If you haven't, you should. If you don't know who he/she is, you should call the nearest field office in your state and find out. I'll explain why after the jump.
My family and I just returned from a two week vacation on Ocracoke Island, the southern-most of North Carolina's beautiful Outer Banks. It was a slice of heaven; I didn't wear a watch, check e-mail, or even read a newspaper all week. I needed that time to rest, rejuvenate, and reconnect with my husband and young sons.
I picked up my voice mail, however, during our long drive home to Iowa and found that I had three messages from Linda, my congressional district's brand-spanking newly appointed field organizer for the Obama campaign. Her first message was chipper and inviting. Her second sounded a bit more strained, and by the third message, a tone of definite desperation had entered her voice. "Where are you?" I heard her say between the lines. "You were a precinct captain; you've signed up to volunteer; you came to an organizational meeting earlier this summer...why won't you call me back?"
Upon our return, I called Linda and told her that we'd been away. She asked if she could meet with me the next day. We spent a lovely two hours at my kitchen table, comparing caucus/primary season stories and talking about strategy and plans for my precinct in the general election.
A little of Linda's back story: she is a middle-aged white woman and a former in-home child care provider. She became involved with ASFCME when they added the CCPT (Child Care Providers Together) branch, and became an organizer for them during the Iowa caucus season. She left her husband, grown children, and grandchildren behind in Council Bluffs, IA and relocated to Des Moines to work on the Hillary Clinton campaign for the union. She spent five months in five different states working passionately on Hillary's campaign but, on the night of the Montana primary, she dedicated herself to finding a position in the Obama campaign so she could help bring about the change that she knows our country needs.
Linda is frustrated, though. She works 12 to 19 hour days, only insisting on shorter hours on Sundays so she can attend services at her church. She makes hundreds of phone calls, knocks on dozens of doors, and gets about five hours of sleep a night so that she can see a Democrat in the White House next year. With just over 100 days until the general election, she is currently focused on pulling together those of us who promised, both before and after the January caucus, that we would volunteer and help in the general election.
But people are busy. There are summer vacations to take, school supplies to buy, children to entertain during long summer days. Nobody is thinking about the general election ("It's so early!" after all), and even the most dedicated caucus volunteers are distracted.
The truth is, we're only three months out, and Linda almost cried with relief when I told her I would call my caucus team and try to get some help canvassing this weekend.
So for all the other Lindas out there, call your Obama field organizer today. Let him/her know that you're still (or are newly) dedicated to helping elect Barack Obama. Offer to make a few phone calls, knock on a few doors, or bake some cookies for the field staff. They've got a tough road ahead of them. Let's try to take a bit of the load off their shoulders if we can.