Last night our local neighborhood team leaders got together one last time. I think one team wanted to meet and someone mentioned it to someone else who e-mailed someone else and pretty soon there were 20 people coming together. It turned into a minor victory party with munchies, wine, and beer. I’m proud of our mobile comfort director: she was prescient in bringing champagne; the true beverage of victory.
After rehashing our efforts and getting behind-the-scenes info about what the national campaign really had planned for Missouri (some of which we had already surmised), everybody’s thoughts turned to what comes next.
Most of us had never worked on a political campaign before, let alone spent hours each week volunteering. Everyone feels involved and energized and….and….and….we have nothing to do. All those weeks of making phone calls and knocking on doors and realizing we could made a difference, what were we supposed to do with all that? What about all of the other volunteers who stepped up to do their part? Do we just lose track of them until four years from now? Or is there something else we could be doing as a local grass-roots activist organization?
Our host, who has been tied in with the local Democratic party for years, invited a member of the local committee to the meeting. A pitch was made for working with them to blunt the strong Republican machine that swamped our county candidates this year.
Talk soon turned to forming a separate group with our own agenda, loosely affiliated with the local party but open to those who had identified themselves as Independents. While the goal would be to strengthen the local Democratic presence, we’d have the freedom to focus on issues that we felt were important; like education, hunger and the environment. There’s also the expectation that Barack Obama’s organization is too smart not to take advantage of us “legacy volunteers” once he’s in office.
Nothing was resolved, but the committee man left the meeting with our contact information so I’m sure that’s not the end of it.
Now imagine this happening with the other 400 neighborhood teams in Missouri and multiply that by 49 other states. Do you begin to get the sense that perhaps we have the opportunity to take back politics from the big special interest groups and make our government accountable to us once again?
There is hope.
For those of you tired of this political stuff, what can I say? That’s where my head is these days. I’m knitting but don’t have much to show for it right now. I’m also looking for a job; a discouraging prospect in the current environment and for the near future. I watch the stock market making an omelette of our nest egg day after day and need to distract myself with the hope that the incoming group of politicians won’t screw up.
To reward you for reading this far, I leave you with purple asters from one of my Vermont trips.
The Obama campaign did us all a huge favor when they made the decision to spend the early part of the summer recruiting and training a volunteer network. They created it, and now — in your case, at least — it has a life of its own. Grass-roots democracy* at its best.
* This is one of the pillars of the Green party. You might want to reach out to them, as well.
I think your team’s feeling is shared by many around the country … as well as several political organizations. I’ve recently gotten emails from MoveOn.org and League of Conservation Voters; they both expect to part of the process of helping the country move forward.
And I’m not tired of hearing the political stuff. This message of hope and people-patriotism is a welcome change from the fear-mongering and doom of the past 7 years (since 9/11). It is also blessing to share sentiments with like-minded folks. I made a comment at our mechanic’s shop this week about the election results and he retorted, “He’s a Muslim!” So I still have some educating to do in this backwards, redneck area.
Keep up the good work! Christine