Obama Campaign Aims To Turn Online Backers Into an Offline Force

BarackObama.com:

"'Change won't come from the top, I would say,' Obama wrote in his memoir, 'Dreams From My Father.' 'Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.'"

I was a bit hesitant at first when a volunteer from the Obama for America campaign called my house last Friday and asked if I would consider hosting my own "March 31st Kickoff Party" for the Obama campaign. I'd thought about it briefly a few weeks before. I've been emailing and talking about Barack Obama's presidential run for months and months now, and I honestly don't know who likes the mass amounts of info and who is just silently hitting delete when they see something from me come across thier email inbox. I figured that I'd host a party and only one or two people would trickle by for only half of the event and then I'd wish I had taken part in a bigger party downtown. So initially I decided to not host my own event and go to another event at a local community center.

But, when the campaign volunteer called me she explained that Barack was looking for a wide variety of parties and ways of connecting with people. She said, sometimes the big parties are great, but small get togethers with 2 or 3 or 4 people might make just as much of a difference if people all over the country are willing to host one of those small parties. So, she convinced me. I was on the way to having my own party.

And I am so glad I did. I had about 8 people signed up to come to my house the morning of the party. Two people had to cancel that day due to other things that popped up, and I started to panic again thinking -- did I do the right thing? I could have gone down to the "big" party downtown and met with a lot of folks who share in the excitement that this campaign is generating. Then, an hour before the party was to start, I started getting lots and lots of phone calls. There were people out there, whom I had never met before, who were looking for a kickoff party to attend. Either their original party had moved, or had been a private family function that they weren't allowed to come to after all, and these people were looking for a place to share in the excitement. So I said, "Sure -- come on by!"

It was the best "party" experience I've ever had! I had some of my close friends and family stop by, and I had about 4 wonderful people whom I had met for the first time that day come over too. They were the absolute nicest, fun, and entertaining people I've had the pleasure of chatting with in a long, long time. Everyone had a great time! We exchanged ideas, stories, theories, and ate munchies and sipped drinks. We had a great time, and I realized that this was the kind of experience that the campaign volunteer was talking about when she called me on the phone. I'm going to think back on meeting these people and sharig the excitement of the Obama campaign with a really warm and fuzzy memory. Sounds kinda silly? Well, think about it... What better way to spread the enthusiasm and sincerity of Barack's ideas then getting together in an intimate house party setting and just kicking back and sharing ideas?

By the end of the party everyone was very excited and anxious to get involved and start doing something. Others were going to go straight home and send the campaign a donation. Some skeptics (yes, there were some) may have left with wanting to know more about Obama, or at least willing to stay undecided for the moment. Which, all in all, is a good thing too.

This article (linked at the top) sheds a very good light on the difficulty of trying to turn online excitement (which Obama has a lot of) to actual votes in the next year and a half. I'm already seeing some good things. I'm seeing excitement that is not dying down and people are turning their passion of wanting change into action in actually doing something to see that change actually takes place.