And before I put it all to bed (and run the risk that my brain might overwrite the cool specifics of today with more cool specifics tomorrow), I want to note some of the things I accomplished today on behalf of the change we're all working together to create.
Specific #1: I made 105 calls to potential supporters in Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas. I got so charged up by the process, in fact, that I briefly considered blowing off a commitment I'd made earlier in the week to attend a MoveOn.org phone-bank house party in Mesa, on the grounds that I didn't want to waste the 20-30 minutes that getting myself there and back would require.
But as morning turned to early afternoon and afternoon started winding down, destiny seemed determined to lend a hand in sorting out my plans, as destiny often does: The crisp response that the phone-bank servers here at BarackObama.com showed all morning—feeding up new contacts as fast as I could enter response data on the previous one—started to slow around 1:00.
By 2:00, the servers seemed overwhelmed by the sheer volume of demands on the system—apparently from so many Barack O-volunteers phone-banking simultaneously—that calls took longer and longer to complete. By 3:00, after waiting 5 minutes or so for the system to process my button-click request for 20 new contacts, I decided to restart my computer to clear its cache and, hopefully, get myself back into the game.
When that didn't work, the 4:00 MoveOn house party started looking like the only game in town for the foreseeable future, and the commute suddenly seemed worth the down time.
It was all that, and more.
Specific #2: Even though I only got to make 20 calls to MoveOn.com-ers, I got back in touch with something that I've missed for the past week or two—however long it’s been since my last group phone-bank work: How good it feels to connect with a new group of progressive people who just happen to get that this campaign is only about voting on its surface.
Under the hood, providing all the power that the primaries and causcuses reflect and measure, is a real commitment to action and participation.
In fact, here's the way I responded a few hours ago to MoveOn's request for feedback on the event. There's a moral in here, too. Let's see if we both can find it...
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What was your role in the house party?
Guest
How did the event go in general? (on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is high):
10 (best)
How many people attended your house party?
7
Do you feel you made a difference?
Definitely
Why/why not?
I feel that our house party (and all the others, like it) made a real difference because participation, per se, is the central issue in the Obama movement and the main ingredient in its success to date. Barack Obama understands that political power is nurtured by mobilizing an empowered core of activist-participants, and is grown by increasing the number of opportunities for those people to connect with each other, exchange ideas and perspectives, and thereby multiply their influence among the electorate via coordinated action. I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to meet and become personally involved with the other participants in today's house party, and I hope (and intend) that we stay connected in the future.
Did you or anyone at your party discover anything that made the calls more effective?
Understanding the basic points of the script well enough that it stops being a “script” and, instead, becomes a set of talking points within a larger narrative of personal communication built on authenticity.
What happened at your party?
We met, listened to the conference call, and went to work!
What was the best moment?
Making calls, then comparing notes (and personal histories) as we got to know each other, during breaks.
If we do this again, what would you suggest we change?
Increase the frequency!
Is there anything else you want to tell us?
Thanks to MoveOn for taking a stand in the nominating process, and for taking responsibility for increasing member participation in the Obama campaign.
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Specific #3: Then, after e-mailing my thanks to all my new MoveOn.org party-people friends, I found will.i.am's new video We Are the Ones.
[If you want to cut-and-paste the link to a friend, the URL is http://www.dipdive.com/dip-politics/wato/]
It's the follow-up to Yes We Can, and it's every bit as remarkable as the earlier song and video—even more so, in a way, because "We Are the Ones" shifts the focus from Barack's words (except, in a defining moment, towards the song’s end, when he reminds us that “We are the ones we've been waiting for”) to us — and the breathtakingly-simple and honorable dreams we all share.
If you haven’t seen it, see it now. And if you have seen it, share it with all your friends—even, like I just did, with brand-new friends I met today phone-banking MoveOn.org members in Texas at a house party in Mesa, Arizona.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
And I’m thrilled to play even a small part* in inviting the rest of us to the party, so that a skinny, unlikely community-organizer from Chicago can project our vision for America to the rest of the world.
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*Except there are no small parts in this movement, only real work that needs to be done. At least it’s fun doing it.
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