Election Eve

It's hard to believe that this is the last night of the campaign. It is almost 19 months since Barack Obama announced his candidacy in the presidential race on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois and what a 19 months it has been. I have been personally involved over the past three months and it has been an intense but rewarding experience. I can only imagine what it has been like for Senator Obama and those who have been involved from the beginning.

Today, after a full day's canvassing and an evening's phone banking, I should have been exhausted but there is such a buzz in the office it is hard not to be excited. Everyone is working flat out and taking nothing for granted but there is definitely a carnival atmosphere in the air to the point that it makes you giddy. Jitters mixed with caffeine, unhealthy fast food and sweets have made me feel like a young boy waiting for Santa to arrive on Christmas Eve. I just hope he brings the one thing I asked for and not a Mc Cain-shaped bag of coal.

To give you an idea of what it's like in a presidential campaign office on the eve of an election, I filmed a video tour for your benefit. Just click here to view it.

Yard Sign Wars

Unlike the Irish, Americans love people knowing what party they vote for. They love to adorn their cars with the candidates' bumper stickers and to decorate their front lawns with their yard signs. As a by-product of the mutual dislike of Republicans and Democrats, some neighbourhoods, there have been experiencing "yard sign wars". This can range from the trivial - everyone trying to keep up with the Jones' with bigger and multiple signs for opposing candidates, to the sinister - people robbing signs of the opposing candidate.

It all seems very petty but I can guarantee you it goes on. I took the above photograph while out canvassing today and while it is of course very amusing, some people are getting very upset about it. When I was in the Mc Cain headquarters the other day, a guy was filling out an 'Incident Report Form' which I was told was being passed on to the Albuquerque Police Department. He filled out the form and added it to the already overflowing stack. I haven't heard of as many Obama signs being robbed but that's only anecdotal.

Here's a flavour of what I've been seeing while I've been here.

(Click on this one above to get a closer look at the little leaflet stuck onto it)

A Word of Thanks from the Senator

As I was arriving into one of the Obama campaign offices tonight to phone bank, everyone was crowded into the 'data entry room' listening to a mobile phone on loudspeaker. After whispering to a colleague, I found out it was Jon Carson, the Obama campaign's National Field Director, on the line. He was on a conference call to all field offices across the country, simultaneously talking to thousands of volunteers. He was thanking us for all our hard work and giving us some encouraging figures from some of the key battleground states.

In the state of Nevada alone, the campaign registered over 111,000 voters. At present, 13% more registered Democrats have early voted there than registered Republicans. At the same stage in 2004, this figure was just 4%. Also, across all the swing states, the campaign has made contact with over 13.3 million voters either face to face or over the phone over the past couple of weeks. these figures are just phenomenal.

After a couple of minutes of these astounding figures, while the Obama campaign plane was landing in Springfield, Missouri, Senator Obama eventually came on the line. In a heart-rendering speech, he thanked all of the volunteers' efforts and asked us to give it our all between now and Tuesday. To hear what the Senator had to say, click here.

Don't mess with Texas!

The two main things going on at the moment in terms of volunteering at Obama campaign offices are phone banking and door-to-door canvassing. I've been involved in both, canvassing during the day and phone banking at night. For canvassing, I mainly work out of the South Valley office which is located in the poorer part of Albuquerque and home to most of the city's Hispanic population. In the evening, I usually phone bank out of the North-East Heights office where I was working in August. It is located in the more upmarket end of town.

The South Valley office has faced many challenges in recruiting volunteers; low voter turnouts, a disconnect with politics in general not to mention that most of the South Valley's inhabitants have to work multiple minimum wage jobs to remain solvent and thus have no time to volunteer.

As a result of this, campaign bosses have targeted it for placement with out-of-state volunteers. The idea is that supporters located in strong Democratic states or strong Republican states travel to the key swing states to help turn them Democratic. A large percentage of the volunteers in New Mexico, especially the more ardent ones, are non-natives of the state.


Early this morning, a bus-load of Texans arrived "fired up and ready to go" canvassing for Barack in the South Valley over the next few days up to and including Tuesday. A heavily 'red state', Texas does not offer many volunteer opportunities for Obama supporters there. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn't carried in this state since Jimmy Carter in 1976. So Obama volunteers in Texas make calls to voters in other states like New Mexico and if they can, travel to them too. I interviewed a couple of people getting off the bus. Most were really excited to be here but lamented the fact that they were Democrats stuck in a conservative Republican state. One volunteer, poignantly stated, "When Obama is elected, though, he will be President for all of us."