Sunday, October 21, 2012

FINAL POST OF THE QUARTER




Because I did two textbook blogs in a row… I purposely left my last two blogs for some fun topics that involve the campaign in some way shape or form… Because this is my last post of the quarter, I wanted to make it special and talk about the most influential part that the campaign has played in my senior year… my part in it.


Who knew connecting my iPhone to my e-mail address would change my life? Doing this turned me into an avid e-mailer and e-mail checker… even the annoying college ones and advertisements and spam. One day, I got an e-mail that was calling for people to apply to become "Summer Organizing Fellows", something I thought was cool, but I took so lightly that I did the application over my phone's crappy 3G connection. 

Around a month or so later, as I was getting ready for a friend's birthday dinner, I got a call from a woman saying she wanted to interview me for an Organizing internship! I had no clue that it had gone through and I was immediately full of energy and ready to answer all questions. The conversation went on for so long that I was on the phone when my friend's picked me up to go to the dinner, and continued the conversation till we were halfway to our destination in Miami.

The conversation went so well that the woman told me "we usually wait some time to deliberate our candidates for the program, but I love your story and your enthusiasm so much that I'm offering you this position on the spot", to which I immediately replied to with a yes.  

 I had my first orientation with hundreds of people coming from different offices and different locations all over the tri-county area. Being so in love with politics, this was the first time I really got the chance to be completely surrounded by people with the same morals and views as myself, it was like home.

From there I made some of the best friends I have ever met, that I worked with all summer and I listened to the various stories of what brought people to work for the campaign. For the rest of the summer and to now, I have carried these stories with me whenever I canvassed in the hot sun or registered voters with a poor turnout or whenever nobody would answer my calls, these stories kept me going, especially my own.


Through the program I had the chance to meet people from all over the country, some who came just to work for the campaign. I got the chance to plan events, meetings, and work professionally in order to locally strategize. I brought in volunteers, registered over 100 voters, canvassed hundreds of doors and made hundreds of calls. I even got the chance to see both the President and the First Lady speak for free on separate occasions. 

Working with people from ages 8 to above their 90's I even saw a woman who lived in a retirement hoe recruit enough troops in her home to volunteer. It was always my dream to work for a campaign, and maybe one day, who knows, I might work one at a higher capacity or I may work my own. But why I care and believe this matters enough to be a graded blog entry? I believe my work for the campaign has re-affirmed every blog post I have done and has given me the chance to get an unbelievably in depth look into the first election that I have the chance to vote in.

This has been a blessing and hopefully November 6th it will all pay off.

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