Jeremy's Pittsburgh Diary

Day 6

Took the luxury of sleeping until I woke up today, and shuffling off to the main office by noon or so. The theory was that I might wind up doing some door-to-door canvassing in the evening, and I didn't want to be exhausted by the end. Started the day with doing some data entry, putting in all the information from a few of the door-to-door canvassing teams from the weekend. The data entry is critical - everything that we're doing at this point is to build up lists of supporters and likely volunteers; these lists will drive the final days of get-out-the-vote effort. However, I'm also seeing that data entry is the easiest thing for an organizer here to get help with. Let's face it, most of us would prefer to help by spending a couple of hours updating data instead of making one hundred phone calls.

Busy busy busy at the HQ office - all the phone lines were full, the staff in the back room were squeezing and scrambling to find places for people to sit, and a big shipment of supplies had just come in. So, there was a steady stream of people coming in to get yard signs, rally signs etc. Eventually, rode up to the North Hills office with the staffer who's coordinating that area.

The North Hills office is now set up with a collection of trac phones and minutes, so that they can do more phonebanking even without any land lines (many volunteers that come in are not willing to use their own cell phones). Unfortunately, there's still no internet, and no word on whether Verizon will be coming out in time to help. We have one computer with a cell phone internet card, and unfortunately that's on a free trial basis and will stop working at the end of the week. So, our staffer has to do as much of the work of printing out call lists and walk lists from the main office as possible.

Today was spent mostly on the phones. From the responses I'm getting, it seems like most of the people we're trying to reach either haven't heard the flap about the "bitter" remarks, or haven't cared. However, I have spoken with people I know here, who know folks that were highly offended and are now voting for Clinton. So, it remains to be seen how much impact it'll have.

Lots of new volunteers coming in to the North Hills office, fun to see that energy and enthusiasm. Stuff like cookies and pizzas keep showing up too, to keep everyone going.

Day 5

Today I headed out late morning to the North Hills office again, stopping first to fuel up our organizer with a triple venti espresso. The office space was only acquired a few days ago, and is pretty bare bones - a little bit of spare furniture, no phone lines or internet (although we do have one loaned laptop with a wireless anywhere card, and a printer). With some donated tracphones and a bunch of volunteers, it's all we needed to ramp up a good phonebanking operation. And phonebanking was the main emphasis for the day, given that the weather was cold and drizzly.

I did go out door-to-door for a few hours with an older lady, Sarah. Although the final numbers we got weren't much different than yesterday, it was a much more positive day overall. We recruited a volunteer, and talked to quite a few open-minded truly undecided people. A few minutes of quality discussion with some of those folks could really make a difference.

Hopefully by tomorrow they'll have internet at the North Hills office.

A volunteer with one of the buttons I brought

Day 4

Better living through chemistry. A pocketful of cold medicine and Riccola helped me make it through a day of door-to-door canvassing. I went out to work with a neighborhood organizer in the north end suburbs of Pittsburgh, to help give her volunteers a boost of fresh enthusiasm. Much of Pittsburgh is strong Obama territory, but the area I was in is much tougher. It's also in a different congressional district than most of the city, one that's strongly republican. This makes the door-to-door work harder - not that you knock on GOP doors, but that the doors that you do knock on are pretty spread out. The area that we were in was bizarrely laid out, with dead ends, streets that start and stop, hills and twisty roads, so it was time consuming as well. However, we're hitting that sort of place now because they've been doing such a good job of covering the easier and more supportive neighborhoods already.

There are still Obama supporters and Obama leaners out there, but there are also some negative reactions. My old undergrad job of door-to-door fundraising served me well, as I was able to remember some of the skills and practices I learned back then. I knocked on one door and asked the woman which candidate she was supporting; she just touched her fingers to her mouth and then reached out to touch Obama's name on my t-shirt. At first I thought she was deaf, since she didn't say anything. So, it's clear that us fighting through an area like that is really meaningful to the supporters that live there. Plus, we're building up long lists of supporters that will be used in a big Get Out The Vote effort in the last days leading up to the primary.

David Lloyd's button designs (as made real by the hard work of Dennis and Sharon Rutledge) remain a big hit, especially the horse and carriage Amish design.

Day 3

I felt well enough to put in a full day at the Pittsburgh HQ today. I spent the day on the phones, about 8-9 hours, and did 242 calls. The neighborhoods that we're hitting heavy, we're relentless. I say that because we're not leaving messages, so that we can continue cycling through the numbers that we haven't reached until we speak to every person in those neighborhoods. It's incredible how many uncommitted voters there are out there, and I've also spoken with a couple of people who were not aware that Obama is a Christian. Unlike yesterday, I was able to do quite a few persuasive calls - talking to uncommitteds and encouraging to get them to vote Obama. It worked for some of them, I believe.

Here are a couple of pictures I took today. Not enough time to embed these in a decent size for the webpage, sorry; use the back button to get back here after looking at them.

Backroom - very busy and noisy - I was here all day
Front room - volunteers coming and going all day

Day 2

My fever seemed to break by late morning, and I actually felt pretty good, so it was time to head into the office.

I found a bus line that runs right past the Obama office from where I'm staying. The Obama office is in a storefront office in the East Homestead neighborhood, plastered with decorations and buzzing with activity. Lots of volunteers coming in for phonebanking, a good variety of food and drink being brought in by supporters, curious people, school groups and so on all coming and going. Lots of Teamsters and SEIU people coming and and helping, and an SEIU fellow trying his best to keep the place from turning into too much of a mess.

I brought a couple hundred of the buttons that Dennis and Sharon Rutledge made, and people loved them! (Maybe David will put up a link to some of the images he made for those buttons).

My first job was calling a bunch of Democratic Committee members in African-American neighborhoods to let them know about a date change for an event featuring Kweise Mfume (former Maryland congressman and president of the NAACP). Time to sink or swim - can you say the esteemed Mr Mfume's name to a bunch of VIP folks who are quite familar with him, and not embarrass yourself? I did pretty well, and was able to make 67 calls, leaving detailed messages most of the time, and talking mostly to strong supporters.

I went from there into phoning mostly older people, and found mostly people who didn't want to say a preference. A few Obama supporters, a few Clinton supporters. A total of 81 calls there, and then I figured it was time to head home and rest up for a full day tomorrow.

Day 1

Blech. A little cough that I had while on the plane had turned into an icky illness by the time I woke up this morning, including a fever. My big mission to help Obama in Pennsylvania now has me just cooped up in my friend's house trying to rest up.

Day 0

I think a lot of us have realized that this is a historic candidacy that we're involved with. And, I think a lot of us have realized that Senator Obama's candidacy won't come to fruition unless people across the country come together and get involved. A key part of Barack's message is that here's not running to solve our problems - he's running to provide us with the leadership that we need so that WE can solve our problems. We are the ones we've been waiting for, and all that.

My first job after finishing grad school was at CMU in Pittsburgh, and I have some good friends in the area that I haven't seen in a few years. I could tell after Super Tuesday that this had the potential to be a long nomination race. So, all these things came together to form the idea of traveling to Pittsburgh before the Pennsylvania. I decided it was worth spending some of my vacation time and frequent flyer miles to make it happen. About a week after Ohio and Texas, when it became clear that Clinton was staying in for the long haul, I booked my ticket.

Later, I found out about some amazing efforts led by Jen Hauseman in the 43rd. She had a trip planned to central Pennsylvania in March, during the voter registration push; she set a goal of bringing 5000 buttons to Pennsylvania. They put together some one-of-a-kind designs, started selling them locally for a dollar apiece, and putting all the proceeds into funding buying button materials. Large numbers of enthusiastic volunteers were enlisted, and by the time of her trip, she was bringing a carry-on so heavy with buttons that she tweaked her back at the airport. There were too many buttons for her to carry, and so some of them were shipped out to her.

We were inspired by this here in the 45th, and so Dennis and Sharon Rutledge invested in a button machine, paid for the blanks, and did all the work to provide me with about 25 pounds of buttons to take to Pittsburgh. David Lloyd did the design work to come up with 4 unique PA Obama designs.

And now here I am in the O'Hare airport, halfway through a 4-hour layover on my way to Pittsburgh. My plan is to do whatever they need of me, and put in a good solid effort. But I'm also planning on treating it like a vacation - I'm not going to stress or obsess too much about what's going on, and use it as a chance to recharge and recuperate from the last few weeks of effort here in WA. Hopefully I'll be able to achieve both at the same time.

Watch this space for news, observations, and pictures over the next week.

Jeremy York, 8 April 2008, O'Hare Airport

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