Letter from a South Carolina Volunteer

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK

Blog readers, here's yet another account from an Obama volunteer, Marisa Darden, who traveled to South Carolina. It's a letter she sent out to friends and gave us permission to post here...
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Hey All,

I know I haven't spoken to some of you in quite awhile, but I wanted to share a little bit about a weekend that has really changed my belief on politics and this upcoming election. I've been wanting to send this out for days, but it's been more than difficult trying to encapsulate the true depth and emotion that I feel when I think about the tremendous history that is being created, and how one candidate so emphatically embodies our nation's future.

I have been a Barack Obama fan since his DNC speech in 2004. While I was excited to know he'd be running for president, I have been in awe of his campaign from afar, subconsciously worried about his chances at a real shot for the White House, and reluctant to put my full weight behind this rising star. I signed up to help in the South Carolina Primary, mostly because I wanted to do something, rather than just sit and bitch and complain about the state of politics today. I signed up a few days before the Iowa Caucuses.

Wednesday after class, I drove to Kingstree, South Carolina, located in Williamsburg County. The county is the second poorest county in the state, and is overwhelmingly African-American. More information about the county can be found on Wikipedia. While I had motivated several other Duke Law students to come down and participate, no one else wanted to skip school (ha!), so I went alone, really not knowing what to expect. Obama had about 80 paid staffers in South Carolina, and three of them were mobilizing in this county. They had a great ground effort going, but it was clear they needed our help. About 2 hours before I got there, 7 Harvard post-graduate students had also come to Kingstree to help, and they turned out to be a godsend, taking me under their wing and providing hours of entertainment and fun. The campaign arranged for me to stay with a family in neighboring Greeleyville, where me and the Harvard kids all stayed.

It turns out I made a great choice coming down early, because Senator Obama was coming to Kingstree the next day! Bright and early last Thursday, the other volunteers and I made our way to one of the two high schools in the county to set up and prepare for Obama's visit. The crowd was almost all Black, but spanned all ages. It was an amazing turnout for a Thursday morning, and Sen. Obama spoke for 30 minutes, giving a similar version of his stump speech. The crowd was clearly enthralled by the Senator, though they got bored pretty easily when he went into too much detail about his policies. This crowd responded to the rhetoric mostly, and there was very little Clinton-bashing, even though Bill Clinton had been in the area the day before, disparaging the Obama campaign. After the rally, the Senator came out to thank all the volunteers, was very polite, and shook everyone's hand. We were all really excited, and motivated to keep working towards his win.

Friday, I spent the day going door to door in Kingstree and Greeleyville, stopping at homes that had been earmarked by the campaign as Obama supporters. Door to Door isn't exactly accurate, particularly in Greeleyville, where it seemed as though we were going "quarter-mile to quarter-mile" because the houses were so far apart. This was where the county's poverty was most apparent because most of the homes were permanently placed double-wide trailers that were run down and dilapidated. A few highlights from the day:

• I fell through a porch
• I received a marriage proposal (I said maybe... hold the gifts)
• Chased by a rotweiler on a very long leash...
• I met an 86 year old African-American woman who had 11 children, all grown and successful. She told me that she felt this election wasn't about her because she was "on the way out." Instead, she was voting for Obama because she wanted her grandchildren to see that they could achieve anything and be anything they put their mind to. She told me that she hadn't seen anything like this since Dr. King, whom she met in the 1960's.
• A group of construction workers told me I was "preaching to the choir" about Obama, because their pastor had told them all about the campaign and Obama. I heard this a lot- pastors played a tremendous part in the grassroots campaign. Those of you from the south aren't likely surprised how entwined religion and politics are, but I guess I had never seen it in action. I walked away grateful that the pastors were on our side.

Everyone was genuine, friendly, and sincere, and I really recommend the experience to anyone who has a passion and wants to help others understand their motivation.

Friday night we went to a volunteer meeting and heard a rousing speech from a community leader who stressed the historical legacy of this time in Williamsburg County. No only had no presidential candidate ever come to their county, he said he had never seen so many people of the community get involved and participate in their government. It moved him almost to tears to talk about how long he had been in the community and how proud he was to be able to help mobilize for a candidate he truly believed in. I walked out energized and ready to take on Primary Day.

Saturday brought surprises and interesting challenges. I had two jobs during voting day: throughout the course of the day, I was on standby to do "Voter Protection" work, which is a fancy term for lawyers (and law students) who make sure that everyone at the polls gets a chance to vote and those associated with the Obama campaign, like poll watchers, etc., weren't denied the ability to do their jobs. There were several other attorneys and law students in the area, so I only ended up handling one issue. Around 6.30 a.m., we were called to a voting place in Kingstree where the (white) poll captains were denying our (black) poll watcher from being able to check off the number of voters and those who are Obama fans (that's legally allowed). Our poll checker was a 17-year-old who was very frustrated and confused when we arrived. He didn't want to confront the women directly, but kept saying "I just want to be a part of history." After sweet talking the poll captain and politely informed her of his right to poll watch, she made a call and came back fairly agreeable. I was nervous while we tried to handle the situation because I wasn't familiar with the underlying racial tensions of the community, and didn't know how I'd be received. Some of the locals had warned us that tensions ran high, and there had been some church bombings of black churches in the area just a few years ago. In the end, the incident went off without a hitch.

My second job turned out to be far more interesting. My job as a "runner" required me to go to three targeted precincts several times throughout the day and obtain various information from the poll watcher. I would take the information back to the Obama local "staging area," where we'd call the Obama supporters on file who hadn't yet voted. Our staging location had about 20 or so volunteers in and out all day, many of whom had slept there the night before to prepare everything. There was food, laughter and a common mission to share. Joining the student cohort was a carload of University of Connecticut undergraduates who drove 17 hours on Friday and were going back Sunday morning. The hubris of the young! I had to take a nap at one point, having gotten no more than about 10 hours of sleep the previous nights. After 3 visits to each of the precincts, I returned to the staging area to help the phone people make the final push of calls to get people out to vote. The day's organization was tremendous. Volunteers knew what to do, who to call if they had questions or concerns, and where to go. I was very impressed.

Me and another law student left our posts and drove straight to Columbia for the big rally. We were anticipating a victory, but didn't know until friends and loved ones called us to report the big news that Obama had cleaned up. In Williamsburg County alone, he beat Clinton by 58 percentage points, and the county had record turnout.

I know this is long, but I wanted to share my experiences with you. After hearing Obama's victory speech (which moved me to tears), I am more convinced than ever that Senator Obama not only could be president, but should be. His ability to use a message of hope to rally people to possess a vested interest in change. This is a man who has convinced thousands of Americans to participate in their government, many of them for the first time.

Politics by design are decisive. Many believe they have no place in social or academic relationships. Forgive me for thinking that's crap. If I believed in the most reliable and trustworthy vacuum cleaner, or stain remover, I wouldn't hesitate to share my discovery with those I love. And while those who do know and love me know that the odds of me USING a home appliance or stain remover are slim to none, the analogy is nonetheless useful. This is no different. We may not agree. But the discussion is half the battle.

Thank you for reading. Please email me if you want to talk, share a response, or have any specific questions about Senator Obama and his positions. I'd also encourage anyone to visit his website to learn more.

from south carolina: canvassing and more

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK

We've been fortunate to have some folks in South Carolina willing to share their experiences during the primary week. Below we have another dispatch. This one is from Hugh, and he offers some details and insights into what it's like to canvass for Obama, the importance of election clerks and more. Enjoy, and thanks to Hugh for sharing.

All went quite smoothly here in Anderson County. Over the course of the day we had a combined total of 30 phone bankers, canvassers, and poll checkers at my house: white, black, Indian-American, young (16), old (65), male, female. Our precinct went 2-1 for Obama, both against Clinton and against Edwards, matching their combined total. The clerk of elections in our precinct was an advocate for all voters, going out of his way to assist those without the straightforward credentials, guiding them with provisional ballots, changes of address forms, etc, and spending substantial time on the phone with the county office to track down where folks needed to be if they were in the wrong place.

Our election protection attorney, a law student from the University of Tennessee, supposed that about five percent (~30) of the voters might not have otherwise been counted had the clerk not been such a staunch advocate for all of them. For rural upstate South Carolina, the epicenter of neo-confederate thinking, to have such a clerk was refreshing. Of course this was not the case at all precincts in Anderson, but our election attorneys were there to fight for the voters. The law student was very moved by the day. He had only just gotten involved, and had expected to lift a finger for Obama in Tennessee, but now he will "work his ass off."

Other than a few hours of phone calls, I spent the entire day canvassing a small "turf" of about 80 houses, repeatedly hitting doors and pestering folks until they voted. The day before these same doors had received precinct-specific door hangers reminding them to stand up and be counted. They did. This turf went 4-1 for Obama, with respect to Clinton and with respect to Edwards, thus he doubled their combined totals. I suspect that about 5 folks might not have gotten to the polls had I not pushed them more than once. This is what happened all over the state in precincts the campaign targeted for the get-out-the-vote operation. By the end of the day, our supporters started to get annoyed that we were calling them so often to confirm they'd voted. Redundancy fosters robustness though, and I think they will forgive us, especially if they catch a glimpse of Obama's victory speech.
The entire democratic party in South Carolina is ecstatic about the grass roots network now alive in South Carolina. Many of us will be spending time in Georgia and our team will remain in place to make phone calls to folks across the country. However, I do doubt this network can fully re-emerge for the general election for anyone other than Obama. In Pickens, Oconee, and Anderson counties, these new grass roots were cultivated by a 22 year old jewish girl from Maryland named Rachel Levine, who arrived at the Greenville office in June as an unpaid volunteer. I cannot overstate the credit she is due as a local field organizer -- after a month she was recognized for her efforts and started getting paid. She was tireless and it was so gratifying to see her exuberance last night. She knew the 20 pt margin was possible, and she hopes to be back here for the general election if Obama makes it through. Relative to all other counties in the entire country, these were some of the most pro-Bush counties in his 2004 re-election. Despite this, she decided that she could.

As I walked the neighborhoods I had a big roll of Obama 08 stickers, and I gave them out to a handful of young kids -- ages 8, 10, 12 or so -- who were outside entertaining themselves in front of their respective houses. One african-american kid was climbing a dogwood tree in his front yard --- hands and feet each on a different branch. I offered him some stickers, gave him about ten, and warned him gently to not go too far out on the limbs because dogwood trees are especially gorgeous in the springtime. He knew who Obama was and as I walked on down the road he announced from the tree "My name is Barack Obama, and I approve of this message!"

Obama wins South Carolina

Barack Obama wins South Carolina.

With 96% of the precincts:

Obama - 55% 281,413
Clinton -27% 134,781
Edwards- 18% 90, 500

In 2004, the ENTIRE Democratic turnout in the primaries was 290,000.

Look at Obama's total.

The breakdown of the numbers.

Obama Clinton Edwards
Black Males 82 15 3
Black Females 79 19 2
White Males 27 29 43
White Females 22 44 34


Blacks 80 18 2
Whites 24 38 38

Age
18-24 66 25 9
25-29 70 21 10
30-39 62 23 15
40-49 61 25 14
50-64 51 26 22
65 and over 32 40 27



Rest of exit poll is HERE




Shallow point - I like Michelle's Suit. ..LOL

I found this picture at the NYTimes.com...I just thought..I love this image.



His name is Roy Powell. He's 19, and this is his first vote.