Campaign Organizers Kassie and TJ with Senator Obama
Kassie and Katie with Gov Andrus and Bob Kustra
Former Mayor Munroe meets Senator Obama
The Senator speaks of a united America, health care specifics and Idaho’s hopes
The Julie Fanselow and Audience on the Floor
Elected Officials Leave the Speech Smiling
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Carol
& I woke at 4 AM and lay in bed a bit before deciding just to get
dressed and drive down to BSU and the arena. There were very few cars
stirring at 6 AM but here and there you could see people in neighborhoods scraping off ice, headed down
the dark streets to hear Senator Obama speak. We walked through the
snow with people cheerful and still warm from their cars. At the gates,
some had clearly been there waiting at the arena for hours already.
I think the idea of getting the general public inside was simple for
organizer Kassie
Cerami and the bee hive of people of all ages at the Obama office. They
have endured impromptu auditions from folks off the street and children
who want to perform for the next president. The had to turn back offers
for food, music, and who knows what else from Idahoans who have been
inspired to generosity by Senator Obama.
I have a feeling though that we
public officials were the head ache to manage. Local organizers had to
get creative with seating for dignitaries at such a huge event where a
chance to meet the Senator was almost
everyone’s dream. I’ve not been too much of a fan of sports heroes,
musicians or rock stars, though I know a few who are pretty fabulous,
still this feeling of really wanting to get to say hello, face to face
to someone I admire so much is a
little new. For some people meeting senator Obama might be connected to
their perception of what power is. Some
think power is about who you know.
Frankly I never would expect to have Senator Obama remember me,
though it astounds me both times I have met him that he seems to.
(Carol pointed out there are not a lot of lesbian elected officials
from Idaho so maybe that could be helping him a bit.) There is I’ll
admit, also something wonderful in
being able to tell good stories. I heard this same story today from
several ecstatic
Idahoans: "And then I reached out and shook his hand. He smiled at me
with his big smile, looked in my eyes and he said, thank
you for coming!"
Volunteers who made 100 calls and a mixture of other folks got green
tickets for
the standing room on the floor. We opened the doors for them at the
same time as the general admission in the seats. People flowed in like
a cold, bouncing river for literally hours. Once the floor filled, I
went inside, done with my job of directing legislators, super delegates
(I’ll explain later) candidates and other Democratic Party folks who
were supposed to go to a special section of the bleachers together. I
think it
was no small feat to be sure everyone in this section felt equally, or
perhaps I should say, appropriately treated. Remember a legislature is
a hierarchy and right or wrong there is an order of seniority and
tradition which is pretty foreign to the lives of most of us. As
forceful as that whole order may be, it was beautiful today how hard
work on Kassie and TJ’s part went so well recognized and how they and
Brett Adler and others who have dedicated their lives often without any
pay got time with the senator.
Kassie and TJ were to open the rally with chants and talking about
the caucus, but I missed it because they heroically pulled me out of
the crowd on the floor and hauled me backstage to the green room
through a maze of black cloth clad tunnels to where Governor Andrus and
BSU President Kustra were waiting for Senator Obama. I was supposed to
stay with them, my staff badge and my Obama buttons on, feeling like
I’d just been mistaken for someone important and had made it under the
rope so far undetected.
I waited and the super delegates were brought down from the special
section of the bleachers. Gail Bray explained what the mysterious super
delegates are. I think there are five of them out of Idahos 23 total
delegates. Cecil Andrus and two Tribal leaders, Chaiman Axtell and
Chairman Allen (none of whom are super delegates) came in with the
delegates so together they looked like a wonderfully dignified group
which included new Democratic party chair Keith Raork, Grant Bergoin,
House minority leader Wendy Jaquet, Gail Bray, Jeanne Bhuel and Jerry
Brady who I understand is the Idaho Obama Campaign co-chair.
Super delegates exist in all states. They are not like other
delegates and so are not bound to vote for who the caucus goers choose.
They are free agents elected in parts of our party process and can go
to convention and choose the presidential candidate they please. In my
opinion, the number of them and power they have potentially skews the
simple democracy of the process, though I am sure there is a reason for
it which relates to the power of states. In some states in fact many
super delegates have long times ties to the Clinton administration and
that has fueled speculation that Hillary Clinton, while she has won an
equal number of primary races and fewer state delegates than Obama, may
have more total delegates when you count super delegates. If
presidential primary races are anything like Idaho’s recent House
Speaker’s race, the idea that you might promise those voting for you
something in exchange for a vote is not unheard of.
So I stayed in the green room with its
TV-set-simulated-mini-living-room corner and striking photos of rock
stars and athletes on the walls, until Senator Obama himself came in.
Let me just say this, as someone who has spent far too much time at
caucus-watching parties getting my photo taken with a card board cut
out of the senator: he is about as tall as his card board cut out.
(Which went missing last weekend from the Bouquet on main street where
a music event for Senator Obama was taking place. Let me know if you
have it. Jerry Brady, who carried it everywhere for a week, is heart
broken.)
The Senator came in the room talking casually with Kassie who has
met him several times now I think. How can he not be grateful and
pleased by Idaho today? He seemed it. Cassie, TJ, Brett and others came
together last year spontaneously as soon as he announced he was
running, some even before, and put together a grassroots campaign
determined to organize Idaho for the senator whether Idaho was a
targeted state or not. That Idaho now does matter only makes those
efforts more amazing. With staff here now there is groundwork, and
networks, and a base of volunteers in place ready for the caucus on
Tuesday.
The local Obama campaign created a community, one of the few things
I suggested early on and which I’m sure this group of warm, passionate
young people would have done anyway. It makes being involved feel good.
It reminds you how much you are part of something greater. If Change is
the operative word of 2008 then may Idaho politics look like this day
for decades to come.
One arena filled beyond capacity with more cheering bodies than
probably caucused statewide for Democrats in Idaho ever before. For
Democrats everything has whispered to us that this would be a great
year. This day today yelled at this sleepy state that if we work at it,
this will be a year where our hope sees strides rather than simple
steps. Senator Barack Obama is giving voice to something we all feel.
We tire of so much of the same leaders who look and sound and limit
themselves to what they have grown accustomed to limiting our nation
to. We can be more than a nation which promises prosperity and
equality. We can inspire change in a nation, ask ourselves to give a
little more to make this place grow closer to the dreams those leaders
generations ago had for us. Why would we give up on hope for that?
Compromise is an option after all else fails, but where lives are at
stake, no other skill is as valuable as rolling up our sleeves to
persuade, bending down to listen and ask for consensus, knowing how to
look into the eyes of others to change minds and change what is broken
in health care, in energy production and consumption, in poverty, in
overcrowded classrooms, in our bullying relationships with other
nations and our wordless relations with each other. We don’t ask enough
of ourselves in terms of what we can give others in need. If we did,
what might we accomplish as a nation? What might we finally be?
We are ready Idaho. Tuesday is the day that matters. The votes at
caucus are proportional, and are not "all or nothing" so every vote for
Obama could mean another critical delegate.
The Line Stretches Across Campus
Inside Where it Was Warm
Senator Obama Arrives
The Green Room with Super Delegates and Dignitaries
Arena Full to the Rafters
Senator Stennett Looking Good After Surgery with Chief of Senate Democratic Staff Marie Hattaway
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