Reminiscing about the Campaign

One morning, a man, Richard, came into our office carrying a guitar. We asked him if he wanted to volunteer. Yes, he said, but just to play music for us.

For the last year, whenever stateside, I had volunteered. I flew to New Hampshire and Indiana for the primaries; I canvassed in California before Super Tuesday and helped with voter registration in Virginia. But I wanted to do more in the closing days. Which is how I ended up at the Obama for America office in rural Asheboro, across the street from a gun shop.

I went there expecting few other volunteers. I should have known better: like Richard, they streamed in daily. Some even drove up from Georgia. Many were newly motivated high school students; others had been Democrats since Kennedy. Together we knocked on doors, made calls, and rationed out yard signs.

Some encounters were awkward. One older visitor grumbled he would never “vote for a nigger.” Wrote about him a few posts ago. Another woman walked in with a little girl and asked to share a prayer. Once had everyone had gathered, she claimed Obama would have murdered her daughter in the womb. The girl seemed unaware she had become a political statement: for that moment, at least, an object more than a child.

But for every one of those moments, I ran into so many other more inspiring ones: the immigrant voting for the first time; the woman who broke her ankle canvassing and insisted on continuing in a cast. (She ended up on phone call duty instead.)

One encounter stood out for me more than the others. It was months earlier, in New Hampshire. I assisted an elderly African-American woman limping up the street to cast her ballot in the primary. Her speech was slurred, maybe from a stroke. Afterward volunteers from different campaigns put down their signs to help me figure out how to get her home. One couple had hosted the Clintons’ wedding reception in Arkansas; another man had served in Vietnam with John McCain. I saw people in our country really do come together when someone’s well-being is on the line.

I often wish I had done more. But then: I spent Election Night in a crowded room in downtown Asheboro, with new friends who had come from throughout the county to eat pizza and watch the news together. In the end we lost the county 70-28—but it didn’t matter. At 11:01 pm, some Republicans from up the street brought us a basket of apples, and Richard struck up America the Beautiful.