulatory email from Kone' in West Africa. He wrote, "All my congratulations for the work you have done in New Hampshire for the victory of Barack Obama."
He had watched the returns at the U.S. Embassy in Cote d' Ivoire, and wrote of the feelings there- "The joy was captured everything beautiful...the emotion was strong."
There was indeed dancing in the streets on November 4, 2008. Not only in Illinois, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, California, Florida, and New York, but all around the world.
The Change that has arrived is for all of us~
