Milton Bruce is a Guyanese-born journalist/writer. He has published two books, one poetry entitled “Thoughts” and a novel “The Hustle”. He was formerly a columnist for the Stabroek News and owner of The Witness newspaper. He was also an active member of the Theatre Guild, Georgetown and presently resides in Maryland in the US.
By Milton Bruce
“To the Best Campaign Team ever assembled
in the History of Politics—You made this
happen, and I am forever grateful for
what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.”
Barack Obama
New York Times
November 5/2008
On September the 9th 2008 when I arrived at the Obama campaign office at 1101 Mercantile Lane Largo in Prince Georges County Maryland, I never thought that I was walking into history, or that I would play a part in history making. I had never worked on an election campaign before, so what I was about to embark upon was completely new to me. I went there upon request to assist as best as I could to help Senator Barack Obama, in his quest for the Presidency of the United States of America.
The building was huge but the office occupied two small rooms and there is where I met Vanessa who was the secretary. After storing my particulars into her computer, she introduced me to Yvette, who was the coordinator. Yvette took me into the other room, where there were three other persons on telephones with computers in front of them. After finding out that I was computer literate, Yvette set me down in front of a laptop and a telephone; thus began my training into the methodology of a political campaign.
The computer was equipped with hundreds of names, telephone numbers and a script. The script was basically to persuade persons to come out and volunteer for Senator Obama, either as a member of the phone bank crew or as canvassers. If persons agreed to work the phone bank there were four shifts; beginning at 10 a.m. to twelve midday, 12. to 3 p.m,. 3 pm. to 6 p.m. and 6 p.m to 9 p.m. If they decided to be canvassers then they would report to the office at 8 a.m. or 12 midday on Saturdays and Sundays to be bussed or carpooled either to Virginia or Philadelphia to kick on doors, pass out literature and generally encourage persons to become part of the Obama for change team, or as Vanessa says; “become foot soldiers for Obama.”
Later in the day I met Karen who was in charge of the entire office and Curtis who was the head phone bank captain. For the rest of the week he took me under his wing and taught me how to set up the data base of required names, and all the different types of calls that they were making; be it Ofa.— Largo which identified Maryland volunteer recruitment calls, or Mdvol – which dealt with Virginia, persuasion calls for President, Senatorial and local elections; or Pdialer — which also dealt with Virginia along with the paper list of names that encompassed everything.
It was not very long after that volunteers started to report to the office in large numbers. They came in all shapes, sizes and colors, male and female, old, young, and middle age. All drawn by the Obama mystique. To accommodate this influx the office expanded taking over the entire building which consisted of seven very large rooms. One of the rooms was designated for registering voters only and another was made into a store selling all of the campaign paraphernalia. The number of computers jumped to fifty, 10 laptops and 40 PC’s. Land line phones increased to thirty accompanied by twenty-five cell phones. Those who were not computer literate were given paper lists and a telephone to call persons (who had already volunteered) to confirm their availability. The middle age and the young people were divided into groups who targeted all the train and bus stops registering people and sending the more complicated cases to the register centre at the head office.
I was made a phone bank captain which entailed; motivating volunteers to make as many calls as they can, train new volunteers, update returning volunteers, motivate volunteers by providing clear explanations and expectations, identifying additional volunteers to train and provide oversight coverage. I found this very interesting work, which I enjoyed doing as I continued learning the workings of a political campaign. Conference calls between us became routine; every morning at 8.a.m. we had to talk about the plans for the day that coincided with what Chicago (head office) had in mind and what they wanted us to do.
Team Largo began to expand in Maryland, outworking the other offices in Silver Springs, Montgomery County, and Baltimore. This was not lost on Chicago, they began instructing members of the Maryland Democratic Party to contact us and give us as much assistance as they could. The media caught wind of what we were doing and came by to do interviews, pointing out that we were doing a great job. The Democratic party assistance was tremendous they replied by sending out their most high profile, motivated, and enthusiastic speakers, which included; Governor O’Malley of Maryland, United States Senators Benjamin Cardin, and Barbara Mikulski, Congressmen Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, and Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Ulysses Curry, Maryland State Senate, Jack B Johnson County Executive of Prince Georges County, and soon to be Congresswoman Donna Edwards.
They came as a group and they came individually to talk to us, to pray with us, to motivate us volunteers and staff. They acknowledged the good work we were doing and insisted upon us that more could be done. They talked about the great opportunity before us to put Barack into the White House. They talked about turning history on its head; about changing the hands of time; about divine inspiration. Emotions ran high during their speeches, some cheered, others held on to each other while others cried openly. I listened to these speeches as white men and white women, black men and black women delivered them, with one ultimate ambition, with one singular purpose, to make a change in Washington specifically and the country generally. Their rallying cry was; “Fired up, ready to go, let’s go change the World.”
November 4th is Election day, but the substitute name coined by the campaign was “game day.” With game day uppermost in their minds; Largo Leadership Team convened a meeting on October 24th, items discussed included; placing satellite phone banks, in various areas and the quantity, hosting of a press conference, designing a rapid response team for game day, canvassing goals, when, where and how many, registration and absentee ballots. On October 28th, another meeting was called to finalize the get out the vote (GOTV) plan, specifically to put in place the number of satellite stations that would be operable, and how they will interact with the Regional Boiler Room (RBR) which will be controlled by the main office, and the State Boiler Room (SBR). By the 31st of October everything was in place and ready to go.
The final decision was 14 satellite locations placed in Prince Georges County. On game day I reported to the satellite location that I was in charge of at 7.a.m. I had a staff of twenty volunteers, five computers (one computer was exclusively for me) five land line phones and the rest cell phones. We were instructed to talk with people in New Hampshire, Virginia, Philadelphia, Ohio, reminding them that it was game day, and how important it was to vote for Barack. We knew from our questioning who were, committed to Barack, or leaned Barack or undecided, or leaned McCain or supported McCain.
There was no question that a potential voter could have put to us that we could not reply to. We knew where every polling station was in the States that we called, and if a potential voter wanted a ride to the polls we hooked him/her up with transportation; if they were a single parent with children we had persons to assist them. If they were in the lockups, we had persons who when there and got there vote through absentee ballot. We had lawyers situated at every polling station to take complaints from persons who were being deprived of voting. We were that organized, and as the organization has been described before it was flawless. I am very happy about my contribution, and the part I played in history.
