When Senator Obama announced his candidacy a mere two and half weeks ago (seems a lot longer) I logged on to www.barackobama.com and set up a profile. I’m new to social networking sites, but I figured out most of the tools and their intended uses. The volunteer page of the site spells it out clearly: "This campaign can only succeed if you take its future into your own hands. We’ve started to provide many of the tools for you to do just that." In other words, start organizing! I joined several groups on the site, including "Kalamazoo for Obama," "Roman Catholics for Obama," and "Cats for Obama." I made some "friends" and decided to "Create an Event." My event was an organizing meeting at my home for people in the area to get acquainted and start talking about how to help Barack get the nomination. That meeting was tonight. Read about it below the fold.
Fifteen people attended the meeting, counting me and my husband. I deliberately did not invite friends of mine who I know are liberal democrats. They probably would have come, but I preferred to meet people from the website and to level the field by keeping it that most of us did not previously know each other. We have a state university (Western Michigan University) here in Kazoo. Six of the people who attended were WMU students. Two attendees were full- time faculty members, and two were part-time faculty members. The other four people were middle-aged community members, and the final person was the 13 year old son of one of the adults (he did not say much.) After introductions, we talked about what we might do as a group and as individuals, without coming to many conclusions.
One woman complained about her time volunteering for the local party during the last election. She was put to work reassembling door hangers that had been incorrectly assembled. No-one at headquarters was friendly to her, no-one looked her in the eye, nobody wanted to know her name. I would have written her off as a complainer, except that I had had similar experiences, and several other people in the room were nodding in agreement as well.
Listening to people talk, it became clear to me that what people are hungering for is meaningful political activity that includes meaningful personal relationships. Well, you might say, the grunt work of politics has to get done. My answer is, as long as there is a genuine attempt to create community, I think people will be willing to do what might appear to be meaningless work.
Last night I told my husband that I wanted to greet every person who came at the door. I asked him to focus on coats, chairs, and food so that I could concentrate on interacting with people. I reminded him of a moveon.org event that we went to last fall, a calling party at a house in our neighborhood. The host, whom I did not know, never introduced himself to us, nor asked our names. We were handed a cell phone and a list of phone numbers of people in Pennsylvania and told to call and ask them to vote for Bob Casey. I talked to people in Pennsylvania (or rather, got hung up on by) but never learned the names of the people sitting on the couch across from me. It was a strange evening, and a lost opportunity to build the progressive community right here in Kalamazoo. I did not want to create that kind of atmosphere at our first Obama meeting.
I’d like to think that the "new politics" that Obama is calling for somehow understands people’s desire for community. I think it does. The tools on the website are meant to let you connect laterally with fellow supporters in your community. One of the college students was unclear on whether I was part of the official campaign. I told her no, I was just a supporter like her who used the tools on the site to create an event. I told her I think it will be at least six months before we see anybody official from the campaign in these parts. In the meantime, it’s just us, free to do what we want, free to set the tone we want.
At the meeting, I asked if anyone there was the person who had set up the Kalamazoo for Obama group on the site. No-one was. I was surprised, as I thought that person might come to the meeting, as they were obviously a big supporter. After the meeting was over, I got an email from the woman who had brought her 13 year old son. She told me that on the way home, he told her that he was the person who set up the group! Now I understood why he had not posted his photo in his profile – everyone would have seen that he was not even voting age! Poor kid – already interested in politics, and he can’t even vote for five more years. But, he’s already a valuable member of the Obama community we are building.
It’s not just about voting.