Monday Update

So this was an epic-ly Obama weekend.  Lots of good stories.  I also dressed up like Agamemnon, but that's another story altogether.  

It was parents weekend at the University this past weekend, and my mom came out to visit.  On Friday night, we went down to the Loop to go to a Fieldhands get-together thrown by Al Giordano's Fieldhand group.  The Fieldhands are a grassroots organization founded by readers of Giordano's blog The Field to both work to get Barack Obama elected and continue to fight for important causes after the election is over.

The meeting was held at the Billy Goat Tavern on (or actually, under) Michigan Avenue.  We got there at about a quarter to seven, and a few minutes later Al arrived.  He was not alone.  With him was Nate Silver, the UC grad and polling expert behind the site fivethirtyeight.com.  They sat down with the couple dozen Fieldhands who had assembled for the event and we talked politics, post-election plans, and even a little baseball.  Nate Silver is a baseball analyst as well as a political one, and he had the foresight to predict the Rays would make the playoffs.  

I hope his election predictions are just as accurate-- currently on his site Barack has over a 95% chance to win.

Unfortunately, we had to leave early to go get dinner in Greektown.  Big mistake.  Especially because Greek food does not sit well at a hot, crowded costume party.  But that's a story for another time.

I had been in touch with Al a little bit in the week before the meet-up, and had told him that the UC Dems and Students for Barack Obama would be going to Gary, IN on Saturday.  He came too, but we didn't see him-- we were out canvassing, I guess.

He reported his story (and mentioned me and my mom!) that night on his site, and I can't ofer any better insight than he can.  

But I can give some anecdotes from the ground.  The Gary office was packed; we had to be sent to a satellite office to get our walk packets.  My mom and I took half our packet and two other UC Students, Mark and Sean, took the other half.  We finished quick, and while Mark and Sean went out to do another packet, my mom and I went back to the central Gary office to phonebank.  

Lots of phonecalls.  Mainly we were calling for GotV (IN has early voting going on now) and to recruit volunteers.  It was pretty successful.  I signed up a GotV volunteer, got a bunch of people early voting information, and managed to only get hung up on once (and for an hour and a half of calling, I thought that was good).

I also got some Obama signs.

That's really all for now-- not too much else has been going on.  Lots of panicking over the election, lots of Sarah Paling jokes (the Halloween party I was at not only featured yours truly as Agamemnon, Lord of Men, but had a John McCain, a Palin, a Barack, and a Cindy McCain).

Oh, and I've been signing up a lot of volunteers on campus.  The sales pitch? 

"Do YOU want Sarah Palin to be the next Vice-President?"

...we must have signed up over 50 people like that...

peace    

It's been a while

School has been wonderful but busy.  From the workload to the myriad activities, I've found very little time to write.  However, there are a couple quick things I want to talk about.

Last Saturday, we finished out orientation by participating in a program called "Experience Chicago Through Service.  This optional activity, attended by over half of the incoming class, was part of the school's outreach into the community.  My group, and several others, went to an elementary school on the South Side of Chicago -- a 99% African American, 93% reduced or free lunch elementary school -- and repainted the crumbling walls.  Unfortunately, we painted it a hideous shade of blue (they have poor choice in school colors, I guess), but it was much appreciated.  

I spent some time this week with Students for Barack Obama registering voters on campus-- I only did a little bit because I got sick, but I heard rumor that our drive alone registered somewhere over 200 kids.  Which was heartening.

Also, we spent Saturday in Gary, Indiana registering voters and canvassing for Obama. We took the train down from Chicago and found something like 500 volunteers working the Gary office.  Really interesting city-- extremely poor (at least where we were), 90% black, will go huge for Obama. The only problem is that in past elections turnout has been abysmally low. How low? 15% in 2004!

The campaign hopes and thinks that it can bring that number up-- already, registrations are pouring in at a rate of hundreds a day, and the Obama folks are organizing a massive absentee-ballot/early voting drive to counteract the restrictive voter ID laws in Indiana. It's sad though-- the state Republican party sued and managed to get the early voting locations in the black neighborhood shut down, so now people who want to vote early have to drive 45 minutes South, away from where their jobs are North of the city in Chicago. It's disgraceful that an American political party can openly base its tactics on voter suppression.

Anyway, I need to run to SoSc right now.

peace