illusionofjoy | Bringing out the votes for Hillary Clinton (Reply)

Those who know me well enough soon realise that one of the great motivators in my life has been what pisses me right the fuck off. Granted, that isn't the only thing that influences my deeds and actions - thank goodness - but I can pretty much guarantee that if you make me angry, if you light the proverbial "fire under my ass," then actions will no doubt soon follow. With this in mind, I would like to shout out a great big thank you to the more zealous, militant and less compromising Barack Obama supporters out there. Your deification of your candidate and vilification of Hillary Clinton have not only led me to repeatedly donate money to her campaign, but my time as well. I spent a total of six hours at her campaign office in downtown Pittsburgh today, and will be spending an additional four hours tomorrow. Without your goading and zealousness, this likely would have never happened; so, once again: thank you from the bottom of my black little heart.

The Clinton campaign office held an open house tonight where Allegheny County Democratic Committee Chairman Jim Burn (a superdelegate) formally announced his endorsement for her. While I'd never encountered Burn before, I have to admit that during his endorsement speech, he said a lot of things that have been on my mind regarding the Democratic primary. "This is not a party fighting and tearing itself apart," he said, "but a party engaged in a healthy debate as to whom would make the better leader." He went on to make a reference to pre-season football training similar to one I'd made earlier to a fellow Clinton volunteer.

In any case, all of the major press outlets for the metropolitan Pittsburgh area were in the campaign offices when this announcement was made, so depending on which cameras were on and where they were pointed, you might see me in one of the shots.

The actual work involved in volunteering isn't particularly glamorous. My day was spent putting together lawn signs and updating Excel spreadsheets - in other words, I am using my two vacation days this week to do the same thing I do at my normal job. However, unlike the job I go to for the necessity of a paycheque, I didn't feel the ennui doing this that I tend to fall into at my "real" job. I suspect that there are two reasons for this: 1.) Passion is a better motivator than money (at least until the rent comes due) and 2.) I know I won't be doing this for years to come and can walk away with impunity.

So, tomorrow morning I'll be back in that office, making signs and playing with Excel, I'm certain. They had tried to convince me to do phone work and hold "Hillary for President" signs outside tomorrow's Obama rally, however I'm not really good for either one of those things and, honestly, I don't think that crashing the Obamahead's party is in good taste nor is it a good way to convince anyone there to "switch sides." Furthermore, the only reason I would have wanted to go out there for Obama would have been to hear what he had to say; even though I am not voting for him in the primary, he still may be the candidate for president, which, of course, makes me want to know what he's all about and take the opportunity to see "the live show," so to speak. Unfortunately, Obama has become very distant from us "non-believers" - not only by virtue of the fact that his campaign office is in East Liberty (as opposed to a centralised downtown location), but because free tickets to his event tomorrow were limited in quantity and, of course, "sold out" very quickly. Hillary Clinton's rally did not have such a limit.