Sunday, January 6, 2008

Day 5

Today has been more than interesting, starting out with the town hall event and ending up with more door to door. We got up and around in plenty of time this morning (or at least I did) and headed out for Exeter High School on Epping Road. Epping Road is not, however, located in the TOWN of Epping, as my illustrious driver was convinced. Once we arrived at the event, we were given very little instructions on where to go, what to do, etc. so our kids pretty much improvised. We signed up a few supporters for a while and then an advance person had us form a “human chain” to funnel people into the gym where Barack would be speaking from. It really was amazing how many people were there and how early they showed up to watch him speak. People were waiting there almost two hours before the doors opened, and when we finally had to close off the lobby, people waited for more than an hour in the 30 degree weather not complaining, as far as I could tell.

The event itself was amazing. Once we had funneled people in, I had to hold control of a door to make sure people didn’t get in and out so we could stay within the fire codes. Some people were pretty cranky with the other volunteers when they weren’t allowed in, but no one argued with me. Since Marc and I had been late, we weren’t given volunteer passes, but we were dressed nicely, so people assumed we were staff – it was fantastic. I suppose, with the minor exception of a South African woman who was mad because I couldn’t get her a moment alone with the Senator – she was pretty irritating and quite rude to me. Other than that, the crowd was pretty nice and not a single person in the event heckled the Senator (amazing for a political rally). I was laughing, because a few of the songs that were played were songs that were played at the Dole rallies that I had attended so many years ago – they put on one song that I can still picture Jack Kemp tossing around a football to. The speech was beyond incredible; Obama just has this innate ability to speak to every single person in the room like they are the only person in the room. He just says so many things that make so much sense to me and that I agree with so much. Phenomenal.

After the speech, people started clearing out while Obama took a few questions from the crowd, which was great. One guy did make a ridiculous “speech-question,” which I always find annoying, but other than that, people asked healthcare and education related questions. Education was an interesting topic because I feel it has been rather pushed aside in this election, but he covered it so well and really sold me on his plans. Our friend Ryan hadn’t ever seen Obama before, so he jumped ship on his volunteer duties and went to the front of the room (which I totally would of done had I been in his position) and got to shake Obama’s hand after the event, which was pretty cool. Him, his friend Anthony, Marc, and I went on a quick trip to Exeter for lunch after the event – we attempted to go to the Loaf and Ladle, a local sandwich and soup favourite, but we wound up going to Me & Ollies, which reminded me of a non-commercial Panara. I had this amazing turkey and Havarti sandwich – I want to go back! While we were there, I got a call from back at the office saying that the state rep that I had canvassed with yesterday was at the office and ready to go out again, so we hurried back so that I could take her out again.

We wound up aquiring another mid-50’s woman who is just this amazing woman of absolutely boundless energy (she was jogging quarter mile driveways so that she could maximize the number of houses she visited!). She’s just fantastic, because she believes so truly in what she’s doing, which really shows when she talks with people about Obama. The way the houses are laid out here, some are a quarter mile off the beaten path, house number 87 might be somehow next to house 75, and front doors probably won’t have a snow plowed path, so it’s pretty different than the neatly laid out neighborhoods we’re used to in Kansas. Additionally, to increase the difficulty factor by seven, we weren’t hitting every house, so we might stop at houses 1, 19, 20 and 32 on a street. What we wound up doing was probably hilarious to any wildlife watching the whole process – I would drop one woman off with the assignment to do one house, drop the second woman off to do two houses, pick up the first woman, drive her to house four, pick up the second woman and drive her to house five, etc – kind of like a gigantic whipstitch. It worked out really well though – we were able to cover a bunch of houses pretty quickly that way. Speaking of wildlife, I got to see a wild vole today – bet you’ve never heard of that before! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole)

Once we decided it was starting to get too dark to see the numbers on the houses (An additional challenge, because even though it is state law to have your house number displayed on your house and mailbox, NH really doesn’t feel like it has to comply – Live free or die!) we retired for the evening back to the headquarters, where we swapped stories while eating some dinner that a supporter had brought for us. (I think I’m singlehandedly polishing off a coffee cake that a supporter brought in yesterday.) One of our interns was attacked and bitten by a dog today! He wasn’t hurt, but I think all of us are going to be pretty careful from here on out (On that note, everyone in New Hampshire has a pet – mostly dogs, but we ran into a house today which had a total of 15+ pets! There are all sorts of pet stores and pet “spaws” around too…).

Marc and I called it an early night at 7 and headed back to Curriersville Ln here in Newton. This street is awesome, because it is the street that the old printmaking shop Currier and Ives was based on. Most of the old houses and barns that their prints are of are around this general area – it’s so chock full of history here.


- Amanda

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