Obama basic training
Volunteers told to share personal conversion stories with voters - not policy views.
By John Hill - jhill@sacbee.com
Last Updated 12:23 am PST Monday, January 21, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A4
Chris Young, Northern California deputy finance director, addresses Obama supporters training as precinct captains. They were urged to develop personal narratives to reclaim "values" politics from the GOP.
Florence Low / flow@sacbee.com
In a storefront on Q Street in Sacramento, Kim Mack told a crowd that spilled out onto the sidewalk how she came to back Barack Obama.
With a son serving in the Iraq war, which she opposed, Mack was looking for a like-minded presidential candidate. She was impressed by the Illinois senator's books.
But the clincher came on March 17, when she met the Democratic contender face to face. She describes how he lit up the room with his wide smile, shook her hand and thanked her for volunteering.
"He looked at me, and the look in his eyes was worth 1,000 words," said Mack, now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear – she was so thrilled she doesn't remember what it was.
Then Mack brought home the point of her story for the crowd of 100 or so eager volunteers, sipping coffee and watching a PowerPoint presentation in the Obama campaign office on a recent Saturday.
"Did that make more impact on you than if I had talked about his health care plan or his stance on the environment?" she asked.
On the verge of a hectic few weeks leading to Super Tuesday, the crucial Feb. 5 multistate primary including California's, Mack wanted to drill home one of the campaign's key strategies: telling potential voters personal stories of political conversion.
She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama – something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone.
"Work on that, refine that, say it in the mirror," she said. "Get it down."
She told the volunteers that potential voters would no doubt confront them with policy questions. Mack's direction: Don't go there. Refer them to Obama's Web site, which includes enough material to sate any wonk.
The idea behind the personal narratives is to reclaim "values" politics from the Republican Party, said Marshall Ganz, a one-time labor organizer for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers who developed "Camp Obama" training sessions for volunteers.
When people tell their stories of how they made choices and what motivates them, they communicate their values, Ganz said in an interview.
"Values are not just concepts, they're feelings," Ganz said. "That's what dropped out of Democratic politics sometime in the '70s or '80s."
To convey these values, the Obama campaign claims to be taking grass-roots organizing to a new level, harnessing what they describe as a groundswell of enthusiasm.
In California, the campaign claims that 120,000 people have shown an interest in working for Obama. Seven thousand of those are actively involved, putting in five hours to 80 hours a week.
The campaign boasts 223 official organizing teams in all of the state's 53 congressional districts, and 700 community groups. Sacramento's was one of the first and is also one of the most active.
Statewide, 3,527 people trained as precinct captains oversee phone banking and canvassing door to door in precincts that generally include about 300 registered Democrats.
Ganz said the depth of the organization, the number and commitment of volunteers "is something that hasn't been seen out there in a long while" in the state.
Working as a precinct captain is "easy," according to one of several campaign Web sites.
"Just follow Barack's lead and be honest with them," the Web site advises. "You don't need to debate policy or discuss the day's headlines. You have a very personal reason for investing your time and energy in this campaign – that is the most compelling story you can tell."
Indeed, participants in the Saturday morning precinct-captain training were already adept at telling their Obama-conversion stories.
Libbie Coleman, a 61-year-old microbiology teacher at McClatchy High School, read Obama's books last spring.
"I've been a voter for 40 years," she said. "I feel like I've been needing to hear these things for 40 years."
Faced with a politician who spoke to her heart, Coleman said, she had no choice but to become involved, for the first time, in a political campaign.
"I felt like someone called my bluff and now I've got to do it," she said.
As a teacher, Coleman is accustomed to talking to people face to face. But cold calls to strangers were a stretch. For one thing, she doesn't like getting such calls herself. For another, she considers herself a "pleaser" and doesn't like making people mad.
"The thing that keeps me going," she said, "is that I have two beautiful grandchildren, and I feel so strongly about this candidate, that this is the person I want to shape the world my grandchildren are going to inherit. I keep picturing their little faces."
Her role as a neighborhood team leader has absorbed whatever free time she had.
"So I'm cutting a few corners, like not writing as many comments on the papers I grade, because that makes it take twice as long," she said.
Many Obama volunteers, inspired by the candidate, are pushing themselves beyond their normal comfort zones, said Lina Nasr, who traveled two hours from Chico for the precinct-captain training.
Nasr, a 26-year-old UC Berkeley graduate who got a master's degree in public health in Lebanon, counts herself among them. She has worked before for causes, she said, "but I've never taken this extra step to actually come all this way to Sacramento, to go through this training."
Nasr said she met one woman who volunteered despite a social phobia.
"She comes and supports us at the phone banks, even if she's not going to make as many calls," Nasr said.
J.P. Maurice brought his two sons to the event. Not only did they learn to be precinct captains, but the two sons also registered to vote for the first time.
Like many at the event, Maurice, 50, said he had not felt as excited about a candidate in his lifetime and is eager to spread the word.
"I made a lot of cold calls as a Realtor, so I'm familiar with sales," he said.
He's now the supervising manager of an Elk Grove room-and-board house for people with disabilities.
"I don't have a lot of money right now," he said. "But time is money, so maybe I can dedicate some time."
One volunteer asked where he could find a map of polling places, to help identify prime locations for yard signs. Another asked how he could get one of the jumbo Obama signs on display at the headquarters.
After all the questions were answered, the campaign put the volunteers to work making phone calls. Some of them sat on the Q Street curb, making calls on their cell phones.
"We can all sleep Feb. 6," Mack told them, "and we can sleep soundly knowing Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for president."
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