I'm going to see Senator Obama today!

David Traver

On Saturday I received a call from my local Obama staff person that she had tickets for us to go see Senator Obama today in Milwaukee.

Our nice local Obama staff person (one of many assigned to our county) contacted all of the other volunteers in our team and we are all going to meet up there. Numerous fully-staffed Obama offices in Wisconsin distributed 25,000 (my estimate) tickets in Wisconsin in two hours yesterday for an event to be held today.

In contrast, when Senator McCain announced his running mate Senator McCain was unable to fill up a small high-school sized basketball court and stands with supporters. I suspect one of the reasons that the Republicans were very happy to "downsize" their convention is that they were having problems filling up the convention hall. The Republican convention had already been "downsized" in advance due to poor organizational capacity and apathy.

There is a monumental difference in the organization of the campaigns on the ground. When all is said and done about Gov. Palin's good looks and all of the other "issues" it will come down to this difference in the ground game and who can get out the vote. In this regard it does not matter what the pundits or the candidates or the polls say. It's all about neighbor to neighbor contact and getting out the vote in the remaining 64 days before November 4th. Our little neighborhood volunteer group (one of dozens and dozens in Waukesha County) made over 1,000 voter contacts last week and we were just warming up. There are hundreds of volunteer groups like ours all over Wisconsin and in every neighborhood in the U.S.A. It is an amazing and revolutionary process and I am thrilled to be a part of it.

If you want to get involved in a neighborhood Obama group in your part of the world please don't wait. Time is short. Please visit the Obama site and sign up. You will find contact information by clicking on the map. If you mention that you want to volunteer you will be contacted by an Obama team member. http://www.barackobama.com/ If you have problems making contact just give me a call at my office and I will get you linked up with somebody from your local Obama campaign office right away. See e.g. http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/wihome

Issus important to me include:

Universal health care;
Restoring peace;
Education;
Social jjustice;
Making domestic adiption affordable and accessable;
Restoring America's international standing and credibility;
Energy; and
Economics.

David Traver · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 02:15 am Post subject:

Well I had a wonderful time at the Obama rally today in Milwaukee. It was much different than when I went to see President Reagan in Waukesha in the 1980s and Vice President Gore and then President Clinton in Milwaukee during the 1990s. It was also different than other rallies I have been to since then. I was ready to stand in line for hours and then wait for for the candidate to be at least two hours late. Reagan, Gore, Clinton, they all did that. It was a giant pain in the butt and in the feet as well.

The big difference here was precision. The gates were scheduled to open at 3:00 p.m. and they did exactly that. There were lots of secret service types with scanners so everybody just walked though security faster than at any airport (it was much faster than going through the checkout line at a supermarket on a weekday afternoon.) It was a fast and easy trip for 23 to 25 thousand Obama supporters from the gates to our seats. There were staff everywhere to help. Everybody knew what they were supposed to do and they were doing it.

After a prayer and the pledge of allegiance, a small parade of Wisconsin dignitaries took the stage in turn. Milwaukee's Democratic Mayor, Wisconsin's Democratic Governor, our two beloved Democratic Senators, and a Democratic Congresswoman spoke, as did four or five union members and officials (It's labor day). Nobody other than Senator Obama spoke for more than 5 or 6 minutes. That was nice.

Then, a union member introduced Senator Obama and he walked onto the stage with his sleeves rolled up at 6:03 p.m. He was scheduled to appear at 6:00. He kept everything simple emphasizing that today was not a day for campaign speeches due to the deaths and damage caused by the hurricane that was hitting New Orleans as he spoke. He summarized what contact he had with Homeland Security to stay up on the situation and what he had learned about the current status of the storm. (When I got home I saw Newt Gingrich on Fox saying that Obama handled the hurricane and the Republican' VP's daughter's pregnancy perfectly. Newt had nothing but praise for how it was handled by Obama, despite the baiting from Hannity. I have to agree.)

So, essentially the only thing Senator Obama said about the opposition was that he was clear that President Bush and Senator McCain were as concerned as all of us for the safety of those in that hurricane. Senator Obama instead urged us to go to his website or the Red Cross web site and make a donation to the Red Cross.

The rest of his short speech was dedicated to discussing the needs of those in storms, such as our brothers and sisters in New Orleans. He discussed how labor unions had helped us all by improving wages, working conditions, and rights. He spoke about how we are all our brothers and sisters keepers. We have a responsibility to take care of everyone in the storm, whether that storm be a hurricane or the storm of a lost job, illness, or family disaster. It was a speech mostly about empathy for those who are in harm's way. Don't expect that we are immune, we all need each other's support at some time. The key is to be prepared to help, to be ready and able to do so.

Obama's general speaking style was not so impressive as was his capacity to hit the accelerator on demand. He would just purr a long with a nice speech that sounded okay, then he would lean into the microphone and hit a series of lines that had everybody standing and shouting in nothing flat. He knows where the accelerator and gearshift are. His his timing is utterly impeccable. Everything was impeccable. On Saturday morning nobody knew he was going to be here. Over 20,000 people were rallied to be on time. We left motivated, and we are energized. Wow.

I only had my iPhone camera (I forgot to bring my Nikon D70) so the pictures are not so hot. However, the memory is.

David Traver · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 05:20 pm Post subject:

See http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/01/sanchez.obama/index.html