Jeremy

During my time here in the States, Jeremy has been perhaps the most tragic person I have met. I met him in the place where sadly many of America's down and outs tend to congregate: the local Greyhound bus station.

As I finished up my contract with the Obama campaign in New Mexico, it was time for me to go stay with a friend in Colorado for a few days before flying home. Despite advice from the friends I have made over here, I chose to be adventurous and experience a Greyhound for real. Supposedly, a few months back a sleeping man was decapitated by a knife-wielding psychopath on a Greyhound in Canada. This didn't scare me a huge amount but it definitely kept me on my guard!

When I arrived at Albuquerque's Greyhound station, my bus to Denver was running a two hour delay so I decided to get some fast food from the crummy bus staion restaurant. There I met Jeremy, a 17 year old kid who was experiencing a 13 hour delay on his bus to Farmington in upstate New Mexico. He seemed pleasant and quite eager to make conversation.. so I sat down beside him with my pizza while he ate his burger and chips.

Jeremy had a lot of stories to tell. He started by telling me where he had been - visiting his pregnant fiancée in Roswell in southern New Mexico. His journey had been cut short on the advice of his fiancée because of a death threat from a 15-year-old gang member down in Roswell. The reason he wanted to kill Jeremy was because he was jealous of his relationship with his fiancée. Jeremy took his girlfriend's advice but queried whether she was cheating on him.

According to Jeremy, neither he nor his brother were allowed set foot again in the state of Missouri because a good few years ago his younger brother got into a fight with a kid and pulled a gun on him. At a young age his parents seaprated. It was unclear where his mother was but his father seemed to be around but Jeremy wanted nothing to do with him. Previously he had been living with his aunt until she had him committed to a mental institution. He certainly had no fond memories of that place. He assured me though that he had been released long ago and had been off his medication for over six months.

Now he was living with his friend and her mother and couldn't wait until he was 18 so that he could "go out on his own". When I asked him where he had met his fiancée, he told me "through my group back home". The way he was talking, it didn't sound like a religious Christian group to me but moreso what the media like to brand as a gang. He also seemed to have a disposable income not consistent with his means. He claimed not to have a "proper job" but was decked in the latest brand names and had a top of the range mobile phone.

When I started talking to Jeremy, I was naturally a bit nervous as he told me about his chequered life. I began to fear what he might do to me and whether he was capable of just turning on me. The more I talked to him though, the more I realised he was a very nice, genuine guy who had had a rough time growing up with very little support from either his family or the state and had got caught up in this gang lifestyle.

I could only imagine the world he lives in. While I was there, he was consoling a friend who had texted him saying that a gang was after him and that he mightn't get to see Jeremy ever again. He instructed Jeremy to look after his fiancée. Meanwhile, I got a text from a friend recounting the previous days in Ireland: rain, boozing and work. Hardly comparing like with like.

And what I found saddest about Jeremy was that he is the tip of a very large iceberg in the States. As part of the campaign in Albuquerque, I visited the Robert F. Kennedy Charter School, a last chance saloon for high school dropouts to graduate and go on to third level education. The kids attending the school were extremely deprived and quite difficult individuals. The hard work and stamina of the staff there was second to none but they really are fighting an uphill battle.

Obviously, a lot of kids like Jeremy get lost in the system. This poster I saw in the Greyhound station is testament to that, if nothing else.

At the Obama rally I attended, Governor Richardson stressed the importance of education for the USA going forward. Obama even paid lip service to it in his rousing speech. I just hope the Democrats get in and follow through on their promises. Jeremy is living proof that George Bush's No Child Left Behind Act has not worked.

The Overdue Video Gallery

I've finally managed to upload the good videos I took from the event. The first one is the American national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, being sung by a Hispanic student from the high school it took place in. Now, I'm no Simon Cowell but there were definitely a few hairy notes here.

Here are Obama's opening words at the town hall meeting after the single mother had spoken. You can see it takes him a while to calm the crowd down from their religious-like fervour. Then he has to go through the adulation of all the local officials starting with his former rival, New Mexican Governor Bill Richardson. I cut him short on this one.

The following is Obama's main speech before he began fielding questions from the crowd. In this he focuses on the theme of the event, the economy, while managing to get in a few digs at Mc Cain. It's too large to upload on to the blog so click here to view it.

Here was the dicey first question asked by a member of the audience looking for an explanation as to why the Senator had compromised on his position on Iraq since the primaries. Obama's response really impressed me. It was frank, open and he effectively managed to diffuse the potentially embarrassing situation.

More Media from the Event

I'm having issues with uploading videos and photos to the blog so I'll just leave you with my epic dialogue with the Barackstar himself as advertised on RTÉ Radio One with Myles Dungan. You can hear that interview here.

Thank you.. I'm Irish, by the way. Go Barack!

The big day us Albuquerque volunteers had been waiting for started at 8 o'clock this morning in the grounds of Rio Grande High School with a rigourous security clearance.

The whole security operation was overseen by the United States Secret Service in cooperation with the Albuquerque Police Department, the County Sherriff, the County Fire Bureau and last but not least.. the Albuquerque Public Schools Security Service. While necessary and relatively efficient, it was enjoyable to watch each official vye for his or her own jusrisdiction to be recognised. After two hours of ID'ing, security sweeps and from our perspective, waiting around, they were ready to let us go through the metal detectors and take up our positions in the hall.

As an usher in the main hall, we had to make sure the seats were filled in an orderly fashion in accordance with fire regulations and keeping security concerns in mind. Some of the first people let in had been camped out since 6AM so when they arrived in the main doors, they expected to get the best seats in the house. When they were told to move to the end of the first row, a riot nearly ensued. Minor crowd control was needed by the various security forces and this helped ease tension a bit.

Despite all the training, briefings and security checks, the whole thing was relatively chaotic as many people ignored those in charge and scrambled for the etst seats they could get. At events like these, you really see the dark side of people; those who will step over others to get a metre or two closer to the Senator while still being 3o metres away; not to mention those who claim wild and wonderful disorders such as claustrophobia and reduced mobility when they have no problem pushing people out of their way to get to the top of the queue. Maybe I'm just cynical..

After the crowds had slowly shuffled in to their side seating and the VIPs had been seated in their ringside seating, the event was ready to kick off. As to be expected, speakers on the programme were organised in order of party ranking starting with grassroots party organisers, moving on to Albuquerque's Democratic mayor, then New Mexico Governor and one-time presidential hopeful, Bill Richardson.

After all the state officials had given their two cents' worth, it was time for the star of the show. At 1.40 Senator Obama arrived on stage to a gushing introduction by Governor Richardson. However he did not arrive alone. He came on stage holding the hand of a single mother of two who was having to work two jobs to find a way make ends meet. She was the first to speak. She addressed the whole auditorium of roughly 1,600 people telling them her life story and why she was inspired by Barack Obama and his Campaign for Change. This set the agenda for the town hall meeting: Obama's recovery plan for the US economy.

The format of the town hall meeting consisted of the Senator addressing the crowd in a rousing speech which lasted about a half an hour. Then he fielded various questions from the crowd. For the duration of his presence on the stage, I had the onerous task of being a microphone runner for the VIP section. This meant that whenever anyone asked a question in the VIP section of the audience, I had to run over to them with the mic and hold it while they talked; something which looks a hell of a lot easier than it is, especially when you have 1,600 people looking at you, not to mention the focus of scores of cameras.

Some of the questions asked from the audience were challenging, especially the first lady to speak who accused Obama of compromising his ideals to win over the conservatives. In true Obama style, he was able to eloquently counter her argument in tune to a rousing applause from his doting audience.

One of the funnier parts for me was when a young Hispanic girl asked him how he felt about immigration he was clear to point out that the USA's immigration problem not only lay with Hispanics but with undocumented Irsh and Poles. I saw the irony in the fact that it was I in fact who had held the mic for the girl who asked the question.

When question time was over, he said goodbye to the crowd and did the rounds for a few handshakes and book signings. I managed to get right up beside him and shake his hand. You can see how close I was in the photo below. When I was shaking his hand, I was frantically thinking of something interesting or intelligent to say but when I opened my mouth all that came out was, "Thank you. I'm Irish by the way. Go Barack!" I guess I was star struck or dumb-founded but that's all I could muster. He replied a simple "Thank you." Of all the things in the world I could have said to him, that was the height of it.

In addition, with all the excitement, I had put down the mic I had been carrying in order to shake his hand. When I turned around to pick it up, it was gone. Someone had evidently taken a fancy to it. I felt like a bit of an idiot going back to the sound staff not least because it will cost them $400 to replace. It was a minor mishap though to what was otherwise a brilliant day. I guess Obama wasn't getting that free a lunch with my volunteering efforts after all.

Mr. Obama is coming to town

Tomorrow afternoon at 1 in the afternoon, Barack Obama is due to give a speech in the gym auditorium of Rio Grande High School in Albuquerque. Due to security reasons, this was kept quiet until the very last minute on Friday evening. He will be arriving tonight into Albuquerque airport at around midnight. An advance party of 12 staff from central Obama HQ arrived yesterday to prepare for the event and swarms of police and secret service agents have already been sweeping the place and doing the background security checks.

As a full-time volunteer, I have been asked to staff the event. My job will be to usher people from the metal detectors at the entrance to the gym to their seats in the hall. Understandably, excitement has reached fever pitch amongst the campaign staff and volunteers. A scramble for tickets ensued straight after the announcment while field organisers tried to ensure that the most committed volunteers got a place. As you imagine, "volunteers" stared appearing out of the woodwork who tried to justify why they deserved a ticket over the next people. It was kind of funny but pitful in a way. Within hours, all the tickets were gone and although they're free, the tickets are now like gold dust.

This evening, all the event staffers had to go to a briefing about tomorrow. Here's a video of one of the advance staff giving us a briefing what we are going to be doing.

Like I said, I will be working as an usher tomorrow at the rally so we had to get briefed on that at the high school. The advance party ran through the strict security operation and then we had to lay out all the seats in the auditorium. Here's a video of the hall all ready for the morning.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't caught up in the Obama mania at this point. I plan to be up at 7 tomorrow morning like a child on Christmas morning ready to chant for the big man.

Moulding the Grassroots

As Obamanology goes, the term "grassroots" is pretty prominent. The idea is that the campaign will extend every tentacle of its organisation into every community in the United States. As I detailed in a previous post, that is the primary purpose of the team building and one-on-ones I have been busy with. However, the grassroots can not be allowed grow wildly with no direction. Any organisational expert would see the need for the training of volunteers to create some sort of uniformity.

In order to do this, today the campaign in Albuquerque held a city-wide training event attended by over 200 volunteers. The sole purpose: to mould the grassroots into effective agents of the campaign.

The training resembled an off-site corporate training day, consisting of various seminars from 10AM to 6PM, all held in lecture theatres and classrooms of the University of New Mexico Law School. Upon registration, each participant received a 36-page training guide detailing the Obama campaign's organisational structure, its methods of attracting volunteers to the movement and how then to organise one's fellow volunteers. It even gives pointers on how to tell "your story" like I have been doing since I got here.

In fact, part of the training was a session in which people who had inspirational stories as to why they were volunteering for the Obama campaign came forward and recounted them to the audience. Despite my cynicism towards the whole idea of recounting one's life story, I actually did find some of the stories touching. One lady in her late 60s told of how she had to work two jobs to pay for her healthcare and prescriptions. Later on, a teenager got up and said she was volunteering for Obama so that he would bring her cousin back from Afghanistan.

To be quite honest, I was bowled over by the efficiency of the Obama machine. It is truly an amazing feat how it has been able to transform the myriad of disparate groups of people that support the Senator's candidacy into a unified army of volunteers that is motivated to fight for his presidential bid and above all the intangible goal of 'change'.

The Hillary Factor

In a swing state like New Mexico where Al Gore won by just 366 votes in 2000 and Bush won by 5,988 votes in 2004 (all out of a possible electorate of just under a million), the last thing the Democratic Party needed here was a dogged caucus campaign which divided battle lines amongst its core supporters.

In New Mexico, Democrats were very evenly divided between Hillary and Obama during the primary season. The Clintons' historic support amongst Hispnics, which constitute a large part of the population here, gave Hillary an edge of 1,709 votes over her rival or just under 1% of the Democratic electorate.

Amongst the many calls I have been making here to registered Democrats seeking support, there has been a sizeable cohort of people who are still bitter at the fact that Hillary lost her presidential bid to Obama. Based on anecdotal evidence, these people tend to be for the most part older, white or Hispanic and more often than not female. That would seem to reinforce the exit polls done across the country after the primaries.

This of course is not helped by Hillary's luke warm support of Obama's campaign. Both she and Bill will speak separately at the Democratic Convention in Denver at the end of the month in what some have crtiticised as a ploy to take some of the limelight from Obama. Her die-hard fans have even signed a petition to call for a floor vote at the convention which aims to show the massive support Hillary did get despite losing. Some crazed Hillaryites have even told me over the phone that they firmly believe Hillary can still clinch the nomination at the convention!

Whether these people will end up voting for Obama or not is unclear. For the time being, the campaign is more concerned with reaching out to people who have been apathetic towards politics and politicians in recent years. If they can boost voter turnout amongst a demographic which rarely votes, the possibilities are endless. Alienating the die-hard Hillaryites may be a mistake though. Only time will tell if the strategy pays off.

Team Building and One-on-Ones

The main focus of the campaign effort across the country, especially in swing states like New Mexico, is to build what are contrivedly called Neighbourhood Teams. In a departure from what has been done in previous campaigns where they organised along local electoral divisions called Precincts, the Obama campaign has thrown tradition out the window in favour of a system which aims to combine strong Republican precincts with strong Democratic precincts. The thinking is that the many volunteer Democrats in the strong precincts can help the smaller cohort in the weak precincts.

To build teams, first team leaders need to be identified. As you might imagine, this is an arduous process and involves ringing around many listed Democrats who often have no interest in taking your call. When a team leader is eventually identified, he/she is invited in to the office to have a "one-on-one" with the staffer that recruited them. A one-on-one involves exchanging "your story" with the staffer i.e. who you are, where you're from, why you got involved in the campaign etc. and then being trained in on what it is to be a team leader. Being somewhat out of the ordinary here in New Mexico and because I have been deemed to have an inspirational story, I have been asked to do a few one-on-ones. Talking oneself up and giving one's life story is certainly American but very un-Irish. Needless to say, I have been quite embarrassed doing the one-on-ones.

Once the one-on-one is over, the next job is to assemble the team. To do this, a house party is scheduled usually in the team leader's house. Over nibbles and refreshments everyone tells their story, including the staffer and team leader and the team leader and then they plan their first volunteer act together. Below is a photo of a team meeting I ran the other.

The whole affair from an objective perspective is a very self-affirming and gratuitous exercise but Obama's number crunchers certainly did their research because it does seem to work. People generally come away "empowered" and "fired up" (to use the Obamanology) and it acts as a tool to galvanise teams of strangers. The only problem with the system is that it has mostly ignored the local Democratic Party politburo structures and stepped on a lot of egos; something which may not be so bright considering the bitterness of the primary campaign and of course the fact that Hillary won in New Mexico, albeit by a small margin. But as I have come to learn here in Albuquerque, Team Obama always knows best.

Forgotten America

This weekend the Obama campaign in New Mexico ran a state-wide door-to-door canvass to boost voter registration and the list of registered postal voters in Democrat strongholds. With my background in Spanish, I was dispatched to the Hispanic areas on the outskirts of Albuquerque's South Valley. Up until now, I've been based in the North-East Heights, the leafier part of town which is divided between conservative white Republicans and latte-drinking liberal Democrat voters. To say that both areas are in stark contrast to each other would be a gross understatement. The outlying South Valley is made up of long-standing established working class communities alongside massive new estates occupied by somewhat more upwardly mobile lower middle class families.

Both types of estates juxtapose each other in their own way. The established communities are populated by people in long-term abject poverty with low levels of education, often frst generation immigrants. In contrast, the newer developments seemed to be second or third generation but were already showing signs of the emerging nouveau pauvre in America; those directly affected by the credit crunch, a slowing economy, collapsing house prices and high oil prices.

On my way around the doors in the newer parts, I saw many gas-guzzling SUVs for sale and one or two eviction notices on the doors of shiny new homes which still smelled of fresh paint. (Here you can see a photo of one of the foreclosure notices.) In the older parts of town, people seemed a lot less healthy. I'd imagine few of them could afford healthcare. In addition, they were a lot more hostile with signs saying No Trespassers and Enter at your own risk a common feature on yard fences. Nearly every house had a threatening vicious dog guarding it and a lot of people had little or no English.

Despite all of this, the people from both types of areas were the real salt-of-the-Earth kind. I got invited in to a lot of their homes for an iced water and a chat (a common courtesy to house callers in the blistering heat here). I even got invited by a few middle-aged Mexican guys to join them on their porch for a few beers because it was of course Sunday, the day of rest. Most were very receptive to the Obama message and showed great enthusiasm for coming out and voting for him, often stating that it would be their first time to use their vote.. the obvious exception being the two guys who told me they couldn't vote because they were on parole.

Coming away from Albuquerque's South Valley this evening, I was a little downbeat.. for mainly two reasons. The first being that the young upwardly mobile families of the newer developments seemed on a rocky road to the same fate as their older counterparts. The second reason is a little closer to home. Although I couldn't have felt further from home over the weekend, the newer developments somewhat reminded me of the sprawling estates along the the arterial routes out of Dublin; all dependent on a buoyant economy, cheap credit and cheap petrol; all of which are in serious jeopardy back home as much as they are here. Is this our fate too?

I have a dream..

Barack Obama's oratory skills are often compared to those of Martin Luther King for obvious reasons. The other day, Dr. King's historic"I have a dream" speech came to mind when I met a newly-recruited volunteer for the Obama campaign here in Albuquerque who goes by the name of Shree.

Shree is a middle-aged black lady from New Orleans who is a professional Hindu high priest. Her name is the Hindu tranlation of the word, priest. Apart from her religious officiating, she also runs an online pet-minding business on the side to make up for the low-paying priest wages. Her stated reason for volunteering for the campaign is that God came to her in a dream and told her to follow Obama "to the end of the Earth". The very next day she presented herself to me to be trained in on how to make campaign calls.

Amongst her colourful skills set, she claims to be able to speak in the tongue of Sanskrit, the Hindu language, even though she has never studied it. When talking about racial tensions in the US she informed me that, in her opinion, Obama is racially inferior because he could only claim two racial backgrounds whereas she had eight among which Chinese, Irish, French Creole and Jewish blood were prominent.

In the photograph below, she is channeling positive energy into my soul to give me strenth and stamina for the fight. Praise the Lord!

Happy birthday, Barack!

Today was Barack Obama’s 47th birthday. From time to time the field office here runs little gimmicks to get people in to volunteer. So the occurrence of Obama’s birthday was as good an opportunity as any. Queue a grandiose plan of throwing a birthday party for the big man with a cake, finger food and soft drinks. The only missing ingredient from a regular birthday party was the birthday boy himself. Of course, we claimed he was with us in spirit.

And no volunteer-driven gimmick would be complete without a goal. This time a little more straightforward than other like-minded gimmicks: making contact with 47 potential Obama supporters over the phone. When the said volunteer made 47 contacts, he/she was entitled to a slice of birthday cake and as you can see below, this cake was well worth fighting for.

Hope + Action = Change

US politicians invented what we have come to know as the sound bite. Ronald Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev “to tear down this wall”, JFK implored all Americans to ask what they could do for their country. Even old Abe Lincoln reduced the fundamentals of democracy to the snappy slogan, “Government of the people, for the people and by the people.”

Obama’s campaign is certainly a descendent of this long-standing tradition; the only difference being its preference of iconic words over long-winded slogans. Change and hope are without doubt the iconic words of this campaign. Accordingly, our field office here in Albuquerque has undergone somewhat of a makeover over the past few days. Large tracts of paper were produced along with permanent markers in a few different colours, mainly blue and red – the campaign colours and of course the colours of the American flag. These were combined to make inspirational posters of iconic words and Obama quotes to jazz up the office and motivate the staff and volunteers. Rather than harp on about them, take a look for yourselves.

At the launch of the central volunteering office in New Mexico on Saturday evening, candidate for the 1st Congressional District of New Mexico, Martin Heinrich, as the highest ranking Democratic Party official present, made a speech to the assembled crowd of Obama supporters. In an effort to ride on the back of Obama’s Campaign for Change towards victory in November, he fired up the party faithful with the following sound bite, “Hope + Action = Change”. And our response? Well, of course we replied in spontaneous unison, “Yes-we-can. Yes-we-can. Yes-we-can…”