Tales from the Campaign 1

Encounter 1:
Fifty-something, white woman, supervisor of elections for a small, rural county in Georgia. I am in her office and she finally directly asks me which campaign I am on. I show her my shirt, to which she replies that she is probably going to vote for Obama. She says she doesn't like McCain and DEFINITELY won't vote for him. "But if Huckabee had won I would be voting for him. I really like Huckabee." Then when we talk VP candidates she says that if Sam Nunn would have been the candidate she definitely would have voted for him! This woman was all over in her preferences.

Encounter 2:
I am basically ran out of clean clothes, so I decide that my dad's old cowboy shirt (brown and blue) will have to do for today. I put my little button on my chest as always though. I head to lunch at a burrito place and when I am paying the mid-twenties white guy messes up my change. I mention it and he says "I was just making sure you were paying attention." The other early twenties white guy who actually made my burrito leans over to his coworker and says "Look at the button on his shirt: he IS paying attention."

Encounters 3,4,5:
I pull into a gas station to clean up the evidence of a week of eating out. It's raining, but I am covered, and its 11:00 pm. The black womanl in the booth: thought she registered a few months ago, but never got her card. Registration 1. Another black woman comes up for gas: she has moved since she registered. Registration 2. Another black woman comes up to pay for her gas: she doesn't vote, never has registered, doesn't care to do it. I tell her it's important to me because I don't want my brother to be in danger in Iraq again. Registration 3.

99 days, rural Georgia

I have been here for three weeks now and I feel like I have done so little to get towards the very large goals they have put before us. I had an interesting experience this week though, that made me realize that this organizing is a little different from what some people imagine it is supposed to be. When we trained how to do a good one-on-one they always said we should meet our people somewhere they are comfortable. We tended to say something like "Can you meet me for about thirty minutes for a cup of coffee so we can talk?" But in rural Georgia in the summer, a coffee shop is not a very likely thing to exist let alone to go to for this kind of activity.

Instead, I had my last one-on-one sitting in a plastic chair out on the lawn of a small house in very rural Liberty County. We sat under some shade trees in the evening and tried to not let the bugs eat us alive. We had a great talk. It was frequently interrupted by a honking car passing on the small country road that ran in front of the house. Every car that passed must have belonged to someone she knew because my volunteer waved at each one and usually recalled the name of the person driving as well. Her house was situated at what I would call a country crossroads. It had a flashing red light and a small, old church on one corner. Two houses on the other corners completed it. A few miles to a filling station in the middle of nowhere and 15 miles to town.

It's not unheard of for people to live fifteen miles from town, especially a larger city with good, high paying jobs, but this small town has very little besides a military base. At points in history where wealth was more evenly spread and transportation was accessible and affordable, this living in the country might be a very pleasant thing. If you actually farming your land that provides you work and occupation there close to home. But that isn't the case for all, dare I say most of the people living out in some of these rural places. They are there because maybe it's old family land that someone built a cheap house on in the 1950's. They may have moved there when they had a good job and when gas was cheap. All of this changes when folks get older, or lose their good job, or get sick, or have kids, or have to start watching their grandchildren. Now that gas is more expensive, those fifteen miles starts to really feel more like a million. Rising transportation costs hurt rural families a lot. Indeed, recent articles have discussed how rural people, especially in the poor South, spend a disproportionate amount of their income on just gas and transportation.

These are the folks that need a comprehensive energy plan to be implemented in this country. Sure, people should maybe live in denser settlements where they are close to what they need and where they might have access to public transportation. But that alone is not a comprehensive policy. All good solutions should be put in place, especially solutions that solve multiple problems. In particular in Georgia, advances in cellulosic ethanol would open up the possibility of utilizing the abundant timber resources to drive local energy economies.

I have met some great Americans and Georgians so far, and I am sure I will meet many more as I really get out into my area. These people are citizens, whose opinions should matter. They have the right to vote, and they deserve to be asked for their vote. I believe the politics of cynicism intentionally discourages these people from participating in the political process. I think they are disenfranchised by a lack of being involved in the political culture. And I think it hurts America.