Organizing for America | Blog of "lionanimal" in zip code 98118: Camp Obama described in Chicago Tribune news article May 28, 2007.

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Camp Obama described in Chicago Tribune news article May 28, 2007.

By lionanimal - May 28th, 2007 at 12:17 pm EDT

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Camp Obama has graduated their first class of interns. Camp Obama sounds great!

Camp Obama described in Chicago Tribune newstory May 28, 2007
Link helps Obama team hit trailVolunteers learn campaign techniques

By John McCormick
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 28, 2007

Jerry Saavedra played the role of an Iowa farmer, while Trakia Thomas was cast as a volunteer for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid.

They sat facing about 50 people -- mostly college students -- and pretended to have the sort of conversation that will play out thousands of times in Iowa living rooms and coffee shops

Saavedra, 25, talked about the need for affordable health care and his desire to see more corn turned into ethanol. Thomas, 27, primarily listened and plugged Obama's Web site, just as she had been instructed.

Welcome to Camp Obama, where community-organizing techniques have replaced basket weaving, campaign strategy has been substituted for swim lessons and a corn-based fuel additive popular in Iowa beats out roasted marshmallows.

The camp's first graduates were honored last week after spending four days on the 10th floor of a high rise near the Sears Tower. Many of these newly trained Obama evangelists will be sent to such places as Iowa and New Hampshire.

While campaigns have long welcomed volunteers, Obama's is emphasizing training at unprecedented levels.

"You don't want to just show up as someone from Illinois and tell them what to think in Iowa," Jocelyn Woodards, director of Camp Obama, told studen ts.

That was a mistake made by Democratic presidential flame-out Howard Dean. In January 2004, Dean's campaign was distracted by 3,500 well-meaning but barely trained outsiders who descended on Iowa. Their arrival gained media attention, but Dean finished third.

"We are trying to learn from the success and failures of past campaigns," said Jon Carson, Obama's Illinois state director and the former campaign manager for Tammy Duckworth's failed 2006 congressional bid in suburban Chicago.

Carson, who worked for Al Gore in Iowa in 2000, knows that it takes a special understanding to be effective in a state where rural issues often dominate. One student struggled just to pronounce "Iowans."

The four-day program is expected to continue with different volunteers each week for four to five weeks. A two-day session is in the works.

The future interns and volunteers, all 18 or older, are learning about election rules, volunteer recruitment and fundraising. There are even tips on how to work a phone bank: "Smile -- they can tell," reads a manual.

The campers are given homework some nights. One recent evening they were told to read a New Republic profile of Obama.

Hannah Polikov, 23, a Duke University law student, attended the camp's inaugural week. She has an internship at a Boston law office this summer but still plans to spend five to 10 hours a week helping Obama's efforts in New Hampshire.

"I really want him to win," said Polikov, who has yet to even see Obama in person. "I've been frustrated by the administration the last eight years and I see him as an agent for change."

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