What I learned in Ohio

Here are some things I learned:

- When some one yells “Fired up?!” the proper response is, “Ready to go!”. If someone yells “Fed up?!” the response is “Ready for change!” (These will come in handy for those readers going to grant park tomorrow night. There are more, but that’s the only two I remember.)

- There is a heck of a lot more praying involved than I would have expected. We were working with a coalition of unions and there was a group prayer before we hit the streets on Sunday, and there was also a prayer before the giant rally at the college. The rhetoric was a little off-putting to someone like me.

- I now know what “turf” and “knocks” are. At the end of the day Sunday the Obama campaign had knocked 1 MILLION doors in the state of OH. About 500 or so of those by my team in the last two days.

I wish I had gotten on the ball about it sooner, but I do feel that my time in OH was fruitful and useful to the campaign. While the thought of reaching out to people politically seems daunting in the abstract (I don’t want to bother people, I don’t want to get into arguments with people, etc…) in reality the interactions are tame. Some people are truly assisted by the information you provide, talking to enthusiastic supporters is encouraging, talking to undecided people is interesting (even if you don’t think you’ve swayed them) and most people who are for the other party are at least civil, and generally pretty nice about letting you know they’re not interested.

I got to meet so many different kinds of people with so many different concerns and feelings about this election from every end of the spectrum, and for that I am truly grateful. I would definitely participate in this process on the ground again, but I think that like this time, it would have to be for a candidate that I am truly passionate about.