Organizing for America | Pamela Hayes's Blog: My Day as an Obama Volunteer 5: You want me to do what??

My Day as an Obama Volunteer 5: You want me to do what??

By Pam Hayes - Nov 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm EST

Comments | Mail to a Friend | Report Objectionable Content

My canvassing buddy Donald and I returned to the Inskster, MI Obama campaign headquarters exhausted after canvassing Wayne, MI nearly all day. It was almost 6 p.m., and with the exception of sitting down to eat lunch and sitting on a curb as we waited for our ride, we had been on our feet since noon. I began rubbing my eyes as I felt the exhaustion deep in my bones. I was hungry, and wanted a hot meal, and hoped for a beer.

As we entered the headquarters, our fearless leader Adam, who apparently had boundless energy, told us he wanted us to go back out for a last ditch push to get out the vote in a low turnout area. I looked at him as if he were insane. Didn’t he know how tired we were? I could not believe my ears! I walked right past him to find some food.

There was a table full of sandwiches makings. White bread, highly processed lunchmeat, iceberg lettuce, mayonnaise, yellow mustard, and pickles were laid out on a large round table. Most of the people sitting around were Inkster people. Although I normally do not each such food, I made myself a sandwich and ate it voraciously. I normally stick to locally baked whole wheat bread and avoid processed meat and iceberg lettuce. I was in no position to be fussy, however!

The cheap white bread stuck to the roof of my mouth. My tongue worked desperately to clear the bread away. Magically, I began to feel my energy return. Now, I was ready to heed Adam’s call to hit the streets once again. I could not believe how quickly my body had recovered! I returned to the front room where volunteers were gathering.

Adam and another organizer, Michelle, were trying to break us into groups. This time around, however, things were more chaotic. A new group of canvassers straggled in. When Adam told them he wanted them to go out one last time, their faces showed much the same disbelief I had felt earlier. I urged them to grab a sandwich, promising that their energy would return after they had had some food. They headed to the sandwich table. I hoped they would experience the same return of energy I had felt.

Those of us still in the front room attempted to organize ourselves. I looked around me to see how many men were in my group. There was a tall, willowy, academic-looking white man my age, and an older man, possibly in his late 60’s. I thought to myself that we had better get some stronger tougher-looking men in our group, and that we definitely needed some black folks! If we were going to go into a housing project, we needed to have some people that looked like the people we would be nagging.

Can you imagine being black and living in an all-black neighborhood, and having a bunch of timid-looking white folks show up at your door after dark? You would have to wonder what those people were doing knocking at your door, and how the hell they had even found your neighborhood!

Fortunately, of the folks that had just come in, a stout black woman, a slight young black man, and a white teenager joined us. The teenager spoke almost like the black folks, except that his speech was difficult to understand. They were all from the Inkster area. Before we left, Adam admonished us in a stern voice to “be careful”. This time, we would be going door to door in larger groups -- at least three people per group.

Michelle, an organizer, was in charge of the three groups. It took awhile to determine who among each group had cars. Five of us piled into Michelle’s small white sedan. We had to shift a bunch of junk around to fit into the back seat. All three cars headed for the same area – the LeMoyne housing project, near Demby Park. Fortunately, Michelle and the young black man knew where we were going.

When we arrived, we spilled out of Michelle’s car and joined the people from the other two cars. Michelle had some maps. Back at the headquarters, we had received little flashlights, which we shined onto a map in order to plan where each group would canvass. There was some confusion at the beginning, but I thought we figured things out.

My group, which comprised me, an acquaintance named Becky, the white teenager, one of the stout black women, and the tall white man my age, was to cover the short “circle” streets off of Andover. It seemed simple enough. Our large and merry group trooped off to the first circle and began rapping on doors. The stout woman became our group’s voice and face. She was both fearless and buoyant. At each house, she asked the resident whether everyone had voted, and whether anyone needed a ride.

Some people were very slow to answer the door. A few peeked through their curtains before opening the door. More often than not, the man of the house answered. People seemed a bit puzzled to see us, but everyone had voted (or at least, said they had voted). Michelle later told us that her experience of the evening told her that people were being honest when they said they had voted.

Soon, however, we ran into one of the other groups. They thought that they were supposed to cover our territory. Afterwards, there was much confusion. I thought we had resolved which group was to cover which territory, but we kept knocking on doors that had already been visited. I feel as if we were wasting our time. Everyone had either voted, was not home, or was not answering their door, and we were pestering some of the same people twice.

Nevertheless, we were on a mission, so we carried on. All of the houses seemed to belong to working families. I felt as if I would have been in no danger, even if I had been alone. I learned a bit more about the white teenager. He had gotten in trouble with the law and did not want to go back to school. He was required to take a drug test, but did not want to. If he did not, he would be sent to “juvie” (juvenile detention). He currently lived with his auntie. When he told me she was good to him, I advised him to take the drug test and stay with his auntie – that juvie would change him.

Finally, it was 7:45 p.m. The polls would close in 15 minutes. There seemed to be no reason to continue, so we returned to the drop-off point. On the way back to the headquarters, we learned that our organizer, Michelle, was originally from Wisconsin. She had moved to New York City, where she had been hired to work on the Obama campaign. She had been sent to one of the Southern states that had been strongly enough anti-Obama that the campaign had pulled out and sent her to another state. Finally, she had been sent to Michigan, where she had set up the Inkster headquarters and begun organizing. She had been operating on little sleep and small pay, yet she was still enthusiastic and energetic.

Back at the headquarters, we would finally reap the rewards of our hard work.

Reader Comments	Comments RSS
Comments are closed for this post.

No comments have been written yet.

Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.