James Forman's stories from South Carolina
The results are coming in. The votes are matching the exit polls. Obama is winning everywhere. People have lost it with excitement. "Fired up, ready to go" is the call and response. Paul Zimmerman is on his blackberry, reading out tepid NY Times headlines that talk of Obama winning by "a substantial margin." "Call it a rout! Call it a rout," screams Paul at his handheld and whoever else will listen. "He won women, he won every county but 2, this is a landslide!"8:45pm Exit polls: Obama wins 50% of whites under 30, and that is in a 3 way race that includes a white man from S. Carolina. Everyone is begging the media to lose the stupid race coverage. "He won in Iowa, he was neck and neck in NH and Nevada, he's winning tons of white votes in S. Carolina, can't they see people like him for what he stands for," a woman next to me is shouting at the screen. The crowd starts chanting, "race doesn't matter," and Tom and I talk about how the complexity of the issue can't be captured in one phrase, but we totally understand why people are chanting that. South Carolinian whites are tired of being pigeon-holed as unreconstructed rednecks, damn it. The South isn't just Confederate flags and lynchings and segregated schools. Even if race does matter in our society, and will for a long time, we get what the chant is capturing. Tom starts his own chant, just for us, "Race doesn't matter (but we still need affirmative action)." Less catchy, we agree.
9pm U2 starts playing. Barack and Michelle arrive. Delirium.
9:05pm Turns out we got a good space on stage. Text messages start to arrive from people around the country telling me and Ross and Henry and my mom that they can see us, stand straight.
9:30pm Speech is over. Best speech ever, everybody is saying. We won it with community organizing and volunteers is the mantra. Even though the source (the volunteers) has an incentive to push this narrative, it seems right too. Clinton has name recognition and a machine. But Obama has passion and an army of fired up/ready to go folks. The marching band is still playing. They have a rhythmic version of Oooo-baaa-maaaa.
10pm Obama-mania takes over the bars of Columbia. Obama is stopping by to talk to volunteers and others who didn't get in to the convention center.
1:30am To bed. Per usual, I'm one of the earliest. Sam Starks and Christian Lamar plan to be up all night, and the party rages on Jervais St.
Sunday, Jan. 27, 10am. Driving out of state, new wind in our sails. Tomorrow, Monday, my mom and I will be at the Library of Congress where they will be announcing our gift of Jim Forman's papers to the Library. He wasn't alive to see South Carolina, but I believe he felt it. Thanks dad. You made it happen. We love you.
Hey everyone, just back from South Carolina. I promised I would send out some stories. Here they are:
Jan. 25, 4:50pm Arrive Palmetto State. We are a multi-racial, multi-gen group in my car, my mom, me and Monique, a Georgetown Law Student. Over 350 volunteers are coming in from DC alone, and about 50 from the law school. Obama signs in our window, buttons on, everyone fired up. As I cross the border keep thinking of my mom's memories from the 60's, talking about how SNCC workers couldn't ride in inter-racial groups, how whichever race was the minority had to ride on the floorboard of the car under blankets, how she felt driving for hours and hours lying on the floor of a car, in a world that wouldn't recognize the justice of her cause. There we are in the welcome center at the border, me and Monique joking around without a care in the world, having fun with the beyond-friendly folks offering us maps to everywhere, including all we could want to know about places like Pee Dee County. I hug my mom, happy for how much has changed, and how she and SNCC and others like them in her generation made that happen. This trip is already worth it.
Jan. 26, 9am. Lexington County, South Carolina. The Georgetown group has been split up around the state. The profs (O'Sullivan, Lazarus, Henning) are all over, the students in 2 main groups. One is in Williamsburg, rural and 2 hours east of Columbia. My group is in Lexington, and last night at dinner a local politico told me that Lexington is heavily republican, mostly white, and isn't sure Obama is going to find too many votes there. He asks me why we have been sent there and I tell him the truth, I have no idea, I'm a volunteer going where they told me to go. In Lexington at our Obama staging area we have about 15 Gtown students volunteering; the Lexington county folks are running the show. They are young, old, black, white, all local. About 10 of them are from the local 2,500 student high school, where they started a Lexington High for Obama club and even though almost the whole school is Republican, they say, laughing "we are more active and more organized, maybe because we are the oppressed minority."
9:30am They are ready for us. Some of us are sent out to canvass, going to homes of identified Obama supporters and reminding them to vote, giving them numbers if they need a ride, asking them to call their neighbors and friends who support Obama and tell them to vote too. Me and my mom are on the phone call team; our list is not as good as the canvassers, which I realize when some people I call tell me that they already voted in the Republican primary, and one guy tells me that he is "100% Ron Paul."
10am. Gotta love the south. Big plates of grits are being cooked up for all the volunteers. First round of phone calls is done, and I'm talking to Sandra, who is running the kitchen and keeping us fat and happy. She tells me that she has voted Republican all her life, and was going to do so this time too. Her daughters told her to ck out Obama, she went to see him speak, and she came back sold. "He says what I believe, that working together is the only way out of our problems, that even people of different parties have a lot in common." This is one of the things I love about Obama, and why I think he is most likely Democrat to win in November. The Democrats need to move beyond the core base to win, and this woman and others like her are a constituency that likes Obama but would never vote for Clinton.
1pm. Out canvassing. The canvassing list is fabulous. If Obama is this organized around the state, he's in good shape. Some people have moved, some aren't home, but we find a lot of people, and almost to a person they are pro-Obama and proud of it. Many people answer their doors wearing their "I voted" sticker, which my mom says you never see in New York. People don't much like being called on the phone, but they are happy that you take the time to come to their door. The addresses are a little confusing, 102 Allen Lane is on our list, along with the name and age of the voter, but when we get to 102 Allen there might be 3 or 4 trailers. Which is 102? After a few times we realize that they all are, but you only have to find one person home, because they will tell you if they voted and they tend to know about the rest of them. "Mrs. Quick, I think she voted this morning. And Johnnie and Jean over there vote all the time, for sure they will vote, but not till this evening." And on it goes, us checking off our forms so we can report back to our canvassing captain, a high school senior, about how we are doing.
2pm. Still canvassing, have to get back in time for the 2pm count when we turn our list over to the next group of canvassers who will go back and visit any houses where we could not confirm that the people voted. One last time, because Tom Smith, Gtown law student in our group, notices that one address we haven't found has 7 people supposedly living in it, all with different last names. We see why we missed it; it is the county detention center. Henry and my mom and I are ready to go back, but Tom will not be deterred. He and Ross head to the detention center. A very helpful sheriff talks to them and reviews the names. Yes, the 7 guys are all inmates. Tom is in my Race and Crime class; he knows about felon disenfranchisement. These guys all have misdemeanors, the sheriff tells him. Well, in light of that, says Tom, they should be able to vote. "Is there anything we can do," he asks. "Maybe a weekend pass? Or a day pass? Just long enough to vote?" Friendly but firm, the sheriff says that is a no go.
3pm. Also in Lexington County are Lisa Greenman and Sandy Levick from Public Defender Service and another lawyer friend of Rachel Kaul. They have been doing election protection work, and tell a story of a woman who was turned away from the polls 4 times because of a felony conviction, and even though her voting rights had been restored she couldn't get anyone to accept that. But I know Lisa and Sandy, have seen them litigate at PDS, and am not at all surprised when I find out how they overwhelmed the polling station with legal and equitable arguments and finally get a provisional ballot that allows the woman to vote.
4pm. Our staging area is actually over-volunteered, just slightly. Enuf so that a group of us are sent out to a major intersection to wave signs and jump up and down as cars go by. "Visibility event" is the official sounding name the campaign gives it. We have a great time. Our unofficial polling data: Blacks love Obama; they are honking and waving and giving us the thumbs up. But not just them. Tons of young people of all races give us the honk. And not just young people. We are getting some middle aged guys in pick up trucks too, a demographic we didn't start out counting on. Near the end of the day we even get a Hummer honking for us, and we lose it with excitement. It's multi-racial, for real.
6:50pm. Polls closing in a few minutes. We had been let go early because we had enough volunteers. I'm in line at the convention center, where Obama is supposed to speak later. I want to be inside, win or lose.
7:01 "CNN called it!" "We won, we won!" Everyone's cell phone starts to ring at what seems like the exact same moment. Dimitri Christakis is on the line, yelling that the exit poll results are solid, it's a win. The networks are calling it for Obama before counting any votes. I remember 2000. I'll wait to see some numbers.
7:10. Unclear if any of us are going to get in. We don't have tickets, even though we worked all day. Massive confusion, Obama people are being nice about it, but nobody knows what is going on. Behind me in line is a black couple, in their 20's, from rural South Carolina. They voted early this morning, canvassed all day, then came here. They have their 3 year old son with them, who keeps saying something about not getting in. I can't really hear him, but the dad keeps saying, almost like a mantra, "we're going to get in, we're going to see Obama, we're going to get in, we're going to see history." He is purporting to reassure his son, but I think maybe he's convincing himself.
7:30 Still no assurance of getting in. Then Gtown student somehow scores coveted wristbands for all of us, this is even better than tickets, you get right to the front of the line. Happiness interrupted when my friend from the line comes over, sees what is going on, and asks me if I have any extra tickets. Heart is sinking here, I only have one, he and his family should be able to get in before me. They need to see this. But I can't get any more, I tell him, which is true, and I'm so sorry, also true, and I'm sure he's going to get in too. That one might not be true, but I really hope it is.
7:45pm. The "no tickets" line starts to move. We are all going to get in. My mom and I have our armbands, enter, and she is spotted by person doing the staging and asked "do you mind standing behind the stage?" She says of course not, and we are ushered back there, but not before the staging person sees me and is clearly confused, as most people tend to be, about what we are doing together. I guess my demographic is less needed behind the Senator than the 65 year old white lady. As it turns out, they could have picked any random 100 people from the crowd and put them behind Obama. They didn't need any staging. The audience was that diverse. We go towards the stage. As we do, I see my friend from the line. He's in, with his wife and son! I run over and we exchange a high five. He says everyone is getting in now.
8:30pm CNN is up on a huge screen. The results are coming in. The votes are matching the exit polls. Obama is winning everywhere. People have lost it with excitement. "Fired up, ready to go" is the call and response. Paul Zimmerman is on his blackberry, reading out tepid NY Times headlines that talk of Obama winning by "a substantial margin." "Call it a rout! Call it a rout," screams Paul at his handheld and whoever else will listen. "He won women, he won every county but 2, this is a landslide!"
8:45pm Exit polls: Obama wins 50% of whites under 30, and that is in a 3 way race that includes a white man from S. Carolina. Everyone is begging the media to lose the stupid race coverage. "He won in Iowa, he was neck and neck in NH and Nevada, he's winning tons of white votes in S. Carolina, can't they see people like him for what he stands for," a woman next to me is shouting at the screen. The crowd starts chanting, "race doesn't matter," and Tom and I talk about how the complexity of the issue can't be captured in one phrase, but we totally understand why people are chanting that. South Carolinian whites are tired of being pigeon-holed as unreconstructed rednecks, damn it. The South isn't just Confederate flags and lynchings and segregated schools. Even if race does matter in our society, and will for a long time, we get what the chant is capturing. Tom starts his own chant, just for us, "Race doesn't matter (but we still need affirmative action)." Less catchy, we agree.
9pm U2 starts playing. Barack and Michelle arrive. Delirium.
9:05pm Turns out we got a good space on stage. Text messages start to arrive from people around the country telling me and Ross and Henry and my mom that they can see us, stand straight.
9:30pm Speech is over. Best speech ever, everybody is saying. We won it with community organizing and volunteers is the mantra. Even though the source (the volunteers) has an incentive to push this narrative, it seems right too. Clinton has name recognition and a machine. But Obama has passion and an army of fired up/ready to go folks. The marching band is still playing. They have a rhythmic version of Oooo-baaa-maaaa.
10pm Obama-mania takes over the bars of Columbia. Obama is stopping by to talk to volunteers and others who didn't get in to the convention center.
1:30am To bed. Per usual, I'm one of the earliest. Sam Starks and Christian Lamar plan to be up all night, and the party rages on Jervais St.
Sunday, Jan. 27, 10am. Driving out of state, new wind in our sails. Tomorrow, Monday, my mom and I will be at the Library of Congress where they will be announcing our gift of Jim Forman's papers to the Library. He wasn't alive to see South Carolina, but I believe he felt it. Thanks dad. You made it happen. We love you.
Friends, come help make more history:
If you are in DC, the next big push is going to be this upcoming weekend, where we will do work in Delaware in prep for next weeks primary. If you want to get involved in some way, let me know. A Georgetown law group is organizing to do stuff, and everyone is invited, Gtown or not. Just let me know and I'll hook you in.
Also, if you are in DC and want to volunteer pls pls click this link and in 60 seconds you will have told DC for Obama who you are, what you are interested in doing, and when you are generally free. They will follow up. http://www.surveymethods.com/EndUser.aspx?EFCBA7BDE8A9BDB4
If you aren't in DC, check out your local activities here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/statepages
posted by Whitney Tilson at 11:27 AM
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