by Derrick Anthony

As I write this we are less than 24 hours away from the 2008 Presidential election and in my mind Barack Obama has already won. I don’t mean in the sense of getting 270 electoral votes, I don’t even mean just getting the popular vote. I believe that he has won because weather he is the 44th President or the first African American President or the “That One” President he has effected a change on the American populace.



 

   
I took and hour and went to my local Obama for America office here in Baltimore. I was a little put of at first because the office (formally a clothing boutique) was a little small.

Those who have been to campaign offices before are use to seeing these huge storefronts manned with 50 plus people, there were maybe 15 people.

 
I was approached by a woman who asked me if I wanted to volunteer a little time, I said sure. Literally two minutes later I was calling various people in Virginia with a 4 question questionnaire. In the hour and a half I sat there I could have probably made a few more calls but I was to busy eavesdropping on my fellow volunteers conversations.
 
I was sitting across from a woman who had volunteered one day the week before, both weeks she had come in after church but before she needed to get home to start Sunday dinner, Total volunteer time 2 hours. There was a woman sitting next to me she was there when I got there but she left before me. She needed to get going to get her kids from the babysitter she just dropped them off for a couple hours to volunteer.

As churches let out people came in wearing their Sunday best, and that is when I heard that two more call offices were open further down the street. These people, who had not been introduced to each other, had never met each other, all cheered individual victories “I got another person that answered the phone and there voting Obama!” followed by smiles and thumbs up. It was a true team effort.

 
After my 90 minutes on the phone I sat down to talk to John, the office manager. “I have worked on elections for almost 20 years and I have never seen anything like this before. People are literally walking in off the streets saying I only have about 30 minutes but I want to do something. We put them on the phones and they wind up having to tear themselves away. We get about 100 people a day and half of them are unscheduled walk INS.”

The word Change has never been so appropriate than it is in this election. Barack has literally become a social alchemist of legend; however instead of changing lead into gold he has changed despair and apathy into HOPE. This election is predicted to have the greatest voter turn out in the history of American elections and that is in a large part due to the Obama grass roots campaign.

 
But what if he looses? What if Tuesday comes and goes and we wind up with 4 more years under Republican rule? What happens to that drive and energy that has been given an outlet over the last 21 months? I posed that question to a few volunteers Sunday and got a lot of the same responses.

They ranged from “I am not sure what I would do to I can’t even wrap my mind around that question or the reality to I may have to crawl up in a hole for a few days and weep.” But I also received “I have gotten a taste for politics to I have learned more about the system than I even knew and I plan to keep campaigning”

Whichever the case a fire has clearly been lit under a great deal of Americans and while November 4th might bring disappointment I would like to believe that Barack’s message has been clearly understood. It is a time for Change and Change will not come without work

Of course that work will be a little easier if Barack Obama wins.