Gainesville

I arrived here in Gainesville on Thursday night after a full day of travel from San Francisco. I’m here to volunteer with my old friend and community organizer, Jason Fults. I met Jason after college in Philadelphia where we worked with the Student Environmental Action Coalition. For the next eleven days we’ll be working to elect a fellow community organizer, Barack Obama, the next president of the United States.

Yesterday was my first day here in Gainesville knocking on doors and making phone calls. Focusing on turning out Obama supporters for early voting, I spoke with dozens of people as young as 18 and as old as 92. You can taste the enthusiasm in the air for change, but people are cautious. They know that only three Democrats have won the presidency out of the last 10 elections and aren’t taking anything for granted.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I got here. But now I know, every moment I’m in the Obama office, out in the neighborhoods, or on the phones, I’m helping to change the vote totals in Florida. Just two elections ago, this state was decided by only a few hundred votes. There are 150,000 registered voters in Gainesville. Our job as volunteers is to remind people where and how to vote. We emphasize the importance of mailing in their ballot or making the trip to the polls before the early voting cut-off on November 1st. As it gets down to election day, we’ll offer some folks physical rides to the polls. Without this kind of help, thousands of registered Obama supports simply will not vote. We’re in a race against time. Day 2 is coming fast. Time to sleep.