Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Obama re-post



Sometimes it's just easier to re-post somebody's email that I received from somebody else:

Hello,

I wanted to write to all of you because I just got back from a very exhausting and fulfilling day of door knocking and canvassing for Obama in NE Philadelphia. I drove with four other women to a part of Philly that went for Hillary in the primaries, but has yet to go for Obama. None of us had ever done anything like this before in our lives,
but we decided this election was TOO important and we had to DO something. The Obama campaign had organized the event, (and many more in the coming months) and helped prepare us with talking points and gave us a sense of what to expect.

It was a totally inspiring and overwhelming experience. I met the 10% who are undecided, and in NE Philly the undecided made up about 70% of the people I met!! (that is not a typo... 70%). I got to meet the Hillary supporters who are backing McCain because he chose a woman, (even though that woman is the antithesis to Hillary).

I saw first hand, working class Americans who have been hurt the most by this administration, and who are having to overcome their own fears and prejudices to vote for the candidate that will best represent them, even though they may be more comfortable with the look and the feel of the republican ticket.

I was able to register families who had never voted before. I think it is important for you to understand that it is a "street fight" that is happening for this 10-13% of the undecided vote. Many of the people I met, knew in their guts that they should not support McCain/Palin, but it seemed easier than supporting the guy who, "stole it from Hillary", or who "went to that horrible Reverend Wright".

I also learned why it has to be won on a grass roots level because, IT WILL NOT HAPPEN ON THEIR TELEVISION SETS. However, it might happen if passionate people like ourselves are able to have engaging conversations with people on the fence. We all owe it to our country to make this election about our future and our children/grandchildren's future.

Therefore we tried to encourage them not to make such an important decision out of spite or fear. When we were able to bring things down to the economy, our families and the future of the country, we were able to see some of the fear and prejudice waver a bit, and that's what we need to break through.

It's a lot easier to make that happen sitting on someone's porch talking with them, than sitting back on your sofa and hoping that "those people" are watching the debates. I guess I was most surprised by people's willingness to engage and discuss what mattered to them, and in most instances they were very appreciative that we had made the effort to reach out.

I am sending this e-mail to YOU, because I think you should get out there too. There are many ways to do it, and like I said all five of my friends who went with me this weekend had never done anything like this before in their lives. Many of you live in or near swing states, please get out there in the next 45 days and help put Obama in the White House.

Here is what you can do:

Go to Obama's website, login and get involved: http://my.barackobama.com /

GO SOMEWHERE AND CAMPAIGN: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/statepages


Of Course, DONATE: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/glencadia


For those of you in NY or PA, here is the link to the volunteer in PA: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/PABorder .

Please contact everyone you know and let's get going.

Picture above by my man Mike! (credit card # I just used to make my donation to Obama, also my man Mike's!)

2 comments:

Hrag said...

WOW! That's amazing!!!

glencadia said...

very cool -- and it looks like you have MY DONATION PAGE linked... thank you... my blog is behind and I'm going to catch up to you in organizing and calling and stuff... we'll all keep each other motivated. thanks...

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/glencadia

http://no-way-no-mccain.blogspot.com/