I was surprised on Saturday night to find myself dialed into a conference call with Barack Obama. My cell phone rang, at maybe 9:30 p.m. Philadelphia time, and on the phone was....Jon Carson from the Obama campaign. There were some brief words from David Plouffe, and some inspirational stories from the field by Jon Carson, and then Barack Obama came on. The message was basically "we've done amazing things together, but let's not muff this at the last minute - let's GOTV."
I've been a Dem committeeperson for several years (doing my small part to turn Montgomery County, PA blue), and have volunteered for Dem presidential candidates starting with Clinton in 1992, but this is the first time I've ever been dialed into campaign conference call like this, where a presidential candidate himself was giving a pep talk. I'm the smallest of small fry volunteers - while I've done a lot of walking for candidates over the years, increasing problems with asthma have really slowed me down this year - despite the inhalers, I can only manage bursts of an hour or so, followed by several hours of gasping and panting. I'm also knocking for US Congress and state-level Dem candidates, so I've only volunteered a handful of sessions for Barack. Compared to many, my efforts are nothing. And yet they were willing to dial me into to listen to a pep talk from Barack. This campaign is operating from a very different place than most of the others I've helped with, and I'm grateful to be a tiny part of such a large movement for the change we can count on.