Organizing for America | Prosy Delacruz's Blog: It is a New America!

It is a New America!

By Prosy - Nov 11th, 2008 at 1:21 am EST

Also listed in: 8 groups

Comments | Mail to a Friend | Report Objectionable Content

It is a New America!

The most formidable glass ceiling in America’s political landscape was shattered into 68,500,000 pieces on Nov. 4, 2008. America spoke resoundingly in the ballot box, a landslide victory for African-American President-elect Barack Obama.

Europe celebrated, his Indonesian schoolmates cheered, his vegetarian relatives in Kenya slaughtered goats and cows for the Obama clan to feast on, recognizing that through two generations, a transformation has occurred, from sharecropping in Kenya, to now the presidency of USA.   Jubilant residents in Obama, Japan, Australia, Europe joined with other countries in Asia to rejoice at his victory, with major newspapers of the world headlining his victory:

29 states went for Obama, 9 formerly red states for Bush in 2004 are now blue, leaving 21 states for McCain. 365 electoral college votes for Obama with 162 for McCain.

The landslide was due to 97% of Blacks, 70% of Latinos, 70% of single women, 62% of Asians, 43% of Whites, 24 million young voters of all races, the poor and the very rich voted for Obama.   Even in one of the confederate states, a banner flew “ Rednecks for Obama: Even We Had Enough! “

At the precinct where I was a pollworker, at 545 am, the line started. By 7am, the line snaked around the block and quickly had 50 voters in line. By the time the polls opened, with only four showing up out of 9 assigned, significantly understaffed, the voters steadily streamed in non-stop until 230pm.

At 8pm, all precincts closed in Los Angeles County, and by then, 82% of the registered voters reportedly had cast their votes. It was an unprecedented turnout and the last time that voters came out in such high percentage was in 1960: John F. Kennedy garnered 303 electoral votes, carried 22 states and got 34, 000,000 votes.

The Paradigm Shift has Occurred.

With Obama’s election exceeding even John F. Kennedy’s electoral and popular votes, the shift in America’s standing in the world has already occurred. Yes, it is a new day.   And just how did this seismic shift in American politics occur?

120 million Americans came out to cast their vote, as if their lives depended on it. One disabled citizen in our precinct took almost two hours on his wheelchair to vote, listening to the audio tapes, then, marking his ballot. It was a tedious process for him, yet he persisted, and when he dropped his ballot finally into the card read machine, we, the pollworkers, all exhaled a gasp and for each virgin voter, we clapped and handed them a doughnut. Another nurse from a nearby hospital dropped off 15 provisional ballots which took her almost three hours to guide the hospital patients in completing the ballots. Everyone wanted to be part of history!

And for six year old Andres, he drew his Thanksgiving turkey with Obama’s face on it, and shared with his parents that he is thankful for a new president for all of America, Barack Obama. He was watching several programs with his parents and became an ardent fan of Obama, and during their mock elections, Obama won resoundingly amongst first graders in his elementary school located in Culver City.

“A 20-year study of subnational governments in various regions of Italy by Harvard Professor Robert D. Putnam found that "the quality of governance was determined by longstanding traditions of civic engagement (or its absence)." The study observed that voter turnout, newspaper readership, and membership in social organizations were indicators of a successful region. Social capital provides for a better quality of life in a community. When these networks form in communities, the level of trust and reciprocity among the citizens increases and opportunism is decreased (Putnam)”.

Social and Financial Capitals, Twin Assets of the Obama campaign.

3,000,000 volunteers contributed to the Obama’s campaign, raising close to three quarters of a billion dollars. In September, students sent in $10, retired folks sent in $20, and millions of folks were energized through the mybarackobama.com website.

In September 2008 alone, $150 million was raised, 70% generated online. By November 2008, the campaign raised close to $750 billion dollars, a formidable financial capital never seen before.

It is a campaign which also generated social capital from the hard work done by the volunteers, and generating their enthusiasms using the online events.   The campaign then mobilized these excited volunteers to contribute to the maximum, $2300 per person for the Obama campaign, and if exceeded, $2300 for the Democratic Party.

1,053,791 calls were made on election day alone to get out the vote. “Individuals in all 50 states created more than 35,000 local organizing groups, hosted over 200,000 events, and made millions upon millions of calls to neighbors about this campaign. “
( Source: Chris Hughes, Mybarackobama.com, Nov. 7, 2008 ).

I myself hosted over 50 events, I reached out to thousands of voters and supporters through my created events, and I attended other events that caught my attention.

Throughout the year, in these events for Barack, I met social workers, artists, business owners, retired folks, students, teachers, scientists, engineers, mediators, performing artists, chefs, housewives, therapists, authors, judicial assistants, bakers, handyman, philosophers and even scriptwriters.

I got more excited as the movement grew. In one event, Miracle Milers Walking for Obama, we walked around the park, and a County Board of Supervisors candidate even joined us.   The event attracted 65 folks. At the end of two hours, we felt bonded as a group and proceeded to organize more events as the year move on.

In World Café Conversations’ Obama event, even the drizzle could not stop the volunteers. They reminded me that this is so important to be postponed. We braved some rain until it stopped. The result: it was the best synergy I experienced and Christy from San Diego shared “her soul was looking for a positive space for engagement and found one. “

Faith compels landslide victory

I predicted Obama’s landslide victory back in June, and created an event requesting folks to pray for Obama and light candles on a website I found http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng. 138 Obama supporters joined me.

We had prayer circles which regularly prayed for him and his family’s safety, protection and of course divine guidance, a prayer baton that consistently kept vigil during key periods of the election: the nomination, the debates, the election day. 326 folks joined me all around the United States to pray for Senator Ted Kennedy’s recovery.   And others joined me to pray for Madelyn Dunham, Barack Obama’s hardworking grandmother.

Early September 2008, I forecasted a landslide victory for now President-Elect Barack Obama. It was not chutzpah, it was a case of connecting the dots, and experiencing non-stop accumulation of enthusiasm from folks on the ground, including phonebanking to: Texas, Oregon, Nevada and Missouri.

Still, the events continued, attracting folks even up to election day to volunteer for Filipinos in Obama, with 117 members, the group hosted 192 events, attended 2,697, wrote 4,470 blog posts and raised $31,381.01 as of today, Nov. 8, 2008.

And to quote Carol Kimbrough: "Pragmatism is action guided by what works, without strategy or ideology. It may win key battles but in the long run, it is still reactive. Obama won because he and the leaders of this movement knew what was at stake, analyzed and executed a plan to win the hearts and minds of the American public. They learned from the examples of the civil rights movement and built upon those lessons using current day technology. That is not pragmatism, that is hard core materialism. It was still very much a grassroots effort."

Days after the election, we celebrated. We have done our work. We saw that we are the change we have been waiting for.

And we came to realize too that the most important position in America is not the presidency, but that of a Joe Citizen or Mary Citizen casting her vote. And making it count to effect the change we need! Lola, my neighbor said it best “ Now I am again a proud American, a patriot who believes in peace. They stole our patriotism by making us go to war.”

And the Obama signs in my street, all seven of them are still proudly on display, not to be taken down until 2009 inauguration.

Where do we go from here?

We have flexed our muscles. 100 students and young families were mobilized for two weekends to go to Las Vegas the last two weeks in October. Their ground efforts, along with other volunteers paid off, the state turned blue. In fact, 9 states previously red are now blue. And each day, the electoral votes are growing. And our celebration. photos are enclosed. And the best part of this campaign, is that we have come to love our strangers/citizens as now our friends. Thank you President Elect Barack Obama, you gave us plenty of opportunities to become active, engaged citizens , caring for its democracy to be real and working for majority of our citizens.

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.