Stella and I spent two very long days working at the Obama Campaign for Change here in Fort Wayne, Indiana and those days are so much longer when one of the attendees is 3 years old. Even a wonderfully behaved 3 year old still takes a lot out of a person. And Stella is most definitely one of those well behaved kiddos.
I got a call requesting help from the campaign manager a month or so ago & said I'd have to arrange child care to come. It didn't happen and didn't happen, so I asked them if it was okay if I brought her with me since we were in the final week. I made calls (by the way, I hate making phone calls, so this was a huge thing for me) for the Get Out To Vote campaign and worked some data entry for the phone info and canvassing records. I stayed twice as long as I planned that day and told a friend I'd go with her to canvass the next day.
Only, I had to work the next day so we didn't make it out, but that's okay because it gave Stella a day off. Monday got all snargelly (but Stella and I managed to have a wonderful day just the same), so I didn't get to go back until yesterday. Ben had to work at 7am then go vote at 9:30 and we dropped him off at work and went straight to the campaign spot on the north side of town. Rose, a fabulous lady who took her vacation time from work to volunteer for the campaign, was so glad to see us and so obviously exhausted from this push-week of insanity. She told us to stay to do data entry rather than go out to canvass, since they had gotten volunteers from Chicago and even California to come work here.
Stella and I entered data from calls and data from polls and ate cheese and veggies and managed to stay there entering data even through all the party prep and craziness. There were a couple of cranky moments (she didn't get a nap or even a rest-time), but really we both behaved really well and helped out however we could.
I love that Indiana counted as a vote for Senator Obama. It's the first time the state's gone blue since 1964 & I'm so glad I was able to do something to help.
It's weird though. I never ever thought I'd volunteer for any political campaign - never. Really. It's interesting what we'll do when something is important - even things we never thought we'd do.
When Stella and I got home around 8:30 (nope, we didn't stay for the party - we were already cranky) we basically went straight to bed. I didn't know the results until I got up this morning and it is just going to be the best day ever now. Yippee!!
No comments:
Post a Comment