I am taking 2 weeks leave of absence from my regular job to help run the Goshen Obama office. It's exciting. Indiana hasn't seen this kind of action since 1964. It feels great to be working a campaign in the town in which I live after doing a couple campaigns (albeit very rewarding ones) in places that I just dropped into for campaign work. People are dropping into the office who haven't volunteered for a campaign since the 60s, or who are in their 60s and voting for the first time.
On Monday I drove an elderly Puerto Rican couple who has lived in Goshen for 21 years to the polls to early vote (I am one of the few people in the office who speaks Spanish). The woman neglected to tell me until I had her in my car that her husband was in a nursing home. So we went and picked him up. Then after waiting 2 hours in line to vote early he was told he didn't have the right ID even though he is a citizen and registered to vote. So then we went to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to get him a duplicate drivers license (he had lost his original) and go through the same process again to get him a new drivers license. This included a lenghty eye exam. Keep in mind I can't understand this couple's accent, and the whole election/voting and eye exam vocab is new to me. But, after about 5 hours, the happy couple voted for Obama. "Que gana Obama!" they exclaimed.
I hope to write some of my reflections on the campaign soon, but alas, we've got history to make here. So I'll leave you with this New York Times article from 2 weeks ago about my new home, Elkhart County, Indiana: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/12/america/indiana.php
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1 comment:
When you say that "Indiana hasn't seen this kind of action since
1964," do you mean just with regard to politics, or at all?
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