An enduring story in our campaign is the ability of Barack's supporters to organize themselves even in the absence of formal support from the campaign. Such is the power of Barack's message: our supporters, even in states where most observers would deny the lack of a Democratic presence, have created networks that will long outlast this election.
Leanne owns a small business with her father in Hoover, Alabama. They've been hit hard by the rising cost of health care.
My dad pays for insurance for everybody in the company, and eight years ago it was something like $250 per family. Now it's $820 per family. And becuase of that, we're not able to pay for insurance for all our employees anymore.
She and her parents have been Republicans their entire life - her father for all of his 62 years, until now. Healthcare and the other issues facing our country have changed that. This year, they're working to help elect Senator Obama. So far, Leanne and her parents have hosting what they estimate to be between 20 and 25 events.
We had our first house party in March of last year. We had like 12 people come, and a lot of those people are still working on the campaign. We don't have any staff here -- it's all up to us to do it. We have a really close-knit group now.
Although they haven't been doing as much organizing during the doldrum months of summer, they're looking forward to Thursday night as a chance to re-energize their network of fellow supporters.
We used to get together and have watch parties for all of the primaries. We haven't gotten to do that in a long time, so we thought this was a great chance to reconvene everyone and talk about voter registration drives and what we're going to be doing next. Everyone is scared at first to go out and register voters, but we've found that if you walk people through how to do it, they can be really enthusiastic and have a great time.
Even though she has an established group of fellow supporters that she works with, Leanne is looking forward to meeting new people she doesn't know who signed up for the watch party on My.BarackObama.com andhelping them to get more involved. Almost half of the supporters at her watch party on Thursday will be new faces. She's also looking forward to the week-long registration drive they'll be promoting at the party.
Barack's speech on Thursday night is going to go down in history. Join a group of fellow supporters to watch the speech, and get involved in the campaign effort. Thursday night is all about organizing our communities to bring about the change that we need. It's easy - just type in your zip code, and sign up to attend a nearby event.
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