What a thrill it was tonight for about 20 folks on our volunteer team in Dunwoody to be on a conference call to hear Barack Obama live! He came on and spoke for about 5 minutes, thanking us for all our hard work and imploring us to "double down our efforts" for the next 72 hours. He did not include any of his inspiring rhetoric from his stump speeches, just a good old-fashioned pep talk to keep us going.
While nobody left in tears, it was thrilling for all of us to be there so close to the end of this election. We laughed as he ripped off a list of states that we were going to turn Blue but he did not mention Georgia. We expect to surprise even him when we bring home those 15 electoral votes AND a Jim Martin Senate Seat! Overall, it was just energizing to hear from our leader in these last hours.
We also did our Election Day walk-through today, so we know the chaos that is soon to ensue. Read below the fold for some details.
As we did our walk-through today, it started to become even clearer how chaotic Tuesday is going to be. My job is to lead the team answering incoming calls from drivers, voters, etc. I have been working the last several days to get all our laptops, test the internet connections, and setting up a network for a printer (something I have never done before). I am familiarizing myself with Google Maps so I can help with driving instructions, looking at the Poll Locator web site, and just making sure all of the laptops we are using have bookmarks set up for all the key web sites. I am even hoping to get into Google Maps and type in all the key addresses so they will quickly appear on a list during the hecticness of the day.
Election day seems like it is going to be more chaotic than anything I have ever seen. There seems to be so much to do - canvassing for GOTV, providing rides to polling places, providing food, drinks and other comfort items for folks waiting on line, etc. Almost nobody on our team has been through much of this before, as most folks started volunteering after the Primaries. Our team has over 100 members, but I don't think more than 5 have ever volunteered in a GOTV effort before this one. That is how inspired we are by Barack Obama.
Our team is amazing - we have 100+ active volunteers in a Republican neighborhood of 30,000 people. We do almost everything on our own. I think only 1 or 2 of the team have even been to an Obama office, and I don't even know where one is even though both my wife and I have each put in more than 50 hours of volunteering (with 2 young children at home). And most of our efforts are going to be in a town called Lithonia because Dunwoody is 70/30 Republican and Lithonia is probably going to be 90/10 Democrat.
Not only have we done an incredible amount of volunteer work, but we have also pooled together money for some needed items. We've bought stickers to use in Early Voting outreach, disposible cell phones for use on election day, and supplies for comfort services we will be providing voters on Election Day. One of the unions is offering water bottles which saves us from buying one thing we needed, but we are on our own for the rest.
Two things have been incredibly inspiring as we have been through all this and exhausted ourselves in the process - 1) The incredibly warm reception we have received from our fellow Democrats around Atlanta, especially in the AA community (most of our group is caucasian), and 2) Obama's campaign, and especially his call to us tonight.
This has been like nothing I have ever done before, and I hope many of you have had the chance to join in this historic campaign. If you haven't already, go to your local Obama or Democratic party office and volunteer for November 4. We need every body we can get!