As you may already know, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Columbus, Ohio in March to help canvass prior to the crucial March 4th primaries. I had decided rather than watch disappointing numbers come in on primary night, I'd rather be there on the ground doing what I could to help Obama get every vote he could. As a mother of four and the sole supporter for a family of six, finances would not allow me to go. However, thanks to the kindness and dedication of several blog members and other local Obama supporters who donated frequent flyer miles and travel money, I was able to spend several days working hard in Ohio. A very kind lady named Joyce in Columbus offered me a place to stay and other kind volunteers helped get me to the SEIU Obama headquarters each day. This was all part of an effort the campaign called the One Million March for Change and the goal was to canvass One Million doors in Ohio over that weekend.
The first day I was there I stayed until 2 a.m. assembling canvassing packets and coded door hangers that listed the polling location for each specific neighborhood. Early the next morning I was back and headed out canvassing with two other Obama supporters. Jim was an older gentleman from Virginia that had driven up to Ohio with his wife. She was a driver which meant she was driving large groups of canvassers to different areas around the city. The other guy was young, a university student originally from Brazil. That weekend Ohio was definitely in the spotlight and news agencies including CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN and many other outlets were on hand to interview and film the campaign's activities. As we walked out the door, a professional camera man asked if he could tag along with us as we canvassed. We agreed and he followed us in his car to a part of town I would learn later was called Victorian Village. Near the University, the houses were old brick Victorian storybook houses. Many had been split up into 5-10 separate apartments to accomodate students.
As we went door-to-door through the ice and snow, we all chatted amongst ourselves. We learned that the photographer's name was Chris and he represented CandidatePhotos.com, a website that posted unique, high-quality photographs from the candidate trail that other news organizations would often purchase for their publications or websites. He said that photos he was taking that day would not be up for a long time as he was so busy going from town to town covering the Clinton, McCain and Obama campaigns.
After an hour or two of shooting photos with us, he went off to take photos at another event in town and we finished up our assigned doors and headed back to headquarters. The three of us canvassers went our separate ways and I found two new people go back out canvassing with. I never really thought about the candidate photos guy again - until today. I was reflecting on the campaign and remembering my Ohio trip and thought, "Oh yeah, I should see if the site has any photos of us canvassing in Columbus. I went to www.candidatephotos.com and did a search for Ohio and lo and behold! I found three photos taken of us canvassing:
Canvassing in Ohio 1
Canvassing in Ohio 2
Canvassing in Ohio 3
Seeing these photos brought all the excitement back in a profound way. As the primary campaign draws to a close, it's amazing to think about all the people I have met and all the places I've traveled and experiences I've gotten that I wouldn't have had were it not for this campaign.
Thanks to all of you for your hard work and dedication and for being such a great community of hope and inspiration!
Kerry
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