November 9, 2008
I still have sore knuckles.A few days have passed since we left the street fight in Philadelphia and polls closed across the country.About week ago we arrived in this cradle of American democracy, where Independence Hall still stands – but really, it seems like it was a lifetime ago. It was. We arrived with hope and left with even greater hope. We arrived with Candidate Senator Barack Obama and left with President-Elect Barack Obama.We arrived in Philadelphia in one era and returned to New Haven in another.And in between those eras, I knocked on doors – nearly 200 households three or four times each, and returned with sore knuckles.Sore knuckles – an appropriate metaphor for this version of fighting. Valarie, Tafari, Tanya, Jess, joined me and thousands more as foot soldiers in the Hope Revolution. Our voices and words were our swords. Enthusiasm and fearlessness was our armor.I wish an invisible camera crew was following us around so you all could see it unfold on the ground as we did. Our time in Philadelphia was so thorough and rich that no amount of explanation, no matter how vivid, will do the experience justice. So I will try to describe it through snapshots and images and stories.We drove three hours from Connecticut on Saturday afternoon to Pennsylvania, plugged into the campaign and they placed us in Northeast Philadelphia. We navigated through the old city to our Obama field office and saw dozens of people at street corners holding signs that read "McCain-Palin," "Country First" and "Another Democrat for John McCain."The New York Times wrote a story that weekend describing Northeast Philadelphia as John McCain's best chance to win Pennsylvania; if he got a big enough margin to offset the rest of the city, he could win the state.Their campaign was counting on sewing the seeds of racial division – union-working Whites who wouldn't vote for a Black candidate. Tactics of another era. Two houses shared one lawn around the corner from the Obama field office – one side of the lawn screamed "McCain: Country First" and the other "Obama-Biden. "We were in the teeth of the storm.GROUND GAMEAt our request – by that I mean Valarie's insistence – the campaign gave us of a section of Northeast Philly. We were responsible for Ward 35, Divisions 29 and 30 – Roosevelt, F, Smylie, Montour, Mayfair, Adams, Tabor and Garland streets – and we set out to do what we did in Santa Monica, California and Pflugerville, Texas. Our job was simple: Get every single Obama supporter in Ward 35 out to the polls.The neighborhood is mostly lower income African-American, with some Latino, East Asian, and White voters. From afar, the neighborhood blocks looked as if each contained a single gigantic, two-floor house that spanned the entire block. But up close they were dozens of individual homes linked to each other, sharing tiny yards and front patios.All were humble, built around WWII, and a few were in bad shape or boarded up. But most exuded the pride and love of American homes across the country. It warmed my heart to see the individual nuances of each place – a wind-chime, an ornate knocker on an otherwise rickety door, Philadelphia Phillies 2008 World Champions signs. Children tossing a football around in the streets.The neighborhood was full of life. But not full of working doorbells, to the dismay of my poor right hand.In the days we pounded the pavement and banged on doors in Ward 35, we got to know individual homes and faces and stories. I asked people if they're still planning on voting for Senator Obama. Most of the time I got the response, "Of course I am!" Meaning: "I can't believe you're asking me that question – what are you, stupid?"A young Black man, probably my age, said to me, "I can't wait to get out and vote!" (Some version of this was repeated again and again – the excitement to vote was amazing.)A 22-year-old woman asked me what she should do on Election Day, she had never voted before. She was afraid of the unknown, but excited to participate. I walked her through the process, tried to demystify it, and assured her I would be there on Tuesday to help if she needed it.A Puerto Rican family was standing outside when I asked if they're still supporting Obama. The father, wearing Phillies gear and displaying visible tattoos, was very excited, telling me his entire family is voting for Obama. He introduced me to his wife and voting-age daughter, telling me he had just earned his citizenship and it was his first election. And although he didn't get his voter registration card in the mail, he was going to vote no matter what.The convenient store owner, an Indian-American from Kerala, made me a fresh pot of coffee Monday morning and told me was voting Obama, that we need a change.A middle-aged Black man with white specks on his temples lifted groceries from his car up the steps to his home on Roosevelt – a traffic heavy tree-lined thoroughfare with small condo-like homes. He said, yeah of course he's voting Obama. Then he looked at me and said, "You better make sure all these (expletive deleted) come out to vote!" He laughed and I said I'm trying to do just that.Getting people excited wasn't the problem; getting them to actually vote was."I came all the way from California to make sure you vote on Tuesday," was my standard greeting. To which some responded, "Oh God Bless you" and others "Wow – really, what's California like?" Others who might not have otherwise cared seemed genuinely surprised to see someone actually coming that far just to their home to ask them to vote. (If nothing else they'd be letting me down!)As I crossed the street, a group of kids asked me, "Is Obama going to win tomorrow?""If your parents and everyone in your neighborhood votes, he'll win the city, the state, and he'll win the White House." They walked off to school, a piece of Obama literature in their hands as a keepsake, a printed memory that perhaps they'll find in their scrapbook decades later.That afternoon school let out as Valarie and I were nearby, and we were surrounded by excited children cheering Obama's name. We passed out literature with a painted picture of Barack's face, saying "You Have the Right to Vote." I thought, These children will grow up knowing they can become President some day. It will be … ordinary. Ordinary to have someone who looks like them as a candidate or a nominee or…That evening, two white police officers stopped by the field office with their lights and siren. We were confused, perhaps some were a bit worried. But they only wanted "Obama-Biden" yard signs. We smiled at them as they drove off with signs and metal posts.A car-load of people pulled over to that same curb – middle-aged Black women in the front and teenagers in the back. They shouted out to the office that they wanted signs. After they got some, they asked about helping Election Day."You want to volunteer?""Yes-we'll do it-oh yeah-of course!""You'll come out on Election Day?""Yeah-you know it-uh huh!""Okay – be here at 6am tomorrow morning."Brief pause. Then…"We'll be there!"After our final round of calling and walking the ward on Election Day eve, our night was filled with inspirational speeches by the governor of Maryland who told us that change happens by "small margins" so expect a fight, not a blowout. A local field director later exclaimed, "Our ground game is incredible! They won't know what hit them tomorrow!" ELECTION DAYCreighton School seemed indestructible, built in that era of industrial American can-do – just like all the houses in Ward 35. But before dawn on Election Day 2008, Creighton was sleepy and dimly lit, our tiny corner of the electoral world, and it was dark and sleepy an hour before the polls opened in Pennsylvania.Voters were already there, sitting in the auditorium's wooden folding seats, waiting for the electronic boots to be set up. The custodian, a large African-American man lifting desks and chairs in his arms, displayed a T-shirt with Barack's face on the front and huge words "I'm Asking You To Believe" on the back.A dozen or so people were there. And then more and more and more. Once the starting gun sounded on Election Day, it soon became apparent that we had to organize a better system to prevent a quagmire. And the slower the line the greater chance people would leave and not vote.So, we efficiently re-organized the lines. Valarie was stationed by the entrance to the polling site with neighborhood maps to help direct voters. Tafari was the Wal-Mart-style greeter, occasionally speaking in impeccable Spanish, filtering people in the proper direction.We would ask people, "Do you know what division you live in?" Response: "I only know I'm voting for Obama!" "Shhhh! That's good, but shhhhh!"Despite our efforts, one of the three lines was so long that a few people left before voting in order to get to work on time. We begged them to come back later, and they promised us they would. We called for backup. Soon, a few dozen donuts and hot chocolate were delivered by a White middle-aged man with an Obama-Biden pin, and we handed them out to voters.We saw people in line who knew us, who saw us walking the neighborhood or met us at their door. Old, young, pushing strollers, using walkers and canes, bringing their children or their elderly parents with them. Black, White, Asian, Latino. It was an American postcard, a picture of modern democracy.A Black man in his late 20s recognized Tafari and told us his name wasn't on the rolls even though he had a registration card. The poll worker asked him, "Have you voted before?" He said, "Of course not, I never had a reason to vote before!" We made sure he got his provisional ballot and cast his vote for Obama. And he went back and called everyone he knew to vote.An elderly White woman pinched my cheek, saying "oh, aren't you adorable?" as I tried to help her to the correct voting table. (She might have been blind. Not sure.)The election officials – nearly every one of them including the oldest one who was probably in her 80s – smoked. I mean smoked, like they were getting paid for smoking. I don't know why, but the sight of it made me laugh.As the work day began, the lines began to shorten and we decided to hit the streets and our neighborhoods to make sure people had voted. We would take them there ourselves if we had to, Tanya's car standing by. And we did – Valarie found at least a dozen people who wouldn't have otherwise voted. One of them, a very frail elderly Black woman who just returned from the hospital wanted to go but had no one to take her until we offered a ride.Valarie and I talked to everyone we saw, on the streets, in stores, even in McDonald's – "have you voted yet?" One voter, a 37-year-old man Bernard, was moved by the note Valarie left at his door that he offered to help us that afternoon. So, Bernard drove around Valarie and myself and helped us knock on the remaining doors of our ward, making sure that every single voter we could find made it to the polls on time, just as night was falling in Philadelphia. He even took a couple of voters to Creighton.An incredibly sweet Latino family on Valarie's block even offered us umbrellas, as the rain started to sprinkle. Valarie and I took two and returned them when our day was over.The final voters trickled in to Creighton before the polls closed. We waited inside the auditorium for the count – an immediate tally the machines spit out so we can report back to the campaign office.The verdict in Ward 35, Divisions 27, 29, and 30: 334 Obama, 57 McCain. And two dozen or so provisional ballots uncounted. We doubled turnout. We made a difference.Kim, a law student from New York also volunteering at our poll, got off the phone with a friend who works at NBC and said the network was about to call Pennsylvania for Obama. We didn't believe it. At least, I wouldn't believe for at least a few more minutes until I got calls and texts from around the country, friends and family confirming it.We did it. We all Pennsylvania was ours.LOCAL VICTORY, GLOBAL CELEBRATIONRising Sun. Our makeshift Obama field office sat on the corner of this inadvertently appropriately named street. Rising Sun – a new day on the horizon, full of hope and promise. The office was a tiny basement beneath a crumbling home for rent with a large porch near a business district. This is where we made calls and plans and returned on the brink of victory. This is where we helped make history.We watched as results came in from states around the country. It was still early in the count, but Pennsylvania was marked Blue – by a large margin. They didn't know what hit them.Needing to eat, we watched returns come in at a local Italian restaurant, toasted to the steady feeling of victory about to set in, and then joined others at a local bar to watch the West Coast polls closed.Time ticked down in California, and I imagined the sun going down in Venice, into the ocean just blocks from my apartment. Sun setting on an era, I hoped.We counted down like it was New Years Eve, counted down to the dawn of a new beginning. The moment polls closed in the West, CNN called the election. Before we realized it, John McCain conceded with humility, honesty, and thoughtfulness. I wish he behaved like that throughout the campaign. (But then again… if he did, it would be a lot closer…)Cheers went up, and we quickly got in our cars to an Irish pub downtown where all the Obama campaign staff and volunteers were awaiting the President-Elect's victory speech.News vans with satellite antennae extensions lined the street. Horns honked and shouts came from cars passing by. The bar, "Finnegan's Wake," was dark and full of hundreds of people, dozens of TV news cameras with broadcast cameras and on-board lights. Flat screen TVs that usually play football or baseball or basketball games showed Grant Park in my hometown Chicago, buzzing and bright and beautiful. I longed to be there, in that park I've walked a hundred times. But I was happy I was on the battlefield, too.The next President spoke but no sound came from the bar's speakers. Moments passed, and we ached and shouted for the audio to come on. A riot was about to break out – a hope riot?Then the sound started, part way through, as Barack said: "We are, and always will be, the United States of America."The bar cheered, and the speech flowed loudly through the speakers. We listened quietly, attentively. Valarie wept, and I tried to simultaneously listen, fight off tears, and photograph faces in the crowd – White, Black, Hispanic, South Asian, East Asian, European. Old, Young. We are, and always will be, The United States of America. "To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done." Everyone in the room was a part of that campaign team, and a roar went up. I imagine our cheers ringing like the Liberty Bell from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea.The speech ended, and the music resumed, and Valarie – what camera doesn't love Valarie? – was immediately interviewed by Reuters TV. I was only a few feet away, taking photos of the crowd, but I could only catch tiny bits of what she was saying, "He represents the hopes of my generation… our new President's name is Barack Hussein Obama… Now is our time…" The celebration continued and swirled and I caught a glimpse of more people in the bar. Hats, t-shirts, a guy in a moose costume with a sign that said, "Moose for Obama." (Who else would the moose support?)Tafari, meanwhile, somehow was crowned with a straw-type brimmed hat, like the ones you see the press wearing in old movies. He was dancing. I mean, dancing! Valarie, and Tanya, and I decided that we wanted to drive back to New Haven, that our energy was high enough to make it back, but not high enough to party all night. Tafari said, "This is our night! I've been waiting for this for 24 years. Just leave me here!" So we did. (Don't worry – he made it back to Connecticut in time for class the next day. Though I'm not exactly sure how and I prefer to leave it up to my imagination… I believed it involved the moose…)We drove through the mostly empty streets of Philadelphia on the way to the highway, dark, decaying neighborhoods, in the late night, beneath elevated train tracks. Tanya, Valarie and I chattered in that exhausted, elated way people get after a hard-fought victory that drains you of your energy but not your excitement. We were fueled by happiness.We approached three Black teenagers, dressed in a way that most people would assume they were gangsters or hoodlums, probably up to no good. As we passed near them, we saw they were holding up a large sign – the iconic Barack Obama "HOPE" poster. It was nearly 2am. We smiled and honked and drove into the future.Twenty-four hours after we first woke up, we were on the New Jersey turnpike speeding through the night. We stopped at the Woodrow Wilson turnpike rest stop. Valarie slept in the passenger seat and Tanya went to the rest room while I got coffee to start my driving shift. As I was waiting in line, I saw a Black man across the rest stop watching the TV screens above as he poured cream into his coffee. The report was about the Obama victory rally. A smiled slowly stretched across his face. Mine too.It was my turned to drive, just before daybreak. I listened to the BBC as reports came in from around the world, reports of spontaneous street celebrations in Kenya, in Europe, Australia and in Indonesia. I was unprepared for the global celebration. This was the world's victory, too.Although drained from our days in Philadelphia, I couldn't help but smile broadly, teary-eyed, hearing about people in slums of Nairobi, waving American flags. There was talk about naming a street in Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast for Barack Obama. A crowd of people gathered around his father's grave in Kenya, chanting, "Obama, you have sired a king!"My swollen knuckles clutched the wheel of Tanya's hybrid car. The sky started to lighten, ever so slightly, as we passed the New York skyline and crossed the George Washington Bridge. We arrived in New Haven as day broke at the start of a new era.THE BEGINNINGWhen we were canvassing and getting people out to vote in Ward 35, I left behind a personal note about why I'm supporting Barack Obama. In it, I mention my parents who came to this country with nothing except their smarts, their values, and their hopes. They have worked hard, without complaint, their entire lives for a better life for their kids.They succeeded.Because of them, I can live a life doing what I love, pursuing a career as a filmmaker. Because of them, I can survive long periods of drought with their support and without their question, without hesitation.Because of them, I can live a life of conviction, can take long periods of time to pursue what I believe is a righteous cause many others might view as folly or as recklessness.Because of them, I had a chance to take a tiny chisel and hammer and help pave a way for Barack Obama to be President. And, as the new President said – this is not the change we seek. It's the chance to make change. I had a chance to get a chance to make change. I will never forget what it was like to do it.A lot of you have thanked Valarie and me for all the work we did. But truly, we all have a hand in this. There are so many here who did so much, but here's a snapshot.Barb, David, Wendy and Jack in Philadelphia gave us their couch and their floor and made us breakfast so we could work in their city.Jeff Eldridge put down a lot of cash, even in the year of his sabbatical, for the primary and election.Chris Farah joined us in Santa Monica in the primary and the streets of Las Vegas last month, knocking on doors.Mike Farah produced the video of Ron Howard supporting Barack Obama.Nitasha Sawhney organized that Vegas trip and countless other fundraisers and fought to get her community behind Obama.Lutishia Lovely and George Gonzales fought with Valarie in Texas to win Pflugerville for Barack.Amar Bhalla, a turban-wearing Sikh who is our hero in Divided We Fall for his work fighting discrimination in NYC and everywhere, went door-to-door in New Hampshire back in January for the primary.Nikhil Jayaram phone banked and canvassed in Nevada, registering Indians and South Asians.Bernie White wrote and directed a play in Venice about Barack and his estranged Reverend, and worked in Oregon for the primary. And spent the final day of the primary on our couch, toasting as Obama earned enough votes to be the nominee.Kal Penn swayed college students and people of all ages across the county, giving the word "celebrity" a good name.Penny Ronning tried to turn Montana blue and almost did. Judge Brar switched parties to vote in the primary and called South Asians around the country to get them to vote for Barack.Valarie's grandfather Captain Gurdial Singh Gill (Papaji) who fought for freedom in World War II with the British Indian Army, who despite being in the hospital and very close to being gone forever, voted absentee and returned home the day before the election. Hopefully on the mend, we pray.And of course all of us who confronted ugly racism or fear or skepticism or cynicism in our own families – all of you own a part of this historic turning point. From many, one."We will remember that there is something happening here in America."I don't want to over-state this moment. There will be a lot of disappointment ahead. It is up to us to make the change, to hold our government accountable, to pull up our sleeves and to finally, once again, be proud to call ourselves "Americans."But for now – this is our moment. Remember this. The future generation will ask us where we were and what we did when the first minority was elected President in our homeland. How did it happen? We will tell about stories of racism, bigotry, lies. But, ultimately, Hope. Hope that trumped everything else. So thank you all – you made this happen. Valarie and I were happy to be on the ground on your behalf. Thanks Mom and Dad. This is a step towards an even better future for me, for Valarie, Manu and Archana and the future of our families.For that, the sore knuckles were worth it.To the future,Sharat
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