At 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, Students for Obama left Madison on a bus filled with 44 people for Dubuque, Iowa to knock on doors and make a difference in the first caucus state. Some of our most dedicated volunteers went along to speak with Iowa voters about Senator Barack Obama. The afternoon was spent listening to Dubuque residents' reasons for supporting Obama or their preferred candidate.
If you think walking through unfamiliar streets with nothing but a clipboard full of names and knocking on doors of strangers sounds rather daunting, then you are right. However, these 44 volunteers did so because they know the importance of getting out Senator Obama's message of hope and sharing with voters why he is the best presidential candidate.
There are a lot of people who just don't know enough about him and it makes me want to do more,"" said freshman Liz Gilbert. ""I want other people to feel about him the way I do. I want people to feel passionate about him, about the fact that he can and will change our country.""
SFO helped bring that message of change to hundreds of Iowa voters on Sunday who perhaps have not yet heard it: the message that change is more than just a slogan, and that if elected as President, Barack Obama will bring the real changes necessary to Washington, D.C.
Although not all voters we talked to in Iowa were ready to support Obama, a majority showed great warmth and welcomed us into their homes to discuss the presidential race, including those supporting other candidates. When Ebonie Durham, a second year graduate student, knocked on Dubuque resident, Nancy's door, this is what she found:
Nancy is not an Obama supporter, but she invited Ebonie in to her home to talk politics anyway. After spending almost an hour together, Nancy said she would still not caucus for Obama, but her daughter Kelly, also involved in the conversation, became convinced.
""The whole time her daughter Kelly had been sitting there and Kelly decides that because she's a teacher, because her kids can't pay for college and all these other things that are important to voters, that she's going to sign a supporter card and caucus for Barack,"" Ebonie said.
This type of personal connection is essential to winning the Iowa caucuses in January, and UW-Madison's chapter of SFO is committed to helping as much as possible in Dubuque in the upcoming semester. Real change starts from the ground up, one person at a time, and the volunteers that went to Iowa on Sunday now recognize they can be a part of that change.
""150,000 Iowans are going to caucus in 2008 and if you change one vote, if you can get one vote, that has a huge difference on the campaign,"" said UW graduate (class of '07) Ryan Gallentine. ""It's a way that you can take a hold of the campaign and really make the country different and bring it on a different track.""
Sunday also marked the end of the third quarter, which saw Obama's campaign meeting its ambitious goal of 500,000 donations from 350,000 people, raising more than $20 million. The emphasis on the number of donors rather than the number of dollars shows Obama's commitment to the grassroots support of ordinary American citizens and his emphasis on working from the ground up.
With more donations of $200 or less than all of the other Democratic candidates combined, Obama continues to prove he is the candidate that many ordinary Americans can support. Iowa voters are no exception, as they are all well aware of the importance of the upcoming election in bringing about the change our country so desperately needs.
After talking to one such voter, freshman Nikki Signer had this to say: ""I think going to Iowa restored my faith in the American voter. He was so informed on the issues and he was very passionate about promoting change and getting out of where we are.""
For more information about SFO, please visit our website at www.uw4obama.com.
Lavilla Capener
Visibility Chair
UW-Madison sophomore
Journalism and political science major
