Ohio, Day 10: The Countdown Begins

"...Obama has 8 scenarios to win, McCain has one. If we win Ohio, it's over. Barack Obama is our next president..." -Ohio campaign manager

Forgive me, it has been 7 days since my last confession. And things have been getting busier and busier.

Getting out the vote to protect
As of this past Monday, I'm no longer working with voter protection. My favorite part of the campaign has been the outreach work (I get to talk more - surprise surprise), so I decided to transfer over to GOTV (Get Out The Vote), which is responsible for all of the phone calls, door-to-door canvassing, and generally hitting the streets. This has been a phenomenal experience. I'm been meeting a REALLY diverse slice of America from all walks of life (and I've been collecting all of these great names that could be characters in the novel I'll write one day).

Basically, the GOTV effort has been divided into a series of stages. The first state was persuasion, where we confirm who's definitely voting for a candidate, and try to convince the undecided voters to vote for Obama. That stage completed last week, and we've shifted now to targeting those who are likely supporters and convincing them to both make sure to vote and to try to vote early (since Ohio has early voting at designated locations). Last weekend, we had an all-hands-on-deck effort to get everyone to canvas the state, and it was done in competition with Pennsylvania, as measured by "knocks" - how many houses we hit. By Sunday night, in a campaign-wide call, we were informed that OH beat PA by visiting 385,600 houses...in a single weekend. The office went nuts. This is most significant because of it's scale. The Obama campaign has managed to mobilize this incredible network of volunteers nationwide who have been at this designing an infrastructure unline any campaign before it. The "staff" has been training the volunteers relentlessly so that when the 4th comes around, they can figuratively sit back and the volunteers will take over all of the poll work, data anlysis, transport, etc. It'll be like a political Rube Goldberg device where every step is a necessary component until the votes are tallied and a winner is announced.

Editorial note:
While many of the GOTV'ers were really excited by the weekend showing, the consultant in me was never thrilled by this measure of success. If I knock on 100 doors and no one is home, how does this affect the vote? How does this compare to knocking on 50 undecided's doors and convincing 26 of them to vote for Obama? Who "wins"? It's hard to measure the actual success of these efforts until we get polling data and have a newly elected president, so I suppose the campaign needs a measure of progress. I don't have a better answer, but this just gets at me. Okay, I'm done.

Columbus the College Town
On Saturday night, The Ohio State University played Penn State here in Columbus, which means the campaign came to a screeching halt at around 4pm so there was sufficient time for local Ohioans to start drinking before kickoff. The city pretty much stops functioning as 105,000 people get into cars, buses, or hit the streets to make their way to Ohio Stadium. Unfortunately, the out-of-staters in my office continued to work at half-productivity as we also watched the defense-heavy game on the TVs and large projection screens we have placed around the office. I managed to get out of the office a little after midnight to meet up with my friend Safe up on High Street...right in the middle of OSU's campus. The traffic was bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see, so I turned into the nearest parking lot and walked to the bar (Side note: It was $1 for 5-hr parking - I love Ohio, it's like the dollar is a different currency here! For those curious, gas is now ~$2.09/gallon in some parts of town).

If you've never been in Columbus on game day, allow me to describe the visual. Have you ever seen Stephen King's "The Shining"? There's a famous sequence where blood begins to pour out of every crevice of the walls, doors, and elevators. In a matter of seconds, the entire hotel is flooded in a sea of vividly red blood. That's how High Street looks on game day. Seething masses of red jersey-clad fans screaming and jumping and yelling and shouting obscenities at whoever is wearing the visiting team's colors (in this case, white and blue) Fortunately, I was just wearing a gray sweatshirt.

Unfortunately the team lost and the crowd was neutered. A handful of Penn State fans cautiously celebrated in a few of the lesser-populated bars. Around 1am, Safe and I ended up at a 3 story semi-outdoor bar (yes, it was 40 degrees, so what?), and among the hundreds of people there, I might have been the only person not wearing red, and the only person over the age of 22. It occurred to me that I was 8 years older than some of the kids in the bar, so around 2am I called it a night since we have scheduled conference calls at 8:30a on Sundays. And yes, whoever schedules 8:30am Sunday morning calls clearly hates happiness. And freedom. And America.

"Towing" the party line
On Wednesday, Barack broadcast his half-hour TV special. While I had hoped it was going to be a variety show, it ended up being a very swingstate-targeted infomercial for an Obama presidency. Afterwards, one woman called our office in tears, explaining that she had voted for McCain last week via absentee ballot and after seeing this special believes she has made a terrible mistake. Wow.

I had a slightly different experience that night. At around 7:30p, I drove my coworker to the Short North (a bar/restaurant district) to sample wine for a party she was going to throw on Halloween. By the time we got out it was 7:55p and there was no chance we were getting back in the office in time to catch the special. So we quickly found the nearest parking lot, jumped out of the car, and ran across the street to a bar that had CNN on their TV. We ordered a drink and an appetizer, and exactly 30 minutes later we paid, left, and walked back to the parking lot and my ca-- wait, where's my car? I parked it right here. Long story short, it turns out that I was in an unmarked private spot, and Columbus is the most diligent town in America with regards to unauthorized parking. They have an enormous fleet of tow trucks that coast through the city hunting for cars to tow. 20 minutes later, I had retrieved my car from a hillbilly with three 3 teeth and who charged me $135 cash to get my car back. I haven't even lost money that fast in a casino.

O-H, I-O, Fired Up, Ready To Go
There's a rule in this great state of Ohio. If someone --anyone-- yells out "O-H!!" you must yell back "I-O!!!" This happens ALL of the time. Michelle Obama did it at the rally. Field organizers do it to get campaign fired up. It's everywhere. Like "HOPE" and "CHANGE" posters.

Interruption
I've been writing this post for the last few days in bits and pieces, so there's no chronology, but as I write this sentence, it's Friday at 1:30, and the campaign just got a text informing us that Barack and Michelle are coming back to Columbus for an 11am rally at the statehouse 2 blocks from my office. I cannot tell you how excited I just got. I will show up before sunrise if it means getting good position. Thank god I still have my HQ badge.

Beards for Obama
A large group of guys in the campaign have decided they're not going to shave until the election. I like these rally beards and I haven't shaved in a week in an attempt to catch up. Barack and Michelle are going to be back here in Columbus for a rally in the morning, and since I'm trying to get selected to work there, I think I need to shave as to not look like a complete vagrant. But more importantly, BARACK AND MICHELLE ARE COMING TO TOWN!!! Which means I'm going to finish up here so I can guarantee my freedom tomorrow morning to attend the rally.

Apologies if this post is all over the place, I've been writing this on and off, and I'm purposely leaving out a few other long stories for the next update. But here's a teaser: We thought two of our British volunteers were murdered in the projects last night. Tune in for the whole story...

O-H!!!,
David

p.s. Mom, the Brits are fine, don't worry.
p.p.s. Update: I just got word I've been selected to work the Barack Obama event tomorrow!! I think I made friends with the right people. 50,000 attendees are expected. Here's hoping I get to be on Special Needs detail, since that section is RIGHT in front of the stage, and the closest possible location volunteers will get to the man himself. No promises for a meeting or handshake with him, but I'll do my best to at least get photos. Maybe an Obama hug.
p.p.p.s. As I post this, the countdown til election day reads 2 days, 2 hours, 51 minutes, and 35 seconds. Add another 6 hours and 30 seconds until polls open here in Ohio.