I am a long time commenter and a first time diarist. I have loved reading about the canvassing experiences of those savvy Iowans and the hard-working Texans. I am a 21 year-old student, but I am not a political science major. I have wanted to volunteer for a political campaign before, but it never worked out. I was a senior in high school when my favorite, Dean, came on the scene, but his campaign didn't make it to Pennsylvania. I thought about volunteering for Kerry, but I had other things to do as a freshman at Penn State. The campaign never asked me for help. I wanted to volunteer for Joe Sestak in 2006, but again I didn't have the time. Today was my first experience in canvassing.
A month ago, Penn State Students for Barack Obama formed without encouragement from the Obama campaign. In the last three weeks the student group managed to register 1,500 new Democrats. We are now only 3,000 new Democrats away from turning Centre county blue. That's right. This county in the middle of a sea of red will soon have more registered Democrats than Republicans. I am confident we will do it. Non-partisan groups at Penn State did not register this many total voters for the 2004 elections.
The Obama campaign office opened up yesterday, and has set a goal of 8,000 new Democrats by this Monday. Jay Paterno, the son of our beloved (Republican) football coach showed up to endorse Obama. Over 400 people came. But 8,000 new Democrats is well... a lot. So I dragged a friend to canvass with me in an off-campus apartment building. We met all kinds. There were the Republican jerks who snickered, the independents who graciously allowed me to intrude, and the Democrats who didn't know that they needed to register in Centre county to vote. But there were also the Obamaphiles who stopped just short of kissing me. There was even one woman who filled out the form and struggled to pick a party affiliation. After my friend's summary of the Obama platform, she gave in, and registered Democrat. There was one fellow who looked positively frightened at the thought of casting a vote. But after two hours we had registered 15 new Democrats from a total of 21 apartments.
State College is an isolated town. Drive northwest and you hit an area where there are more guns than people. Drive three hours in any direction and you still won't find a big city. Here no one listens to Chris Matthews. Here no one cares about Reverend Wright. We are insular it's true. No one here is wringing his hands as Obama's poll numbers drop and right-wing enemies write his political obituary. We're just registering Democrats. The truth is that the next five days here in Pennsylvania will decide the primary election. I haven't yet met an independent who won't switch to the Democratic party to vote for Obama. But we need your help. We need your calls to hit our goal of registering 100,000 new Democrats in my state. So stop wringing your hands, pick up the phone, and call those Pennsyltuckians unfairly maligned as racists. We can end the campaign here. In Pennsylvania.