There's a moment when you show up on someone’s doorstep to canvass -- just after you've knocked, just before the door opens -- when it occurs: you have no idea what to say.
How do you tell a stranger that Barack Obama -- someone they may never have heard of -- is a special politician? How do you convey the moment you yourself were inspired?
Perhaps this concern is mine alone; perhaps I'm just a bashful blogger. But if you relate, take heart: know that out there, among the masses of canvassers, there are some among us who get up there, give a knock, and when the door opens, don't think twice about telling a stranger their own story. Stories that go beyond the issues, past the talking points, and across partisan lines. There are more of these people than you'd think. These people give the bashful among us hope, and the following is one of them:
Andrew had just moved to Atlanta when his oncologist called.
"He said something had come up on my CAT scan," Andrew says. "He said I needed a biopsy."
Andrew has Hodgkin's disease, and the doctor was worried his cancer had come back. He had been treated three years before, successfully, but in January of this year Andrew found himself packing up his car again to return to New York for testing where he was still covered by his old insurance. His wife, Stephanie, needed to stay behind to find work to pay for the looming medical bills, so his mother Sharon (at left) went with him.
They did the biopsy; the cancer was back.
With no insurance in Georgia, and with the doctors counseling him to get a stem cell transplant, Andrew had to stay in New York for the aggressive chemotherapy a transplant requires.
"I was taking a liquidized version of mustard gas...and I was one of the lucky ones," Andrews says. "It was a very dark period of my life, but I had a mother and a father and wife who loved me."
Sharon stayed with Andrew in New York for the treatment, taking up a friend's generous offer to live in their basement for free while Andrew was hospitalized. As the treatment progressed, she couldn't stand to watch her son go through the excruciating pain and side effects of chemo -- so to cheer him up, she gave him a present.
Two presents, actually:
The Audacity of Hope was one; Dreams from my Father was the other. They read them together in the hospital.
Senator Obama's books, especially The Audacity of Hope, inspired and literally gave Andrew the hope and courage it takes to get through the stem cell transplant. We talked about many things while Andrew was hospitalized...exotic drinks, going on a barbeque tour of the South (the chemo strips your mucus membranes, making it impossible to eat), but especially Senator Obama -- and how if Andrew came through on the other side, that we would work for him for President. So that our nation could heal the way that he was being healed.
Ten months have gone by since Andrew's initial treatment in New York and subsequent stem cell transplant at Emory University in Georgia. And just last night the inaugural Georgia Obama office threw a huge party to open its doors to volunteers.
At the party? Sharon, Obama coordinator of District 5D in Atlanta; and Andrew, Canvassing Coordinator for all of Atlanta.
"When we returned, we signed up for Camp Obama which we attended in late August here in Atlanta," Sharon says. "It was truly an inspirational experience. And the most wonderful thing about it was the people we met who were also committed to the Senator's ideals. Single moms, university professors, high school and college students, teachers, artists -- and people of all colors. The nicest people in the world."
Since August, Andrew and Sharon have been working 30-hour weeks for the Obama campaign as volunteers: phonebanking, buying chairs and desks from the State Surplus for the new office, registering voters, and traveling to the early primary state of South Carolina. When they canvass, they canvass as a pair. And when a voter invites them in, they tell their story.
My treatment wasn't cheap. My mother and I spent 60-plus hours on the phone getting the insurance to pay -- they have a routine set to discourage you from thinking you're covered. In the end, we were lucky: they paid. It cost a quarter of a million dollars. Simply put? A lot of people don't have that, and they can't get insurance, and they don't get the treatment. Barack's health plan extends affordable insurance to every American. Furthermore, it creates a board designed to keep costs down and to keep insurance companies accountable to certain standards.
My treatment wasn't cheap. My mother and I spent 60-plus hours on the phone getting the insurance to pay -- they have a routine set to discourage you from thinking you're covered. In the end, we were lucky: they paid. It cost a quarter of a million dollars. Simply put? A lot of people don't have that, and they can't get insurance, and they don't get the treatment.
Barack's health plan extends affordable insurance to every American. Furthermore, it creates a board designed to keep costs down and to keep insurance companies accountable to certain standards.
This is just the beginning: Andrew's story goes far beyond sickness and survival. To begin with, both he and his wife are opera singers. Before his lymphoma came back, he toured the country, singing for house parties and cancer survivor groups. Before that, he taught high school music and music history in Texas on a budget of $50 a year. Born in Oklahoma, he's lived in North Carolina, New York, British Columbia, Kentucky, Texas and now Georgia. Andrew is just 28 years old.
"But I can say, working for Obama has been one of, if not the most positive experience of my life," he says. "It's just amazing. The idea I could go to a place like Camp Obama -- someone like me, with no money in the bank, I had just got over cancer, I had no political history -- and have them say: ‘We want you to run east Atlanta, you’re in charge, you’re going to win Atlanta for us.' That was so empowering, and I think it comes straight down the line from Barack Obama. It's a basic trust in people -- it tells us we have a place in the political landscape."
So now, when Andrew trains his new volunteers as they get ready to go out and canvass, "I teach them what I've learned from this campaign. I teach them to tell their story. When you're out canvassing, if someone will listen to your 3-4 minute story, you find out how similar people are in the things they want. People are genuinely interested in human beings. If we win, it’s going to be because we put ourselves out there."
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