“That [Obama’s] was a magical campaign eight years ago.” Tom Miller, Iowa Attorney General New York Times, 10/26/15, Clinton's Big Push in Elusive Iowa, by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman.
Backstory: In July 1948, days before my tenth birthday, dad paid fifty dollars down for a ten inch Crosley black and white television; the first television set on the wide alley called Horton Street, a black exclamation point on the map of white West Philly.
There are nine of us; the kids who can’t squeeze onto the couch sit on the floor and watch Woody Woodpecker, Hopalong Cassidy, Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Gorgeous George, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Jackie Robinson; while dad enthroned in his wing-back chair rules over the three channels. Outside, on the porch, neighbors watch from the big front window, sitting in porch chairs or standing in the rear. A week after we got television, all programs were pre-empted by the Democratic presidential convention.
“This is history,” Daddy announces to me, the only one of his children who remains. “Watch; you might learn something.” He tells me we are Democrats because Republicans believe the haves deserve more and have-nots have only themselves to blame. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great man.
I watch and listen; fascinated by the accents of America as “distinguished gentlemen” or “distinguished gentle ladies” proclaim the glories of “the great state of” wherever they are from. There are demonstrations; grownups in funny hats parading about the hall at the mention of their candidate. Dad and I clap as the Dixiecrats walk out when Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis calls for a strong civil rights plank in the party platform. We cheer as Harry Truman, now president after FDR's death, attacks the GOP with his “give 'em hell” speech.
Dad lets me stay up late to watch the ballot roll call and I fill out the score card printed in The Evening Bulletin. After three days and nights, a fat lady with a huge gavel adjourns the convention “sine die.” This is the longest I spent alone with my dad.
Four years later, Truman is returning to Independence, Missouri and the race is wide open. I read the newspapers and magazines dad stashes under his chair cushion rather than wait until he is done with them. Because I am 14 and know it all, I declare that Averill Harriman, former New York governor, Roosevelt crony and my father's choice for the nomination, is a dinosaur; while the Illinois governor, eloquent speaker and intellect, Adlai Ewing Stevenson, is the future. Dad predicts “egghead” Stevenson will get his ass kicked by General Dwight David Eisenhower.
My father, Vernon Leon Hemsley, having traveled the world as a ship's cook, once told me he never felt like an American unless he was abroad. In 1948, a Barack Obama would be beyond his imagining. Daddy is long dead from booze and cancer, but if he were alive today, he would sit me down next to him and say, “This is history.”
In 2007, as the primary season approaches, I could enthusiastically support either Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. Barack Obama’s early opposition to the Iraq War scores points with me; however, I back Barack because I want the ten-year-old me to sit next to his dad and see a person who looks like us at the highest pinnacle of America.
* * *
Thursday, December 27: It is 9 pm and five of us from Manhattan, four young professionals and me, the old guy on social security who still has to work, have schlepped backpacks, sleeping bags, and suit cases into the crammed community room of Obama Headquarters in Cedar Rapids. We sit next to each other grinning, proud to have made it this far. The action is in Iowa and here is where we want to be. We told the campaign, “We’re not going to New Hampshire for the first primary; we’re going to Iowa for the caucus.
As I sit and listen to the conversations of the three dozen people in the room, it appears that there are slightly more males than females, approximately eighty percent of us are white, approximately ninety percent are under thirty, and exactly one hundred per cent have read way too many books – so many books that we believe our actions in this place and at this time can change the world.
Opposite me are two dimpled gray ladies, who may be twins or lovers.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Why are you here?” they answer. They are from San Antonio and have driven their RV to Cedar Rapids.
It is like a pep rally of die hards for the big game, but better; we get to play.
“What movie did Barack and Michelle watch on their first date?” I challenge the group.
“Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing,” somebody shouts.
“Are we a cult?” I ask, laughing.
“Maybe not yet,” I answer, “The only audacity Obama has shown me is wanting to be president.”
“Sacrilege!” somebody yells.
As we wait for the briefing to begin, an organizer tells us the campaign received over ten thousand requests to be here, some from Americans overseas.
Campaign Headquarters: There are hand drawn posters plastering the walls and windows; the front door is hung with a tear-off calendar showing “7”, the countdown to Caucus Day. Like an army of irregulars, each of us wears a different Obama tee shirt, jacket or cap. An Obama yarmulke is trumped by a HOPE turban; we trade campaign buttons like kids at a swap meet.
The locals, organized months ago by field workers from Chicago, have provided us with tables overflowing with food that is delivered by a corps of beaming homemakers. Phone calls are being made, others are toiling at a phalanx of monitors, a team attacks a heap of handouts and changes an outdated phone number; there is an atmosphere of determined busyness.
The Briefing: The mantra is “Respect, Empower, Include. Don't talk; listen first, never argue, then tell why you support Obama. No negatives. No lies; not even little ones.” For questions we can’t answer from voters, there is a hot line to call. A seventeen page handout boasts “everything you need to know about Obama and why you should caucus for him.” Most of us will be knocking on doors. I am assigned to an all-black team that will canvass a working poor neighborhood where the turnout is dismal and most of the people are black. It is clear the organizers don’t let feel-good liberal colorblindness get in the way of reality politics.
The Weather: There is snow on the ground and more predicted; the temperature 25 is degrees. In Cedar Rapids, the driveways are shoveled, the steps and sidewalks are covered with snow.
Housing: After Christmas in Manhattan I usually head for the sun and explore a coral reef. The first surprise of my winter vacation in Iowa is discovering the local Marriott has mini-suites at a special Obama rate of $75 per night. I tell myself I should feel guilty for leaving the team and foregoing the chance to field test my brand-new sleeping bag on the floor of a supporter. Later, they will regale me with tales of the fabulous accommodations and splendid food at the homes where they are supposedly roughing it.
The Caucus: On Thursday, January 3 at 6:30 pm, doors open at 1,781 caucus locations. If you're not in line by 7 pm, you don’t get in. After sign in, voters stand in the corner assigned their candidate, the uncommitted stand in the center. Candidates with less than 15% are not viable and their supporters then stand with the uncommitted. Representative from each of the viable candidates tries to recruit the uncommitted to join them and the supporters of unviable candidates often provides the winning margin. At the Republican and Democratic caucuses, delegates are chosen for the nominating conventions to be held later in the year.
Working Hours: We are to be at headquarters by 10:00 am, pick up our walk lists, and hit the road by 10:30. There is an optional break for lunch and a hoped-for finish by seven.
Friday, December 28: My partner is Kamilah, a thirty-one year old African-American teacher from Chicago with an MBA and a Honda Civic. Kamilah met me at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, my ride and my den mother. Most weekends since May, she has driven four hours due west from Chicago to Cedar Rapids and back again. Bright and shiny and smart, she reminds me of Dorothy Dandridge in the movie Bright Road. Kamilah has volunteered for Senator Obama since his first campaign, having heard him speak at Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH. She is warm and easy while I'm more comfortable barking orders from a campaign's back office. By the time we reach Cedar Rapids, it is night. There is little to see beyond the road and the snow that blasts the windshield. Then, appearing in the distance, we see a gigantic HOPE sign atop a hill.
My first day of canvassing brings a new storm. Staggering through snow, I fall down trying to keep up with Kamilah. The walk list on my clipboard has the name, age, gender, phone number and political party of each contact. Before we start, my walk list is already wet and a ring of ice and snow glistens at the bottom of my pants legs. I flop on porch furniture to catch my breath before knocking on the door as Kamilah and I work opposite sides of the street and stay in touch by cell phone. Sometimes, Kamilah gets invited inside for coffee or hot chocolate, I never am. The wind and snow are such a hassle I’m relieved when voters don't answer and it is damn difficult to manage wet gloves and place the handouts where they will not be blown away. My left parka pocket is filled with Open this Door … Change the World fliers, each clipped to a yellow card announcing a rally at the Coliseum; the right pocket is stuffed with caucus lit. Twenty-three percent of Iowans caucused in 2004; for Barack to win, we have to do better.
It is pitch-dark and arctic icy when we finish. I have talked to eleven people; the quota is thirty-five. Nobody I’ve talked to gives a damn. Perhaps it’s because I’m so out of my element that I forget to smile or mention my name. Kamilah tells me, “You’ll do better once you get the hang of it.”
The War of Lawn Signs: Lawn signs are everywhere; mostly HOPE signs for Obama and HILLARY signs for the front runner. Signs face off against each other like war. I count one Edwards, one Kucinich, one Biden, and zero Dodd. The Republicans have few signs; one Huckabee, no Romney, and in front of mansions, two Rudy’s. Some old people ask us to remove the Hillary sign, claiming it was planted without permission. We politely refuse; a picture of an Obama worker removing a Hillary sign would be a disaster.
Saturday, December 29: Today I am prepared; new gloves, pants tucked into boots, handouts neatly ordered in a bike messengers’ bag. I smile at everyone. “I’m Howard from New York and I gave up my vacation to be here for Senator Obama.” I meet a ninety-two year old African-American woman recovering from surgery, heartsick she isn’t well enough to attend her first caucus. My spirits soar until a preppy, thirty-two year old black man, matter-of-factly tells me he can’t decide between Clinton and Obama. Next to him, bright-eyes taking in everything, is his son who looks to be the same age when I watched my first convention. “Think about the future. Think about him,” I point to the boy, walk away in disgust, but go back to deliver the handout.
Kamilah’s Rant: In the car, I explode in exasperation. For the first time, Kamilah frowns. “They want everything now,” she says. “They have no sense of the sacrifices that got them their degrees and the money they earn. They care about nothing except themselves. They know nothing about history. I have this mental flash that if Obama loses, it will be because of black America rather than white America.”
Back at the Marriott, my room service club sandwich remains half-eaten as I watch as the Giants lose to the Patriots. I remind myself if Team Obama loses in Iowa, the season ends here and the upstart, untried, first term Senator from Illinois will have proven himself not ready for prime time.
Sunday, December 30: The residents of Cedar Rapids seem to be in hiding, few answer their doors. The unwritten rule of this political pageant is if you answer your door, you politely listen. I have yet to encounter surliness or a declared Hillary supporter. A white couple at the end of a cul de sac is “thrilled” someone finally knocks on their door and promises to support Obama if Edwards doesn't make the cut. Most people tell me they support Obama and will caucus because that is the quickest way to get me off their porch. I dutifully give the caucus location, a button and a bumper sticker.
Lawn signs are kept in the trunk of the Honda and people usually don’t ask for one unless there is a HILLARY sign nearby. I still don't have the audacity to ask folks to sign a pledge card, although completed cards overflow the bin at headquarters. When she answers her door, a middle-aged black woman points to the HOPE sign on her lawn, the bumper sticker on her car and the two Obama buttons she wears. Like a school girl, she recites the time and location of the caucus. “Now what do you have to tell me?” she smirks. I reply, “The Senator personally asked me to say, thank you,”
I meet my first Clinton supporter who says he’ll vote for Hillary because he likes Bill. I don’t have the strength to counter this argument and decide to leave conversions to the saint from Chicago. Maybe it’s enough to bear witness.
Monday, December 31: More wind and snow. My partner is Jamal, an African-American law school graduate completing a NYU fellowship and part of our New York team. Without Kamilah’s car, we are on foot and my ass is dragging. When I suggest we take a break, Jamal snarls at me “Get with the program!” In the split-second before I explode and tell Jamal how many campaigns I have run, and for young pups like him, I am the program – it occurs to me that Jamal is right. I get with the program and nearly bust my bypass to keep up; knocking on 51 doors, making 19 contacts, and confirming 9 will caucus for Barack and 2 for Edwards.
That night I go to a New Year’s Eve pizza party, but doze off and go to bed well before midnight.
Tuesday, January 1, New Year’s Day: It is brutal outside; the temperature is 9 degrees, the wind-chill minus 15, but at Obama headquarters we are “Fired Up!” because the Des Moines Register poll, based on higher turnout numbers, puts Obama slightly ahead. Kamilah is back; while I was canvassing with Jamal, she spent Monday spreading the word at barbershops and beauty salons. I encounter Ron Paul volunteers who stand in military formation, gathering to canvass. They ask if I am a genuine volunteer as they heard Clinton canvassers are paid. Today is especially rough going and by noon, although the rest of me is toasty, thanks to my new boots and trusty Eskimo parka, my face feels as if I broke into a smile my face would break.
I knock on a door and a wide-eyed eight year old looks me up and down and yells, “Grandmom, the Obama man is here.” “Send him on back,” she answers. In the kitchen, an ancient black woman is at a stove, seated on a stool and stirring gravy in a skillet. The kitchen smells like my childhood; a Mahalia Jackson hymn is playing. We talk about family; Grandmom points to a picture and tells me her eldest grandson visited the White House. “He told me the next time, he’ll stay four years.” We both laugh as if exchanging a secret; it is obvious Grandmom needs no politicking. Before I leave, I take off my NYC for Obama button and pin it to the shirt of the eight year old and make a show of handing him the flyers. Once outside I feel so good I could lie on the ground and make a snow angel -- I am the Obama man!
Headquarters calls us with a change in strategy; ignore the uncommitted and concentrate on Obama supporters. Kamilah cellphones a nearby team who are on foot and invites them to join forces. According to Kamilah, they both are from D.C. and have graduate degrees. Crystal and Kierra, the two young women who arrive, look fashionable even in winter wear. “Ain't yawl supposed to be back at the cabin, birthing babies?” I ask in a Gone-With-The-Wind drawl.
We take one block at a time so that at most we each have five or six houses to canvass before returning to the car. With four of us it becomes a party; we laugh at the Clinton boast that yesterday they had seven thousand door-knocks; we knew the state wide total for Obama was fifteen thousand. We scoff at Hillary's promise to shovel the steps of caucus-goers.
“I heard that Hillary’s gonna serve fried chicken at the caucus,” says Crystal.
“Fried chicken, now that’s serious,” says Kamilah as everybody laughs.
Ebony night, the wind brutal, the house numbers unseeable without a flashlight to pierce the blowing snow. Of the fourteen page walk list, two pages remain; at least another hour of door-knocking until the warmth of Obama-land. I timidly suggest we've done more than our share and can return with our heads held high. My cohorts beat me down with chants of “Fired Up! Ready to Go!”
Finally, our walk lists completed with eighty-two “definite” caucus-goers; we swagger into headquarters at 8:45 singing, “We will, we will, BaROCK you.” We defrost and refuel with steamy beef stew while other teams straggle in like members of a lost patrol. At 10:10, the final group staggers in; no team has had the audacity to turn in a walk list without a check mark beside each name.
Wednesday, January 2 (the day before the caucus): More wind, more snow. Our new team of Kamilah, Crystal and Kierra and me concentrate on people who need rides. East Village pol that I am, I suggest we rent a truck for a midnight raid on Hillary lawn signs, just for the hell of it. If challenged we can claim we're from a recycling company and got our dates mixed. Nobody takes me seriously. Before we begin our final canvas, Kamilah leads a prayer for Barack, Michelle, Malia and Shasha. Though I have begged, badgered and bullied, I have never before prayed for a politician.
We finish in two hours and head for the Veteran’s Memorial Building for the rally that will end the campaign. Crystal suggests they call themselves “Howard's Angels” and I am flattered but wonder if I missed the joke. At the armory, I finagle the job of seating the aged and lame and feel very much like one of them; wanting it all to be over so I can sleep for a month. I seat a man and wife; he is a disabled Korean War veteran and Republican, she a retired schoolteacher and Democrat. “Our votes have been canceling each other’s for years,” she tells me. “Now, we both are going to caucus for Obama.” Instantly young again, I go outside and join a crew who are standing roadside with a huge HOPE sign, while others hold a sign that reads Honk for Obama. I think it is all a bit kindergarten, but can't stop grinning.
The rally begins; Obama appears relaxed and unhurried, despite Cedar Rapids as the third stop of six he will make today before the caucus tomorrow. He asks for a show of hands of those who are “absolutely, positive” they will caucus. Most hands go up. “Which of you are still undecided?” he asks. A dozen or so hands are raised. “This is for the undecided,” he says and launches into his stump speech. By now I know it by heart, but listen with a campaign manager's ears as Obama weaves his themes of ending the war, providing health insurance, boosting the economy, and protecting the environment, into a message of hope and change. When he finishes, the crowd is on its feet, yelling, clapping and stamping. He reminds me of a Spielberg movie even where you’re aware of the setup, you laugh or cry anyway.
A reporter tells me the crowd is much bigger than at the Clinton event earlier today. A line of people waits as a volunteer returns their copies of Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope that Obama has autographed.
Rally over, I leave for my bed at the Marriott and am stopped at the front door by the crew leader who tells me not to leave before the volunteer picture. Reluctantly, I trudge back to Howard’s Angels and stand with them. There are about a hundred of us. We are divided into groups of twenty-five and led down into the armory's underground corridors. Exchanging expectant looks and murmurs of growing excitement; no one dares to speak, like children being led to a surprise party. Outside a large storage room are two men in suits, ties and ear pieces. “Oh, shit,” somebody mutters.
He is taller and skinnier up close. And younger, reminding me of a West Point plebe swanked up for a dancing class. He moves with the nonchalance of a fashion model used to being ogled. Quietly in charge, he welcomes us and announces to no one in particular that we are too many to talk to at once and divides us into two groups, each on opposite sides of the room. He makes small talk, flashing a megawatt smile and thanks each one, exchanging a handshake or a hug with us, the star struck.
As he nears, I wonder what to say to this man whose writings I have studied, whose life I have scrutinized, whose positions I have parsed, secretly hoping to find him out and discover a “but” that would give me an out. Like Oprah, I conclude, “He is the one.” No matter that my hopes, first trampled on by Adlai Stevenson, and trod on again by might-have-been heroes like Eugene McCarthy, Jesse Jackson and Howard Dean, or that I am too cool, too canny, too world wise, to believe the bullshit of the American Dream -- here I am in Iowa, keeping the faith.
I stand in front of him with open mouth and stammer the first words that come to mind. “Change the world,” I say. Without missing a beat, he replies, “With your help.” A picture is taken and we are side by side in a photo which I will forever claim is me, Barack and a dozen of his most intimate advisers. As the volunteers walk upstairs to the real world, the only sound is footsteps. My eyes are moist and I'm embarrassed until I see everyone else wiping their eyes or sniffling into a tissue.
Caucus Day, Thursday, January 3: I drive people to the school building so that my job will be over at 7:00 pm when the doors are closed and the caucus begins. After delivering the final group, I walk inside to witness a caucus. The gym is crowded; Kamilah grins as she points to tables jammed with supporters and tells me it is a record turnout, more than double that of 2004. As I walk down the stream of bodies stopped at the sign-in desk, I see hands waving to get my attention and realize people want me to see them, want me to know they are here. My vision finally clears by the time I arrive at the hotel.
It is a two hour drive from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines. I have splurged on a car and driver to take me while my crew mates work the caucus. As the car arrives at downtown Des Moines, there are yells and cheers that grow louder as we near the hotel. The ballroom is elbow to elbow; Stevie Wonder's Signed, Sealed and Delivered has the crowd dancing in place. It is Times Square on New Year's Eve and Fourth of July fireworks on the banks of Hudson.
As I drink in the jubilation of the star-spangled crowd, my mind races back to when I first canvassed for Obama outside a Shoprite in Manhattan in February, a week after he announced in Springfield. I was freezing but Fired Up!, the name Barack Obama still tasting strange as I said it aloud. Because I was not a street warrior, but a backroom operator, I asked a pro to go with me. “The first rule is to make eye contact,” she told me. After standing and chanting for an hour, my eyes finally locked onto the eyes of a young black man in a suit and tie. “Don’t waste my time,” he barked as I approached with my rallying cry, “Barack Obama, be part of history.” He strode away, swinging his shopping bag as a weapon to ward me off. “No way no nigger named Barack Hussein Obama is gonna be president.”
The jostling of a red-faced white lady who wears a necklace of red, white and blue beads brings me back to the victory celebration. “This is history,” I yell at her, over the noise. “I know,” she yells back.