With A Week To Go

I know it isn’t much, but I’ve been making phone calls for Barack Obama. I've sent in donations, cast my vote early, and keep a constant prayer in my heart, but I wanted to feel that I had played a more active role than that, and, short of traveling to Nevada to knock on doors (which I seriously considered) making phone calls is the do-able thing. I question its effectiveness, but as I sat and dialed numbers on Sunday morning a little counter on the website reported that more than 250,000 calls had been made so far that weekend. It’s hard to imagine a candidate with more passionate and devoted supporters.

My husband, who works in a political context, agrees that Senator Obama is an unusually inspiring and articulate candidate, but he views the campaign in more tactical terms. He says the strategists realized early on that simply replicating the approaches of the last couple of election cycles would result in failure, and they had to change the part of the equation that hasto do with who votes and who participates. They have succeeded in bringing huge numbers of individuals into the process, including many new voters, empowering them with opportunities to participate, welcoming even the smallest donations, and creating a sense of shared purpose. 

Guess what? It’s community organizing on steroids. (Take that, Sarah Palin.)

It’s an interesting and undoubtedly valid perspective. But perhaps underscoring the difference in the way my husband and I look at the world, I also feel there is something far greater going on here: it is the very narrative of ou rnational story. The election of a black president is what logically and poetically follows the progression of events we have witnessed in this century. And yet Obama’s bi-racial background also seems to symbolically represent the very real diversity of our people. He is a man whose focus is on what unites rather than divides us, and never has that been more essential. He is one of those rare leaders who has stepped onto the stage at just the right moment in history, and he is uniquely qualified, possessing both the star power to excite people and the substance to carry through. He is steady and reasonable, intelligently decisive, a known consensus-builder, an eloquent speaker. What's more, he will represent a new image of our nation that even the rest of the world would welcome, and as we have learned, our country is not spinning solo in space. 

SoI’ve been making phone calls for Obama. In the last month or so I’ve talked to people in Montana, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Florida.It’s wonderful when it turns out they already support him; even on the phone and across the miles, you experience an instantaneous sense of shared commitment and camaraderie.

But it’s a mixed bag, as you might expect.

“Obama?”said one woman in Pennsylvania the other day. “I’m against him.” And she hung up.

Anotherwoman, also in Pennsylvania, told me: “I have only one big worry about Obama, and that’shis terrorist friends. Why does he hang around with people who want to bombbuildings? You don’t pal around with someone like that. You got to stay as faraway as possible from someone like that. But that’s my only question aboutObama, so I still haven’t decided, and I’m still giving it some thought.”

I am not sure I was able to reason her out of the terrorist mythology, though I certainly knew the source of it. Still, at least she was giving it thought. 

Oneelderly lady in Florida  said she had cast her vote early for Obama with a hope and a prayer. “I lived through oneDepression,” she said, “and I don’t want to see another one begin. I don’t wantmy children and grandchildren to go through that. Oh, it was bad. You werelucky if you could buy a pair of shoes.” She went on to share reminiscences of the Depression and seemed in no hurry to get off thephone. I respected the way she had voted with the interests of the next generation in mind.

Quite a few people informed me that they had already made their decision and ballots are secret and they did not care to talk about it. 

“Ivoted Obama and I just hope he’s up to it,” said someone else, “‘cause betweenyou and me, I don’t know how anyone would want that job. My God! And with the mess we're in!”

Well,it’s a big job, that’s for sure, and it won’t be smooth sailing. I can already imaginethe euphoria that so many of us will feel on November 5 if it’s President Obama -- but then begins the hard work, the years not just of restoring what we have lost,but of envisioning, creating, inventing, giving, becoming better than we were.

I happened to tune into C-Span yesterday and watchedthe footage of Obama speaking in Denver. He said, “We have always been at ourbest when called upon to look beyond our differences. In this defining moment, Iam asking you to believe -- to believe in yourself, believe in each other, believein the future of this country.”

Well, I'm ready to believe again. It's the necessary first step.  (And come to think of it, the only other option would be to give up, and where does that get us?)

Truth is, it's been a long time since I felt this hopeful and excited about an election, andthe last eight years had almost beaten the idealism out of me, and yet here Iam, thinking, maybe, maybe...yes…we can.

Backto the phones.