Dec 05 2007
Grassroots Campaigning for Obama in Jackson Heights
Who Is That Guy?
On an mild afternoon in mid-November, a man stands near the corner of 37th Avenue and 78th Street, across from P.S. 69, in Jackson Heights, NY. It’s a particular block where residents wouldn’t usually see vendors or solicitors set up shop.
He has set up a small, modest table featuring a poster for Senator Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign along with stacks of literature conveying his policies on education. Wearing the theme-appropriate blue of the Democratic party by way of a baseball cap and windbreaker, he maintains a clipboard to petition passing pedestrians for signatures.
I often wonder about those individuals who still choose to volunteer in an election campaign, even though they may not necessarily be a part of a given candidate’s inner strategic circle (arguably where the source of potential power resides in terms of choice future appointments), i.e., what’s in it for the “little guy”?
Upon reflection, a case could be made that it is one of the purest forms of volunteerism. I know, the words “purity” and “politics” could hardly seem like complementary concepts to some people’s way of thinking, including my own often times, but bear with me on this.
There’s the obvious aspect of most campaign volunteers receiving little to no financial compensation for their time and effort. Indeed, volunteers sometimes even incur expenses that come right out of their own pockets.
Furthermore, when it comes down to it, promoting someone else for a leadership role is in some measure an act of self-sacrifice in terms of personal ego, a kind of self-effacement for the sake of a perceived community unified under the banner of a designated leader.
And after all that’s said and done, there is still no guarantee that a volunteer’s efforts will bear fruit in terms of a successful election bid for his or her candidate of choice. However, even if the volunteer’s chosen candidate becomes elected, there is no commensurate reciprocity except the hope of validation in the volunteer’s expectations for the candidate in his or her new political role. Even then, there is always the chance that the candidate could disappoint in that capacity.
Nonetheless, there are people still willing to endeavor with the highest hopes for a campaign. It’s an impressive level of dedication, especially against the usual complaints of voter apathy that tend to make the round table discussions during major elections. Although in regards to voter turnout, The Washington Post has an informative article from 2006 entitled “5 Myths About Turning Out the Vote” which may upend certain readers’ preconceptions.
Still, according to the U.S. Census Bureau Reports, U.S. voter turnout for the 2004 presidential elections was 64 percent among U.S. citizens ages 18 and older. The turnout rate by ethnicity was as follows:
- non-Hispanic whites: 67%
- blacks: 60%
- Hispanics: 46%
- Asians: 44%
From the previous presidential election in 2000, the vote increased by 5 percent for non-Hispanic whites and by 3 percentage points for blacks. There was no change in rate for Hispanics or Asians.
Getting to Know the Campaign Volunteer Who’s Getting to Know the Candidate
So who exactly is “the little guy” that still steps forth to volunteer in the face of all those issues? That individual might be someone like Professor Carrington Ward, a resident of Jackson Heights and volunteer for Queens County for Obama, a grassroots organization that supports the junior Senator from Illinois in his bid for the Presidency.
I had a chance to sit down with him in late November at Lety Café and Bakery in Jackson Heights. He stresses at the onset of the interview that he speaks strictly in the capacity of a volunteer whose personal views do not necessarily represent the campaign at large.
Standing, our representative “little guy” suggests the verticalness of a basketball player with a Hoosier-esque crew cut of sandy blond hair to match, while his wire-framed glasses and congenial baritone voice reflect an alternately scholarly background.
He and his wife, whom he met at the University of Chicago, moved from Chicago to New York City after he completed his Ph.D. in history, and also so his wife could complete her medical residency at nearby Elmhurst Hospital and Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
Speaking in admiration of Jackson Heights, he comments, “It’s a great neighborhood just in terms of the value and the kind of character…extremely interesting.” He quips, “It’s a pretty good place to be a Manhattan refugee.”
He adds as a point of comparison, “As one friend of mine [remarked], who lived up to one of his dreams, which was to live in Greenwich Village, ‘It’s like this place [Greenwich Village] is a little bit too much like Epcot.’”
While at the University of Chicago, Professor Ward had first become aware of Barack Obama and learned more about him through Obama’s 2004 senate race in Illinois. Of the senator, Professor Ward remarks, “One of the things that is very clear is that he’s an extremely sharp, extremely intelligent politician and pretty down to earth.”
He continues, “And I think the thing that sealed the deal for me was actually his exchange-which he was supposed to have gotten the worse of-with [Hillary] Clinton [during the July 2007 Democratic debate] about diplomacy and whether to negotiate with enemies.”
“One of the things I found particularly impressive was essentially that he was returning to a much more sensible realism about the world: both an acceptance and an attempt to move strategically within a world that is not just about us.”
Professor Ward feels that Senator Barack Obama represents “a generational shift away from a Cold War mentality, away from our post-Cold War muddle.” He jokes wryly, “I keep waiting for the peace dividend to show up…it’s been a long time! I hope it’s been invested well.”
He also discusses the other factor that “latched” him on to Senator Obama was his book Dream from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, which he called an impressive meditation on what it means to be American and “what it means to negotiate an identity in a country where identities are very much in flux.”
From the book, he infers that Senator Obama’s multicultural/international upbringing with “street-level” access has helped inform his views in a meaningful way, a perspective that other individuals who travel within the “tourist/diplomatic bubble” may not necessarily achieve.
He states, “I think it’s a hugely important insight that frankly I haven’t seen many of the other candidates display.” For Professor Ward, this is an essential criterion given the reduced expectation of presidential candidates to have military service from which they would have formerly gained their global experiences.
From Admirer to Volunteer for the Obama Campaign
Having established some of the reasons Professor Ward came to admire Senator Obama, I go on to ask about the events leading up to his volunteering for the Obama campaign.
After seeing Senator Obama at a New York fundraiser in May 2007, he met another attendee on the subway ride home to Jackson Heights. This individual suggested a meeting in Brooklyn where he could become more involved. Professor Ward decided to attend the meeting, which turned out to be a citywide strategy meeting for the Obama campaign.
The facilitators asked if there were anybody from Queens; Professor Ward raised his hand and realized his hand was the only one up. Although the volunteer campaign presence was strong in Brooklyn, he soon realized there would be a vacuum to fill in terms of covering the sizable borough of Queens, i.e., he would have to convince people there was an established campaign organization in Queens to keep things running.
I conjecture in our discussion about the critical mass of volunteers one would need for effective mobilization, to which he replies half-jokingly, “My experience is that the critical mass is…about two. Once you know that someone else is depending on you to do it, you actually do ‘do it.’ It’s about that time when you ‘hive’ off into groups of two in various areas that things start moving.”
Readers may wonder about the supposed futility of Obama campaigners working in New York state, since Hillary Clinton has the home court advantage as New York state’s junior senator. Professor Ward points out that not many people realize that in the New York primary for the Democratic nomination, unlike the Electoral College in presidential elections, the scenario is not winner-takes-all.
Each candidate may accumulate delegates (New York state has 232 “pledged” delegates and 46 “unpledged” delgates) within each state towards the ultimate goal of achieving the Democratic nomination on a national level.
“Unpledged” delegates consist of party leaders and elected officials who are free to choose their candidate. In this case, Senator Clinton would in all probability have the advantage given New York is her power base. However, “pledged” delegates must choose a candidate according to whom their local constituencies vote, so those delegates are up for grabs, so to speak.
These are the votes that Obama volunteers like Professor Ward petition for in the Democratic nomination. You can follow this link to the New York Times to see the 2008 Democratic Primary schedule.
Notes from the Field
Professor Ward has met a diverse group of people on the streets of Queens in his capacity as a volunteer, particularly in his canvassing duties, so I ask what insights he has gained regarding people’s perception of Obama’s cultural background, in particular the African-American community’s.
He notes, which he believes applies in particular to the Eastern urban areas, “the splits between African Americans and people of African descent,” i.e., native-born African Americans versus recent immigrants of African heritage. He finds that West Indians and Africans were often much more enthusiastic about Obama’s presidential candidacy than African Americans, “partially because of the conjunction of the racial and the immigrant experience that they found resonant.”
Citing an experience of those ethnic politics coming into play, Professor Ward recalls an episode in Far Rockaway, an area with a substantial African American population. He was canvassing at the time with a fellow volunteer who was a Nigerian immigrant, very much interested in American politics. Professor Ward himself is white.
“The funny thing is we would talk to African Americans about issues of interest to them and they would complain to me about immigrants and they would complain to him about white people. And then we’d kind of look at each other and it’s like, ‘You heard that, didn’t you?’ I think we were both trying to make the pretense of being out of earshot of each other.”
For Professor Ward, it raises the challenging issue of how Americans find “common ground, common languages, and common practices” in the face of ongoing immigration. He also worries about the possibility of a slow drift towards an apartheid system where those in power profit from the labor of the disenfranchised.
Final Words on Obama and on Volunteering
To a final question about the appeal of Senator Obama relative to the other presidential candidates, Professor Ward answers, “I think the crucial appeal is one of change. I think this showed up in the questions about diplomacy. It shows up in his focus on a grassroots organization, a grassroots campaign. And it shows up in the degree to which he encourages an active politics, street-level politics.”
“One of the problems that I see is that we don’t discuss politics as people on the street all that much. It’s kind of a spectator sport. And it is a real problem that we are going through of…I guess you would term it an ‘auto-disenfranchisement.’ We’re kind of losing our own voice.”
“And this is a point that many of the candidates have brought up, which is that Washington is not functioning particularly well. It’s gotten very comfortable with itself and not too comfortable with us.”
He goes on to say that the criticism about Obama’s ostensible lack of experience relative to some of the other candidates at the national level, to his mind, is actually a virtue in terms of being an agent for change, given the problematic “professionalizing” of politics that creates out-of-touch Washington insiders.
Reflecting on his experiences thus far as a volunteer, Professor Ward concludes, “It has been a fascinating experience in terms of going to places in Queens I wouldn’t go on my own. And that’s actually one of the wonderful things about politics is pushing yourself to leave your own comfort zone. Pushing yourself to encounter other people you wouldn’t otherwise encounter.”
