That was the heart of the little speech I delivered many times during my stay in Youngstown last week. My friends and fellow East End Long Islanders Barbara and Jim have a dynamo of a daughter who took a semester off from college to help run an Obama headquarters in Youngstown. She put out a call for volunteers and we drove west. It's not easy to refuse her.
We arrived on Monday, Oct. 20, at an hour I usually think of as dinnertime. Instead, the dynamo showed us how to make "persuasion" calls, gave us some lists, sat us down at the phone bank and turned us loose. It was an instant lesson in geopolitics.
I was raised in a Republican household in Cleveland. Growing up, political identity never seemed to be a matter of choice. Everyone liked Ike and that was that. Until recently I was a "blank," a member of no party, which helped in my career as a journalist. But in this election I'm a devoted Obama supporter, which is why I got in the car heading for Youngstown.
It's quite a different city from Cleveland as I remember it. In my very first phone calls, I picked up some attitudes and even some accents that sounded southern, although we were only 30 miles below Cleveland and about 60 miles east. But there are plenty of similarities too. Most importantly, both are historically steel towns, and, with the decline of the economy and the auto industry, both are hurting.
The level of that pain registered clearly in the first phone calls. "We just can't keep going like we've been going," said one man. "Even my racist friends are coming over to Obama."
There were sentiments on the other side too. "I'm a proud Democrat but I won't vote for him," one woman told me. When I asked why, she said, "I just don't trust him."
That line, I've read, is often code for racial fear, but in some instances I think it was a genuine concern. Obama IS relatively new to the scene. I countered with the argument that he has more experience than Abe Lincoln had going in, which drew silence.
I also heard the familiar litany of Obama scares: He's a Muslim, he's a Socialist, he's not a U.S. citizen, he pals around with terrorists, his wife isn't proud of her country. I parried them with what I believe to be the truth, and as a trump card I asked if they'd seen Colin Powell's endorsement. Almost without exception, the general's glowing remarks were acknowledged to be a powerful persuader.
The next day Jim and I were sent on the road as a canvassing team. We went to a working-class neighborhood in northwest Youngstown. There were some abandoned, disintegrating homes here, but most were well kept, and many were decked out with lavish Halloween decorations. Since it was a Tuesday during working hours, lots of houses were unoccupied, but when someone did answer the door an interesting thing happened: People were friendly.
That impressed me. I don't appreciate solicitations over the phone, and I like them even less in person, but these people were generally pretty nice about it. That's the Ohio I remember.
Even those who are backing the Republican ticket weren't particularly rude about it, for the most part. The worst was the Norman Mailer look-alike who peered at me through his closed storm door with an ironic grin permanently in place. When I told him I was a volunteer with the Obama campaign he said, "You are?" When I asked if he was voting for Obama, he just grinned. When I asked if he'd made up his mind, he said, "I just told you, didn't I?" When I spun out my line about driving four states to volunteer, he said, "You oughta get in your car and drive back those four states." Then, still grinning, he closed the door.
A few houses later I had an exchange of a different kind. No one answered when I rang the bell so I prepared to knock, but the door opened just as I did and I almost rapped the occupant on the forehead.
It was a black man who was totally unruffled by his close encounter with my fist. I explained that I was canvassing for the Obama campaign and, well, suffice to say it was a nice visit. Then, when I was two houses away, I heard the man urgently calling me back. I returned, bending against the frigid afternoon wind. "Here," he said, reaching down from his porch. "You need a hat. It's cold out there."
The next day we canvassed in Lowellville, a riverside village in southeastern Youngstown. Demographic: 99 percent white and largely Italian-American. We were warned that it could be a tough day for us, but that's not what I found. Yes, some doors were closed but some were flung open enthusiastically, especially by the goateed man who trumpeted for me and all his neighbors to hear, "I'm a union man and there are five votes for Obama in this house!"
Back at headquarters, in between our forays onto the streets, fervor and camaraderie built steadily day to day. Among the crew were people of all ages and colors, locals and visitors from all over the country, all descended on this former mattress outlet to help swing the crucial Ohio vote. There was even a Legal Aid lawyer from Brooklyn who was involved in the fight against the Shoreham nuclear plant, and who in fact got arrested during a protest over it.
Even though you're never supposed to feel optimistic during a campaign, at one point toward the end of our stay I looked around the room and couldn't help taking heart. Maybe every campaign generates such moments, but I hadn't felt that kind of buoyancy since the Kennedy era. For that instant it didn't matter if our candidate won or not; just the amazing fact of this campaign was a victory in itself. Somewhere, amid all the turmoil and debate and sheer effort, the awful issue of race had simply become insignificant. Something much more important was going on, and there we all were, fighting for it.
That, I reflected, is the way life should be.
J. Mudcat Miller
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