Diary from Virginia Primary -- Volunteering for Barack Obama

  Last week on the day before Super Tuesday, I woke up to find my cell phone had somehow vibrated itself off the night stand and into a glass of water.  That day I bought my first Blackberry (already addicted) which I found out can post text and photos to my Facebook wall instantly.  Below is the diary I kept while standing in the freezing cold volunteering for the Obama campaign (and voting) in the Virginia Primary Feb. 12.  (I am now in San Francisco for the opening of Tre tomorrow, more on that in my next blog.)  The final entry refers to a national phone banking effort I helped to orchestrate, with people in various cities teaming up to make almost 10,000 phone calls in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean to voters in Virginia.

6.20 AM Election Day in Virginia. I woke up just before 4. I am precinct captian at Falls Church High School for Barack Obama. It is cold out but spirits are high. More later.

6.58 AM. A woman emerged from the polling place just now saying "I am the only Republican in Falls Church!" I asked what she meant and she said she was the first Republican to vote today. It had only been an hour, but at least 40 people had preceeded her. She said she had voted for Ron Paul to let the party know she was not happy.

10.45 AM. I have been to two other polling places now. I am at the same Annandale firestation where Annabel, Jean, Mark, and I uncovered Republican voter fraud in 2006. A man came out just now and reported that 241 Democratic ballots had been cast, to only 70 GOP. Radio reports say Republicans0. Vcdgdg

10:49 AM  Woops. Radio reports say Republicans are voting in droves for Hillary to get an easier opponent for McCain in November. Virginia's open primary allows such hijinks but most states do not for just this reason.

2:30 PM   I went to Gainesville to vote and am now back at the polling place in Annandale. I felt really good about voting for Obama! I took a photo of my electronic ballot and will post if I can figure out how.

3:06 PM  A very nice woman named Rachel who is the Democratic Party Chair for Mason District just arrived. She ducked in to check the polling data. 405 Democratic ballots cast. 167 Republican ballots.

6:13 PM  An election observer from the DNC has joined us in the freezing rain. She is a Clinton supporter, she explained, because she was a Clinton appointee. But she told me thinks Obama will win and that his Presidency would be better for our country. To explain the contradiction she said "it's loyalty."

8:17 PM  When the polls closed I watched despopndently as three or four people were turned away. With the bad weather they had hoped an exception would be made. Not so. Almost immediately I received two emails saying Obama is the projected winner in Virginia. We are now eating pho with two friends who are Clinton supporters. Annabel received an email saying Obama won 55 percent of Latino vote in Virginia. At our polling place it seemed that Asians were for Clinton. Interested to see final numbers on both.

11:37 AM (the next morning)  The morning after Virginia's primary I am at the airport about to fly to San. Francisco. I have press stuff to do for Tre which opens there Friday. I am happy of course that Obama won, happy also to be out of the freezing cold ice storm. Election rules prohibit us from standing with in 40 feet of the polling place entrance, which meant we were either standing in the hail and sleet or huddled in the car for 13 hours. In the past I have been known to say "it's a priviledge to suffer for art.". By the same token it is a priviledge to suffer for a cause or a candidate you believe in. YouTube videos soon.

12:03 PM  Thanks so much for all your hard work! We not only won the primary but also engaged people in the process - people from crucial communities who would not have had the life changing experience of being a part of this movement at this point in history had we not reached out to them in the way that we did. This is a tremendous gift to these people, to our communities, and to our country.

I am about to take off from DC to SF. Please share my thank you note with everyone who helped out. Thanks thanks.

Eric