The Thinking Press

I wrote this on the night of Obama’s resounding 28 point victory in South Carolina in order to make our amazing experience there known, and had to write it through my cell phone. It was among the most important experiences of my entire life, proving to me that our country was indeed greater than the sum of our differences. Back before anyone noticed the enormous crowds Barack Obama was getting we got locked out, along with nearly 5,000 people, from the main convention center in Columbia, South Carolina. Here is the story.

I am here in south Carolina after a day that I will very easily remember all of my life. I awoke at seven o’clock this morning as I have done all this week, and soon thereafter our three person team
took off to the small town of Bamberg, SC as we did for three days this week.

Thursday morning we were outsiders in this small town, riding around in a huge dirty van with obama signs crudely placed in the windows, but it was our place to make a difference and so we would. We knocked on doors, handed people leaflets and got some questioning looks as if to say, “what on earth are you doing here?” And that was on Thursday.

Fast forward back to today. Our out of towner reception has disolved completely into invitations to sit down for coffee with the complete strangers that have now seen us three days in a row, each morning, and are somehow not annoyed at all. One woman told me she got her son to
drive her to the polls even before going to her church. Pat Jones, volunteer and bamberg civic extraordinaire, congratulated us on becoming somewhat famous in this small town.

Then came the night. Fraying neuroses were beginning to become apparent in
some of the longer-term volunteers who, from the look of them, had not slept in days. Finally the polling stations began to close and then began a frantic journey across small South Carolina highways to 26 and Columbia. Next time I’ll pick a candidate I don’t care about but this time we were
averaging ninety, frantically hoping to see the culmination of what promised to be a huge night.

We arrived in Columbia to a massive crowd. With lots full we make a spot along a construction site and walk down to a quarter-mile long line of people four people wide toward the end. Before we’d moved ten
feet we were informed that the fire marshall had just closed the Columbia convention center, the largest convention space in the city, due to the crowd. Our three person team called frantically but decided a bar would be a wise choice. And fast, thousands of other volunteers and supporters had been locked out as well. We did, and along with a few hundred others took the bar with fervor (if not by force). With a 28 point lead over his closest rival, Barack Obama had seized the night and has once again leapt over a high bar.

I cannot explain to you why this was so important, you could only see and feel it for yourself, but we spent sixty miles, accidentally driving in the wrong direction for about an hour, on our way home trying to pin point it. It was something remarkable. This is the story that was not told by the news coverage tonight, and I thought you’d all like to hear.

Sign up today to volunteer for the campaign:
http://action.barackobama.com/page/s/newvolunteer