Name that Campaign
Two Philadelphia reporters went undercover as campaign volunteers — one for Obama, one for Clinton.
On the first day…
…One found a bustling office, where ‘volunteers leap for ringing phones, pound away at laptops, and huddle around tables covered with mounds of charted maps and voter scrolls.’
…One found a ringing phone with an answering machine while he stood outside the locked door.
The people they found…
…a young guy in a gray blazer talking on a cell phone, requesting a memo to be drafted to the Mayor’s office.
…a line at the volunteer registration table 10 deep, with a hundred or so people bustling around the office.
The greeting they were given…
“Hey there,” she smiles, obviously busy but still cheerful. “Yeah, we got plenty for you to do, let’s get you signed up.”
…I was handed a contribution form (donation: $0), and a piece of paper that asked if I would pledge to vote for [the candidate].
What they did…
…worked with a group of coordinators (data entry, faith-based, volunteer, canvassing) to lead a grassroots effort in their own neighborhoods, entered email addresses into a database, canvassed door-to-door, participated in steering committee meetings where decisions about everything from strategy to a vendor for campaign buttons were made, registered new voters, attended events organized by citizen coordinators, attended large events.
…phone banking, making lawn signs, preparing venues for visibility events, took crank calls, fielded messages from locked-out campaign volunteers, more phone banking with less-than-pleasant results in some cases, door-to-door canvassing, voter registration, and one failed attempt to look ‘peppy’ for Chris Matthews.
What a fascinating look inside two completely different structures! Consider it an inside peek at your next leader. I’ll leave you with these quotes from one ‘volunteer’:
No one heard when it began, but we soon realized there was a background noise. We stopped to listen: It was a static-riddled voice, like someone was speaking into a megaphone.
… words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage …
It was coming from the brownstone next to Cobre.
… it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup …
On what looked like the fourth floor, someone had attached a small speaker to the building, and pointed it toward us. The voice picked up.
… the press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization …
“Is that God?” asked an older volunteer.
“No,” I said, standing near the brownstone, “that’s Obama.”
Name that campaign! (You’ll likely get this one wrong)
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