By Justin Charity,
We've reached some milestones in this campaign. Together, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton helped shatter barriers across this country, and they've both been breaking barriers ever since their college years.
"The new president of the (Harvard Law) Review is Barack Obama, a 28-year-old graduate of Columbia University who spent four years heading a community development program for poor blacks on Chicago's South Side before enrolling in law school."
"On his goals in his new post, Mr. Obama said: 'I personally am interested in pushing a strong minority perspective. I'm fairly opinionated about this. But as president of the law review, I have a limited role as only first among equals.' "Therefore, Mr. Obama said, he would concentrate on making the review a 'forum for debate', bringing in new writers and pushing for livelier, more accessible writing."
"Under Obama's guidance, the Review underwent a period of relative peace after the turbulent 1970s and '80s, when the publication — like the institution itself — attempted to balance its inherent elitism with some semblance of openness and multiculturalism. "'He was as much a traditionalist as anything', recalled Susan Estrich, the USC School of Law professor who served as Michael Dukakis' campaign manager in 1988 — and who broke ground as the first female president of the Harvard Law Review 14 years before Obama took the reins. 'It was a big deal that he got the presidency. He was selected because of merit, and he believed in the institution and its history. There are some years [at the Review] that are radical and others that are traditional.'"
"'The politics of the Harvard Law Review were incredibly petty and incredibly vicious', (Bradford) Berenson said. 'The editors of the review were constantly at each other's throats. And Barack tended to treat those disputes with a certain air of detachment and amusement. The feeling was almost, come on kids, can't we just behave here?'"
I’ve moved on to one of our staging areas, set up at a supporter’s home here in Portsmouth. People were scurrying around the living room and kitchen, preparing to hit the streets to talk to voters about Barack.
Sarah Sewall, a senior foreign policy advisor to Barack, dropped by to provide suggestions to volunteers in anticipation of handling questions from voters.
“The world is changing quickly, but Barack has the right judgment to take on the unexpected. He’s made the right calls on the big issues like Iraq, Pakistan and Iran while his opponents were steeped in conventional thinking,” she said.
That advice resonated with one volunteer I spoke with. Carter spent large parts of her past 35 years living overseas before returning to New Hampshire to live in North Hampton. A career journalist, she has been volunteering for the campaign since Barack’s announcement because she believes that he will do the most to restore America’s standing in the world.
“I am not sleeping I’m so excited. It’s just so exciting,” she said. “Doing this door to door canvassing, when you see all these people who are so fired up--it’s incredibly inspiring.”
Before I left for the event in Rochester, I ran into David, a civil rights attorney in New York.
David worked with Barack on the Harvard Law Review, and the pair turned out to be the last two candidates standing in the race for president of the Law Review.
“Barack had this tremendous ability to speak to people across the ideological divide,” he recalled. “Many of the people that he worked with on the Law Review have gone on to be some of the leading legal minds in the conservative movement, but he found a way to get them to work together with the liberals.”
David added, “Barack is the same consensus-builder today that he was back then.”
Like so many of Barack’s supporters, David is working on a campaign for the first time. “I’ve done a few small things before, but this time, we have a once-in-a-lifetime candidate and I’m willing to do what it takes,” he said.
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Thank you,
Lisa Beyer
Precinct Deputy Captain in Las Vegas Precinct 6475
Why I Support Barack Obama for PresidentMYBO ProfileMYBO BlogMySpaceMySpace BlogFacebookLinkedIn ProfileSouthern Nevada for Obama TestimonialSouthern Nevada for Obama - A Grassroots Campaign Effort
Did you know...
On January 19, 2008, Nevada will be the 2nd state in the nation to caucus for a presidential nominee!
Democrats will meet at their designated sites at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 19, 2008NV Democratic Caucus FAQsClark County, NV Residents: Find Your Precinct Here
