After working on the Kerry campaign, I swore I wouldn't work on another campaign again. Well, it's the next campaign cycle and I've already broken that promise to myself. Despite the e-mails piling up asking me to volunteer for Obama the past two months, I waited until yesterday to help out. So for this election day, at least, I didn't feel the emotional charge that builds up from investing so much of your time in a campaign.
What I did get to feel, though, was this amazing connection (in grad school speak, an "imagined community," perhaps?) with everybody I saw on the street who was also wearing Obama pins or shirts. Philly was overwhelmingly behind Obama, so everywhere I walked there were people behind the same cause I was fighting for. I didn't talk to most of these people; it was mostly just a smile of acknowledgement that passed between us.
Campaign headquarters in Philly the past two days were full of supporters from up and down the mid-Atlantic. People seem to have just driven in to Philly and come straight to the headquarters to see what they could do. I helped one of these people, a woman who had taken the day off of work in D.C., to navigate around Center City and drive elderly people to the polls. I also went door to door earlier in the day, which I must admit, I wouldn't offer to do again.
Even though Obama didn't win today--and really, I don't think anybody expected he would in PA--the day felt like a success for me in other ways. First, with all of the research I've done on politics in Early America, I appreciate the chance to see the process firsthand. Second, I felt in these past two days that, for the first time since I moved here, I actually live in Philly and that I'm part of a community here--one even larger than the campaign. That feeling was well worth losing my voice and getting behind on schoolwork.
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