For most on you the most exciting part of last Tuesday night’s Democratic Debate here in Philadelphia was what was said by the candidates inside the debate. For me it was all the people outside the debate screaming in support of their candidates. That isn’t because I am unhappy with how my candidate did, in fact I agree with the Drexel students watching just outside. It is because I was the volunteer organizer responsible for making sure that Obama supporters were out in force showing their enthusiasm for Barack Obama.
I worked hard preparing for the event and had a great time showing my enthusiasm for Obama waving signs and screaming at the top of my lungs. I am so gratified that we had so many people come out, despite a very dreadful pre-party fear that no one would actually show up. My day was exhausting and crazy and I would absolutely recommend that all of you do something similar.
By the time my day started, we had over two hundred people signed up from our efforts organizing online and phone banking supporters. The national campaign had sent out another e-mail to even more supporters the day before and I had no idea how many people had signed-up from that. By the time I woke up, one of our brave and hardy supports had already been outside of the debate building for several hours making sure that we were directly across from the main entrance.
I fielded phone calls and e-mail from home for a few hours putting the final touches on some of our plans and arranging a few last minute details. In the early afternoon, I went down to the site to scope it out and give our supporter there another break, also I hoped that seeing everything would help calm my nerves. It was still pretty calm, but the news vans where there the police were out and the other campaigns had started to show up. I was waved down by a friend of mine from Drinking Liberally who was acting as a liaison to the people running the Debate, it was good to see a friendly face and helped get me oriented. I stopped by the Drexel Dem’s table and dropped off a few of our Barack the Vote flyers which remind people to vote in our local elections next week.
To our left was the Biden campaign, which was the first to show up in numbers, many of them from Delaware since it is so close. Well into the afternoon there was only a single Edwards supporter, as many of them were heading up from North Carolina, he was very nice and helped him to reserve a space for his people and their signs. He was very nice and we were happy to help. The Hilary camp was the last to have any representatives show up from what I recall. They drove up and a few very serious people got out and started to assemble the stands they use for signs. Shariff Street, our Mayor’s son, and some of their people were with them as well, I had met him before at Drinking Liberally so I went up and said hello. We debated how long it would last, he said that by the end of February I will be wearing a Hilary button or he would be wearing an Obama one. I’ll give him my Obama button when the time comes.
The Obama area was organized and filled with volunteers. I think we may have been the only campaign without any paid staff in the visibility area. We did have people to talk to when we had questions or when they wanted us to cover an area or had suggestions for us. I am very proud of the trust that the campaign put in me and my team working on this even to build a crowd and show our support at what was a major event. I doubt that the cameras or the reporters could tell that, but I know it and am very proud of myself our volunteers and the Obama campaign.
We had arranged for some food as a surprise for our supporters to keep them going through night. So I had to run home and get it started until some people arrived later that I could send over to finish it off. I think that when the hot food arrived just before things really got going that is helped really boost moral. The most frustrating part of the day was getting stuck in traffic at four o’clock just as things were officially starting, and there being very little I could do to get back to the Debate Site any quicker. It was 4:00 the time we had told our folks to get there and I wasn’t going to make it for a few minutes and reports were that our crowd was trickling in slowly.
The day was just starting to take shape, but also starting to blur in my mind. I was definitely in a stressed watching things mode. I had to find someone I trusted to go back to my place who was willing to leave the main event and watch the burners on my stove so that the food and more importantly my house didn’t burn. We had to improve the signage in front of our area. We had to split all our volunteers between just outside the Debate entrance and the Chris Matthews taping a few blocks away. I was trying to greet people as they arrived and we were signing them in a passing out stickers and signs.
Then the press started to arrive, asking people for interviews. Why they supported Obama. What they thought he should do at the debate. I did an interview for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation which gave me a lot of sympathy for candidates trying to get their message out and not say anything bad. He was a very aggressive interviewer, but I think I finished the interview well trying to explain why I support Obama. At some point the Philadelphia Inquirer took a picture of our supports which made page A6 for an article about the supporters at the Debate, I am on the right hand side of the photo. If you’ve seen any press about Obama supporters outside of the Debate, could you leave a comment about it? I would love to see it.
Around 6:30 things got going in ernest. We had folks out in force and someone had jumped forward to be our cheerleader for the day. Megaphones were not allowed so that was quite a difficult job. We were free to find out own cheers for then event, I think one of the favorites what “Who Do we want? Barack Obama! When do we need him? Now!”, also chanted “1,2,3,4” “Elect Obama, end the War! 5,6,7,8 Barack Obama in ’08” and some folks were singing “Oh, Oh, Oh, Obama, Oh, Oh, Barack Obama.” I tried to monitor the crowd, but for the moment at least all I had to do was participate.
At some point most of the candidates’ supporters joined in some anti-War chants, and at some point some Jenna Six protesters came by and the Obama supporters joined them in opposing racism before returning to our own chants. People told me that John Edwards went to talk to his supporters at some point. That couldn’t have been more than a few feet away from me, but I didn’t even notice I guess I was too busy and too involved in what I was doing. Someone told me that they saw Barack get out of his limo near the candidate entrance, we were at the main entrance and Secret Service didn’t approve of a stop where we were. They told me that Barack got out of the limo, heard us chanting and gave a big smile.
Things got very interesting at around 8:15 when the Act Up protesters came by with torches, drums coffins demanding Health Care for everyone and critiquing Clinton and Dodd’s plans. We all got quite and most of us wandered forward to watch them march through. Actually it was pretty cool. I got a little scared when a cop told me that he wanted to keep us apart so they could tell their people from out people. At that point I started trying to get our people back further from the protest, since I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt or arrested. At some point the structure of the even evaporated, and most of the campaigns decided that they were done.
They missed the best part of the night. The energy then was really great, I managed to rally our supporters and get everyone chanting again. This time is wasn’t for the cameras so much as for the night. There was chaos, things were a little crazy and we were really jazzed up. We were really careful to follow the rules set out for us, but I somewhat wish that events like these were more spontaneous and free form. If you want to get a sense of the energy at that point the Daily Pennsylvanian has some footage. Check it out from about 3:00 to 4:15 to see the Act Up protest and us cheering afterwards.
By that point the debate was about to start so we fielded a few more press interviews, cleaned up and headed over to our Debate watching party over at Mad Mex and I relaxed and enjoyed a margarita. I certainly thought watching a debate live and with fellow Obama supports was a much better experience than watching it alone, had folks to cheer with and to discuss the debate during the breaks. I did feel bad thought that some of our best cheerers were under age and couldn’t get in, nothing goes perfectly.
We had a really great crowd and a great event. We got fired and showed our support. We talked to the press and told that what we beleived and why we think that America needs Barack Obama. We met supporters and volunteers from as far away as Virginia and had an absolutely great time. I feel like I just finished running a marathon, it took me a day off before I was even ready to blog it.
Back to the grind, we have an election here in Pennsylvania in less that a week, and PA for Obama plans to Barack the Vote!
