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Almost two weeks from the first large, standing-room-only rally at The Venue in Roanoke, we return. I was flying solo for the evening, my stalwart near-4-year-old co-pilot needing to crash early. Mercifully my other meeting that night had been canceled, allowing me to walk in the doors just before 7pm EST. Just before the polls closed. It was exactly twelve days prior that Addy and I had attended my first real presidential rally here-- nervous but ultimately more hopeful and excited than ever. I committed myself as a volunteer and ardent spokesperson for Obama.</p>

Back to the Venue where we spent our time celebrating... exhausted and smiling at the top of our faces, the lot of us were stunned to find Virginia called within moments of the polls closing. The remaining time would be spent anxiously awaiting the fortuitous results of DC and Maryland while we also watched the percentages tick up along with the votes for Obama and Clinton.

With only 8% of the votes tallied, around 8:30pm EST I Twittered:

"Obama 63 to HC 36 Percent in VA & Hampton Roads hasn't even come in yet"

It was amazing, that as the percentage of returns grew higher, into the majority of the state and beyond, that Obama still had 63%. Possibly even more stunning, when looked at with the broad contextual lens of national history, were the comments of the minute-to-minute analysts. When one said, "It will be interesting to see where the white votes go..." I nearly fell out of my chair. The very fact that the "white vote" was scrutinizable and unpredictable in a national contest was truly unusual on a large scale. What a fantastic sea change.

The early results gave those of us volunteers a lot of time to happily reflect as we enjoyed drink and food together. It was fun to surprise late-comers with the news as they entered the door with armfuls of additional food.

As the night went on we stayed glued to the large screens but felt we could relax for the first time in seven days. We were jovial, and many of us learned the other's name for the first time (having seen each other at events or in name through emails- but never formally meeting). Chelsea, a woman about my age, had run into me three times that day; once at the polls, then at HQ and then again at this watch party. Chelsea had helped to entertain Addy during last week's encouraging organizational meeting from an aisle away. I ate with Frankie, us both candidly speaking of our political background of being mostly independents and our enthusiasm for this particular campaign. I grinned with Joe at his victory and volunteer congratulations. I exchanged countless handshakes, hugs, smiles and shoulderclasps.

Leaving our party I bid goodbye to Frankie and Chelsea and many others. I stopped by for a special thank-you to Tricia White-Boyd, our campaign chair for the region and all-around wonderwoman. I get to meet her husband and I'm flattered she'd even mentioned me to him before tonight. The prevailing feeling that none of us could deny nor wanted to, was that we would see each other again. Not just in town, but that this night was possibly only the beginning of our work. For those of us who held close a worry that we would not have anything to celebrate this evening, it was the beginning of a new path. One we could be on again together in just a few short months, we hoped.

And we hoped hard. Fiercely. With a renewed confidence. Even with the primary now behind us in Virginia, shirts and banners sold. There was a palapable feeling that more than just Virginia was turning, even if it was simply our own excitement drumming up the possibility.

I begrudgingly left my new, hopeful friends and began the drive home. Reflective, as I now push "post" on this small story, about my own role in placing a single brick on our new path.

 

- Dean Browell

The Virginia Primary

2/12/2008

P.S. Take a look at this speech, linked below. Seriously, this is a candidate that will actually call Wal-Mart out in a speech. That's pretty remarkable in this age of sucking up to the mega-corps.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23136897#23136897

P.P.S. How did Roanoke do? I'm proud to say Obama won Roanoke. He won some precincts by triple digits and even won some of the most affluent areas. More interesting news: more people in red Roanoke (edit: A reader correctly corrected me that Roanoke City actually is usually blue, my generalization was way wrong) voted for Obama than voted at all for the Republican primary. Cribbed from the Roanoke Time blog here: http://blogs.roanoke.com/news/2008/02/roanoke_goes_for_obama_and_huckabee.html

Just heard former Mississippi Gov Ray Mabus speak at an Obama rally; I really enjoyed his remarks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Mabus

Also speaking was Anne Holton, a former judge and our VA first lady to Gov. Tim Kaine (who also brought son Nat, who just turned 18, excited to vote) and John Edwards (calm down, calm down- the VA senator version of John Edwards). All did well, but Ray Mabus was perfect.

Is he on message? Sure. But this was a sincere answer. And exactly what we (the public) need to hear.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/150411

"Four supporters of Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination will speak at a rally for his campaign at 8 tonight in Roanoke, less than 12 hours before polls open in Virginia’s primary election.

Anne Holton, a former judge married to Gov. Tim Kaine, their son Nat, former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus, and House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong of Martinsville will appear at the Dumas Center for Artistic & Cultural Development, at 108 Henry St."

An incredible speech... seriously... you'll see exactly why he's the one. (Roanokers, please watch and pretend you're in the Jefferson Center.)

Ugh... Obama event cancelled. This after scoring tickets this morning (thanks in part to Jonah).

From the Roanoke Times:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/150337

"Obama, Clinton cancel Roanoke campaign stops due to weather
Two hours after Sen. Hillary Clinton canceled her evening campaign stop at a Roanoke high school, the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, her chief rival for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, announced the cancellation of his Monday morning appearance here.

Obama was scheduled to appear at 7:30 a.m. at the Jefferson Center. Free tickets were made available at Obama's downtown Roanoke office starting at noon today. By 1 p.m., a line of people stretched an entire city block from Kirk Avenue and First Street to Second Street. An Obama campaign official said the candidate had intended to fly in to Roanoke tonight but the high winds have made that impossible. The Illinois senator appeared in Hampton Roads this evening.

An Obama spokesman says the campaign doesn't plan to visit Roanoke before Tuesday's Virginia presidential primary election but is working on getting the senator on some Roanoke-area radio call-in shows Monday morning.

Clinton also canceled her Roanoke campaign stop because of the high winds. Instead, former president Bill Clinton will visit Roanoke Monday evening. Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign will release more details later tonight."

Senator Obama will host a town hall meeting. Tickets are free, 2 per person. Pick up at the Obama Headquarters 110 Kirk Ave SW in Roanoke City on Sunday after noon. (As in literally, after 12:00pm on Sunday.)

Doors open for event at 7:00 am Monday at the Jefferson Center.


Time: Monday, February 11 at 7:00 AM
Duration: 1 hour
Host: Patricia White-Boyd
Location:
JEFFERSON CENTER (ROANOKE, VA)
541 LUCK AVE.
ROANOKE, VA 24016

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4rxb5

Awesome, awesome... Obama is coming to Roanoke this Monday...

I'm home now, after another standing-room only Obama event, well-organized and held together by Trish Boyd.

Addy and I stayed after in the downtown library and hung around another event of music and art. A nice event, if not nearly as electric. (Kudos to River Laker who organized another well-attended and amazing music/art event.)



Sitting in the organizing session with my near-4-year-old squirming a bit (but ultimately being amazing in her behavior, yet again) the air was thick with eager nervousness. People wanted to help, clamoring for sign-up sheets and stickers and buttons and tees and anything to show how they feel. To share how they feel.

Once again the crowd looked like an impromptu United Colors of Benneton ad. It looked like the kind of group that businesses and colleges stage so they look like they have diversity and cohesion. Except that this was not staged by a PR Director. It was not goaded by a casting assistant. It was not manufactured by a strategic plan. It was sincere. It was honest. It was hope.

Some of us in the room knew each other. But most of us did not.



And regardless, when a 2 year old being held by her patient mother near the door began to squirm and chant for Obama it was cute. She kept going and every face turned to her and did not judge, did not shush and did not quiet. Every single face, regardless of color, smiled. And the hands began to clap. And the voices began to join in.



A simple, possibly romanticized moment? Sure. But it was perfect. Because we all sat in that room not for ourselves. Not for a selfish hope that we would be coddled or taken care of as we aged as parents, grandparents or friends. We sat in that room for that little girl. For my little girl. For the young boy who played at his mother's feet. For the college students who Senator Obama spoke to today in Louisiana.



For those of us who do not need to be told to sit next to the student of a different color for a photo. But to those already sitting there, already hoping that we can make a difference by choosing a government that we can trust, that we can believe in. That represents us.



It's a nervous time. Our state as a political machine has let us down and lifted us up in the past. We're here to make sure the latter is what happens in just 5 days.



I'm ready.



-Dean Browell, 2/7/08

So Hillary and Bill Clinton infused $5 million of their own money into their campaign today.

Obama's camp bemoaned the Romney-esque maneuver and asked their supporters to help. They'd raised $3 million since the polls closed on Super Tuesday to 9:30pm tonight (Wed.) but wanted to match Clinton's $5 million.

At 9:33pm they sent out a statement and ask to supporters for a small donation.

How small? Even their ask in the fundraising emailer specified $25. "It's never been more urgent that you make a donation of $25 right now."

It's 10:08 as I write this. The ticker just updated.

$5,257,912.

$2.25 million in 35 minutes. And counting. From more than 675,000 different people.


Whomever you like, that's some impressive shit.



EDIT EXTRA: "On Wednesday, the Clinton campaign set a new goal of raising $3 million over the next three days through the Internet." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080206/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_money_5)

$5,397,595 at 10:38pm.

$5,964,241 just before midnight. Essentially $3 million in less than 3 hours.

Interesting night.

I picked up a very wound-up Addy, who feel asleep in the car as we drove, and travelled to a restaurant/bar in Roanoke on Melrose called The Venue. In the car, I'd tried to explain to Addy what we were going to, or why before she nodded off. She knows basic geography, that she lives in Virginia and Virginia's in the U.S.A. So the idea that someone is the President of the United States wasn't totally beyond her. She asked if she could be president someday. I said yes. She asked if I wanted to be president someday. I said heck no. I asked her if she wanted to be president some day. She said heck no.

Waking Addy up, we strolled inside as the night grew dark. Inside, we encountered what looked like 150 people sitting, standing and reverberating with a palpable energy. We luckily found some seats on a corner stage the speaker's weren't using. Removing our jackets, we settled in.

Addy was fabulous considering how tired she was, and also considering she isn't a fan of loud, participatory noises (like thunderous applause). And even though we were late, apparently we were there in time for most of the speakers.

The leaders of the rally were very organized and seemed to be pleasantly surprised by the turnout (considering they were expecting 70 or less). Note that I often don't agree with most Roanoke politics (any side) but there were a few local politicians present. The mayor spoke well. Easily the most effective speech came from VA Delegate Onzlee Ware, who had driven in straight from sessions in Richmond (only to go back in the morning) to speak at the event.

Ware asked us to look around. He proceeded to remind those who had lived through, heard of or merely read about the civil rights movement that the movement itself took the courage of more than just blacks. He reminded us that Obama is also just human-- not to expect as many do for a black man to be three times the man that we would expect of another. But more than anything Ware seemed genuinely inspired by the crowd before him. We surprised ourselves in multiplying our own enthusiasm.


---

I want to note that I have always been at least fleetingly politically active. When I was much too young to understand politics I worked with Delegate Shirley Cooper and her sons for most of her elections, occasionally also assisting with other campaigns such as Mary Sue Terry. While I wasn't explicitly a Democrat as I grew in my personal philosophies (neither party seemed particularly welcoming to over-stated goth/alterna-kids) it was a Democratic slate that I worked for, handing out apples at fairgrounds and stickers at football games.

It wasn't long before all of that stopped and other bits of life interrupted my political engagement. Always a voter, I simply grew too sick of hypocrisy in either party to draw a straight line for allegiance. In college I participated in only a few major causes, notably awareness issues of rape and domestic violence and race/poverty. Sure I leaned left in many areas, but my more pragmatic side probably looked a bit Libertarian even then. Fiscal responsibility wasn't really my forte, as my debts made possible by Plan 9 and concert-going showed.

Post-undergrad I did become fleetingly involved with Nader's 2000 campaign. Nothing too engaged, but I did get so frustrated after one debate that I made a horrible t-shirt at the screenprinting shop I was working at: "The puppet robot and the puppet idiot make me want to Ralph." Did I vote for him? Yes, but only because I was in Virginia. Had I been in a less "red" state at the time I would not have. I always thought that the Republicans should have seen a post-Bush backlash coming because if Ralph did really cause Gore to lose in those key states, than the combined votes of Nader and Gore nation-wide certainly showed a majority of America was uneasy with the pendulum, all other election issues aside.

Fast forward eight years. And I have to admit that there is a dream playing out before me if Obama becomes the nominee. I see a hope that Addy will grow up not seeing the cracks and uneasy seams in our country's race relations like I have. That she will begin from a tabla rasa that will keep her mind from wandering to the rusty ideals still standing there from uneasy, incorrect historical dogma. I am not so polly-anna to think that she will grow up struggle-free in regards to race. Or that there won't be some seams in the fabric. But it would be amazing if in her conscious mind there was simply nothing special about being president and also being black. Would it be the same in the gender category was well if Hillary was president? Certainly. But the Clinton dynasty is hardly the most healthy. Moreover Hillary's distaste for the transparency Obama desires is telling enough. Clinton is part of a political machine that Obama has moved on from. She's coal to his wind.

---

Addy and I looked around the room at The Venue. All ages, races, sizes, shapes, classes... They were all there. And in the same moment that it was clear they were there, it was clear that they were not there; the presence of such differentiation brought about the obviousness of commonality. There was no overriding trait that we had in common at the core except that we were just human beings. It was really, strangely, poetic and it's hard for me-- a gen x cynic to the core-- to articulate how much it meant.

Addy captured smiles as she played with an unlit candle on the table and listened.

I didn't ensure Addy could say Obama's name or encourage her to chant. This isn't about brainwashing a near-4-year-old, it was just important for me and I was happy to have her there. It's about her in my opinion, not for her. She was tickled that I was smiling on my own as we listened.

After the speeches, we shuffled through the crowd and shook some hands. We picked up a t-shirt.

For the first time in my political life I was completely putting myself in someone's corner. For once I didn't feel that a candidate I supported wasn't being duplicitous or insincere in the slightest. In fact in the debate later that evening, Barack invited and baited those who doubted that sincerity by suggesting that all formerly "closed door" meetings with entities like the energy and healthcare companies be broadcast on C-Span for anyone to see. Banish the lobbyists. Throw open the curtains. Make this about us. It means that far more importantly to the history of this country we're not trying to elect a black president, we're electing a president who doesn't want to be president the way anyone else in recent memory did. He wants to be the first clear president.

I wondered and re-wondered whether to write this narrative at all. If I should post it only to friends on my LiveJournal blog, or to a wider swath among Facebook friends. Or bigger still, to anyone in public. I decided on all three. I'm not an overly political person publically (I just get in my sarcasm at times), but I'm engaged right now. I feel like I have someone in this fight. That the choice, almost literally, is clear. That a selection and installation of this person would shake up this country in all the right ways. It'd beat the grass and bring out the snakes. It'd call a lot of fair-weather Democrats on their bluffs. It'd change everything.

And in even some small way, it'd alter reality just enough for my daughter so that it'd be a whole new world for her to remember.






Finis.




...

P.S. Roanoke Times Story on the Rally: http://www.roanoke.com/politics/wb/149166
(Note to Rob Johnson, Addy's not elementary-school-age, she's a "big 3" as she likes to say; but it's a common mistake.)

P.P.S.
I can't believe I'm linking to Fox, but this was an interesting video and for some reason Fox chose Monty Python's John Cleese help moderate (?); it's a perspective on the debate that shows many sides of relatively typical citizens (just bear with the badgering by the Fox host):