I'm really not the sort of person who's interested enough in politics to be compelled to take time out of my busy schedule to help a political candidate. If I have any free time, I'd rather be working on my little art projects. However, something very interesting happened recently. Somehow, a few months before the presidential election, I got inspired to help Obama. Like many others, I'd been freaked out about the state of our country and our world. At one point, all the bad news just kept piling up. The economy has been going downhill for a long time, but only recently did people start noticing; and I was worrying about what will happen when China decides to stop buying our debt. With gasoline at $4 per gallon and rising at the time, our fuel and energy situation clearly didn't look sustainable. Weird climate changes and strong hurricanes were making the global warming problem a little harder to ignore. I was worried about having no health insurance... And of course I'd been upset about the war. As far as I'm concerned, there is no good reason to start a war. Most Americans have no understanding of the horrors of war on a deep level. It's just all so abstract when it's half way across the world. Now there are two wars to be upset about. And here was a presidential candidate who was saying all the things we all wanted to hear, with real, coherent ideas and plans. I actually heard a calling. I somehow felt compelled to help Obama win, and the feeling was too strong to ignore. What's interesting to me is that so many others heard the calling, and like me, many of them were not the activist types. It was like a large number of people woke up at the same time. We all realized that if things keep going in the same direction, things could get very ugly very quickly. Many of the volunteers I met have never worked on a political campaign before either. Some of them took months out from their busy lives, flocking to the swing states, just to help the cause, which was pretty amazing in itself. There were busloads of college kids from New York, here to help in the final weeks. There were so many volunteers here in Pittsburgh, PA, that we needed many local headquarters locations, and more were being added all the time, to have more space for phone banking, and getting the canvassing shifts started. My friend Lance, who's the Outreach/Student Coordinator for the Santa Clara, CA election board, said, "Our county had an almost 90% voter turnout. Everything about the election was unusual and amazing - even months ago. We are a non partisan organization, and offer the same services to all political parties and campaigns. During the summer, I was training Obama precinct captains on voter registration, and their foot soldiers - 15 and 16 year old teenagers - would show up at our office every week for more voter registration forms. I received 1900 applications to work in this election from the high school student program - usually we get about 600." I wasn't really aware of the extent of what was happening until I too decided to help. I just walked into one of the local headquarters, and asked how I can be helpful. Again, something interesting happened. I got on the Obama email list, and started getting a couple of emails every day. These emails kept me posted on what was going on, encouraged me to get involved and most had a donate button, so that people could donate to the campaign. The whole campaign was funded by regular people like me, without taking any money from special interests. Most other political candidates can be bought, but not this one. Even the brokest of the broke in this country, can afford to chip in a few bucks for a cause they believe in. With everyone giving whatever they could, apparently these contributions did add up and did the job. This campaign used email and the internet like no other political campaign I'm aware of. I've been saving these emails. I have emails from James Fogarty, the team leader from my local headquarters; from Barack Obama; Joe Biden; Michelle Obama; David Plouffe - the brilliant campaign manager for Obama for America; Craig Schirmer, Pennsylvania State Director, Obama for America; Eric Greenwald, Voter Protection Director, Pennsylvania Campaign for Change; Al Gore; Marianne Markowitz, Chief Financial Officer, Obama for America. There's certainly some direct communication going on, making me feel like I'm in the loop, like I'm being treated like an intelligent adult. I'm recognizing all the internet marketing strategies used in business, employed in this brilliant campaign. Marketing research shows that you usually need to make at least 7 contacts with a prospect before he or she decides to work with you. Hence the repetition with emails, phone calls and home visits in the campaign. Many people were annoyed that we pestered them so often, but you can't argue with results. We had unprecedented voter turnouts here in PA, not to mention all the volunteers and donors. There are YouTube videos put out by the campaign, designed to inform and involve the public. I got lots of these videos in the emails from the campaign. You can watch any speech or debate that you missed, as well as a wide variety of campaign related videos posted by a wide variety of people. Surely, the media has normally been a very powerful catalyst in politics, but media + internet takes it to a whole new level. Not only can we watch the videos any time, and as often as we want, but anyone can make their own campaign related videos and post them on YouTube, therefore truly having an uncensored voice. I've been blown away by the extent to which every American has had an opportunity to be informed and involved in this campaign. While the US has been fighting wars in the name of democracy in far away lands, our own democracy has been lagging to say the least. You can't have democracy when no one is paying attention; democracy requires involvement and participation. Americans got too comfortable and too distracted by their televisions, video games, pro sports, and other fun distractions. On November 5th, I got a very gracious thank you email from Barack Obama: Emilie -- I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first. We just made history. And I don't want you to forget how we did it. You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change. I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign. We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next. But I want to be very clear about one thing... All of this happened because of you. Thank you, Barack I was very much moved by this email, but I hadn't even thought about what comes next. But of course, this was only the beginning. The campaign has built up so much momentum, it would be a huge waste to stop here. If we could get an unlikely candidate elected with just grass roots and internet strategies, couldn't we do something similar, to help create the change we want to see? Even the president of the United States can't do it alone. Today, I got an email from John Podesta, from the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team; that includes a video of a meeting of our Energy and Environment Policy Transition Team, an interview with team member Heather Zichal, and a link I can click on to submit my ideas. When was the last time your federal government asked you for your ideas? In the spirit of continued communication, Barack Obama is creating very short, weekly addresses, and posting them on YouTube. Now, with every email I get from the campaign, with every video I watch, I realize that something magical is happening - something many of us have been hoping for, but were too cynical to really expect it to happen. The problem is, I don't think everyone realizes this yet, and I know that not everyone is on Obama's email list, and not everyone scours Video Sift for the latest Obama videos. This is what motivated me to write this article. I think it's important for everyone to be aware, to get involved, because this is what Democracy was supposed to be all about in the first place.
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