Hazleton, Pennsylvania. According to the 2000 census there are a little over ten thousand households here. Over the course of this weekend I knocked on the doors of about one hundred and thirty of these on behalf of Barack Obama.
Please follow me below the fold for more, and to hear my plea.
In 2006, Hazleton earned some notoriety when its city government, lead by Mayor Louis J. Barletta, passed an ordinance titled the "Illegal Immigration Relief Act." The ordinance took aim at illegal immigrants by establishing fines of over $1,000 a day for every day that a landlord rents a house or apartment to an undocumented tenant, by revoking for five years the business license of anyone who employs undocumented workers, and by establishing English as the official language of the town, with penalties for anyone who translates city documents into another language.
Though in July 2007, the ordinance was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge, it had already made a lasting impact on the town. A substantial portion of Hazleton’s Latino population has left, just as supporters of the ordinance had hoped would happen. This exodus has, however, created unintended consequences for the local economy. What was as recently as a few years ago a vibrant downtown is now a ghost town, with boarded up storefronts outnumbering those still in business.
Tension between the White and Latino populations in Hazleton continues to simmer, and Barletta has pledged to appeal the decision that struck down the ordinance, taking it to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and to the Supreme Court if necessary. Mr. Barletta, a Republican, is currently running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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It was into this town that I, along with several other volunteers from Massachusetts, were dispatched by the Barack Obama campaign this weekend.
Bob, one of the founders of the Hazleton Obama office
Over the course of two days, I knocked on about a hundred and thirty doors and had conversations with about twenty five or thirty residents of Hazleton.
It was a mixed bag. Many people expressed strong support for Obama, which was encouraging, yet there was clearly some palpable resentment towards him. One of my fellow volunteers encountered several people who were offended by Barack’s comments at the recent San Francisco fundraiser, feeling that he was making a veiled reference to Hazleton itself. Another canvasser encountered several openly racist individuals whose only political priority seemed simply to see Hazleton’s Latino population pushed out. Another encountered residents who felt that because Obama himself has not spent time in Hazleton, that he doesn’t really care about them and therefore doesn’t deserve their support.
There were also a sizeable portion of undecided voters, people who are perhaps ambivalent about both Clinton and Obama, but who are nevertheless politically savvy enough to understand just how important Tomorrow’s primary is going to be. In my mind it is these voters who benefit the most from face to face contact with the campaign and it is they who make it worth the time, money and effort for canvassers to travel hundreds of miles to talk to people at their doorsteps and on their front porches.
On Sunday, I spoke to one of these conflicted voters. When she first came to the door and I told her who I was and handed her some literature, she told me about what a hard decision it was, how it was very personal and very complicated, and that she didn’t take it lightly. I asked her what some of the issues were that were making it hard for her to decide on one candidate or the other. "I’m really concerned about his reverend." She said. "It’s pretty clear to me that this person is anti-white, and has been all along, and I just don’t understand why somebody would stay in a church like that if he didn’t feel that way too." I looked her in the eye and said "sometimes people we love can disappoint us." It was something I had seen someone say here on Daily Kos, and it was something that I felt carried a certain sincerity and depth that no long-winded explanation of the history of Obama’s relationship with Wright could have conveyed.
We talked for about ten or fifteen minutes, and by the end she smiled and said that she was "almost a hundred percent sure" that she would vote for Barack. In my mind, if this one woman does indeed come out and vote for Obama on Tuesday because of the conversation she and I had together, then my entire trip to Hazleton was worth the time and the effort.
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One of the first people I talked to in Hazleton was a middle aged African American woman. She wasn’t registered to vote, but I gave her some literature anyway and asked her to talk to other people in her household about voting for Barack. As I turned and walked away, I heard her call out to me: "Do you think he’s gonna do it?" I turned around and looked to see her smiling at me through her screen door. "Yes." I said, "yes I do." She didn’t say anything, but she bit her lip a little bit and nodded her head.
There’s a little more than 24 hours left for you to have an impact on the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. I am now begging you to help us. If each one of you Obama supporters who reads this diary picks up the phone TODAY and convinces one single person in PA to vote for Barack, then you will have made a difference that you can be proud of; you will have become part of something bigger than yourself, a part of an extraordinary historical moment that will be remembered far after we’re all dead and gone.
The Hazleton crew, along with thousands of volunteers and staff in cities and towns all across Pennsylvania, did their best this weekend. Now it's your turn. Grab a phone and call Pennsylvania voters.
Don’t let us down.
Sunday's "Fiesty" Rally in Nearby Scranton