A Priest, A Vietnam Veteran and A 10 Year Old Boy Walk Into...

[ProSense]

A Priest, A Vietnam Veteran and A 10 Year Old Boy Walk Into...

by gailwmcdonald
Sun Jun 29, 2008 at 08:01:33 AM PDT

No, not a bar. They all walked into my Barack Obama United for Change party. For those who have not read my previous diaries, I live in a very small, conservative, right wing, Christian town in Georgia. In one of my last diaries I was fighting the bad guys and correcting their smear emails and standing up for the good guys. I received over 300 comments urging me to keep up the good work and try to find others like me. So I volunteered at Obama's site and when the chance came to throw a party with 4,000 other people in this great country, I stepped up and decided to host a house party. I put my invitation on the Obama site and sent invitations to a few like minded friends and waited to see what happened.

To my amazement, the results were beyond my expectations. One of the first things to happen was I received an email from the Obama campaign asking me a little about my event. I replied with the usual small town, feeling left out in a red state blurb and went on with my life. Imagine my surprise two days later when I visit Obama's site and there I am "QUOTED" on the front page. Every day over the last 4 weeks, the Obama site has picked 2 or 3 people and talked about their plans for the Unite for Change party but this time they picked me. To my further surprise, I received 8 replies to attend my party.

I was very nervous when 7 rolled around. I had cleaned my house, prepared some food and beverages, ordered buttons and put out my sign-up sheets. My coffee tables sported the "Audacity of Hope" and "Goodnight Bush" (thanks Daily Kos for the heads up on that!). My first guest was a Vietnam Veteran, followed by two ladies together, a priest, and several friends and family members. The 10 year old was my son. All together we had almost 20 people in attendance. We discussed a wide variety of ideas and made plans to sign up to poll watch and register people to vote over the next few months. In case you haven't heard, Georgia has quite a few thousand unregistered voters. We decided we are going to do our part to turn Georgia blue this election and help elect Barack Obama our next president.

A special thanks to all the Daily Kos members who commented on my first diary and encouraged me to go forward. I feel I can really make a difference in this election.

Cool story.

[NYC_SKP]

1. You encourage us all.

And with troopers like you, we might just take Georgia and the country!

We need poll watchers and we need to win by big margins to overcome the shenanigans.

Thanks!

[DerekJ]

2. :)

[calimary]

3. Fantastic!

While you're turning Georgia blue, can you maybe also get rid of that scumbag saxby chambliss, too? He's up for renewal in November and deserves a SERIOUS comeuppance for what he did to Max Cleland while stealing Cleland's Senate seat six years ago. I HUNGER for revenge on that one!

[FrenchieCat]

4. What a great story.....really, truly.

[YvonneCa]

5. Thanks for posting this...

...Prosense. Here's my story from yesterday:


The event was a morning coffee from 10-noon in a private residence. The host couple were wonderful...I think one of them is/was a teacher (like me) at some point. This was their first time doing anything like this, so they were REALLY excited to have so many people sign up. (They mentioned to me that they had originally set a capacity at 30 and increased it to 50, because they had so many signups. )

I'd guess there were 40+ people in attendance...and it was a very diverse group. There were singles, couples, Democrats, Independents and 'former' Republicans, people from their 30's to 70's and from all walks of life. This part of Ca. is near several military bases and usually votes heavily Republican...so this turnout was exceptional. Our hosts lead a discussion about the issues of the day, Obama, and possible tasks for our group. It was really nice to discuss issues with like-minded people!

We ended with a commitment to meet again in two weeks at the same place, and plan from there. We also had a signup available for tabling at the local mall...starting immediately.

I did really enjoy myself. And, as a person who tried to start groups here in 2004 (where only 1 or 2 people would show up), it was great to see so many people ready to start to work.

GOBAMA!!!

[ProSense]

9. That's wonderful. n/t

[monmouth]

6. You make me proud to be an American, I mean that. Great story...n/t

[ProSense]

7. It's a fantastic story, but it's not mine.

Anyone with a D-Kos account should go to the link and rec the diary.

[monmouth]

8. Ooops, sorry. Thanks for posting anyway, great story..

[uponit7771]

10. k n r