super tuesday 08

School is kind of crazy right now, but I forced myself to leave early on Tuesday to go to a watch party in Honolulu for the Barack Obama campaign. Since I saw his speech at the 2004 DNC and then read Dreams From My Father (and later his second book, The Audacity of Hope), I have been an Obama supporter. I saw Obama speak in Cleveland last spring, and was totally inspired. Even though he wasn't there, this event was no different - I left feeling re-inspired and motivated.

When I arrived, I signed in, registered as a Democrat in Hawaii (I had already registered to vote at City Hall, but I didn't register as a Dem yet) and saw a line for phone banking. Two other young girls were looking for a place to sit in the already-crowded restaurant and bar, so I joined them. They were making phone calls, so I decided to, too. A middle-aged man offered us seats at his table, so we joined them. It turns out the girls were actually high school students, not even old enough to vote yet! This was our first campaign. The man was a professor at a local college. Throughout the night, I saw a crowd composed of people young and old, of all different ethnicities, of all different backgrounds, but we were all there for the same reasons. As I waited in line in the women's room, an older woman told the rest of us, "He's SO much like Bobby Kennedy." I had known that some friends were planning on going, but we also ended up seeing even more people we knew. One of my friends told a story of an Obama volunteer who is a registered Republican, working to get Barack elected. "That doesn't happen," we remarked. But with this campaign, it does. I know I'm young and don't know much about politics - but even I can see that this is not a traditional campaign.

My own phone banking experience was pretty anti-climactic - it was early afternoon, and most people weren't home from work yet, so I left a lot of messages. But it was cool to do something, even though it was very small. Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, was there, and spoke to the audience briefly about the campaign and what the support of Hawai'i means to the candidate. She was extremely gracious and friendly, coming around to greet almost everyone in the packed bar with a hug and a kiss.

The best part was seeing CNN put up the names of the states Obama had won, and all of us getting even more excited and hopeful. YES WE CAN!