A couple few Americas

As feet padded towards the trailer door I prepared to greet a 21 year old black male and remind him to vote for Barack Obama in Saturday's primary. I asked the young man if he had voted yet. He hadn't but was planning to. It seemed redundant to ask if he knew who he was intending to vote for. With an Obama pin and stickers festooning my jacket, it also felt like asking a leading question. At certain points we wondered if we were knocking on doors to get out the vote so frequently that we were in danger of encouraging the vote with the same fervency that others applied to restrict the vote in decades past in such impoverished, minority communities in the semi rural South. Were we not being a tad patronizing walking through the streets talking to old men on porches, young men working on cars, middle aged folks bringing home a bag of groceries, reminding them about Barack? They watch TV, they listen to the radio, they talk to friends and family, shouldn't they be allowed to make up their own minds about Barack and Hillary and John? We weren't concentrating our efforts in quite the same way with white democrats in our region.

As 30ish white folks dressed in high end outdoor gear to combat the unusual chill we tread a fine line between youthful, energetic campaigners and pesky religion peddlers toting our simplistic flyers demonstrating how to vote instead of tracts. We were, of course, a tiny part of a much broader effort in South Carolina. Those targeted as likely Obama supporters received innumerable phone calls in the days leading up to the election and visits to their doors with literature and friendly faces encouraging them to support this worthy candidate. Weathered piles of promotional literature on some porches served as an eerie testament to the number of visits this election season. Our own answering machine blinked feverishly with messages from Barack, Michelle, Hillary, and their supporters. It is rare for a South Carolina democrat to feel so popular.

"I'm planning to vote for Hillary." I tried to mask my shock at the incongruity of the young man's response. I thanked him for his time and handed him the glossy promotional material anyway as I asked him to think about it and get to the polls regardless of who he selected. Maybe he'll change his mind if he makes it to the booth. I paused for a minute before knocking on the next door. Even from the steps of a trailer in a grim, segregated neighborhood a young man might somehow not be inspired to vote for Barack. We couldn't make assumptions. Every door needed a knock, every phone number a call. Every voter should have graphic information to help them vote because there will be a few that cannot read and asked us to help them identify the candidate's name on the voting screen. Others will need that hotline number to arrange a ride to the polls. Another young man answered the next door. He was a supporter but said he couldn't vote because of a charge. It would be interesting to examine how the alarming statistics relating to the incarceration of black males might impact this election.

Cognizant that some people will not be legal or will have previous convictions preventing them from ever voting, we tried to avoid questions that might pressure such disclosure. However, we encountered more than a few people who freely acknowledged why they couldn't vote before we asked anything. I was especially surprised by the middle aged Mexican man who spoke enough English and understood our broken Spanish sufficiently to convey that he had no papers and was here illegally. We thanked him for his time and regretted that we didn't have the Spanish to tell him that in this part of the world where you overhear conversations about tightening our borders and building fences that he probably shouldn't say that to random strangers at the door.

We scare mangy cats off rickety steps in our efforts to reach these doors. We knock because there are few working bells. We see a house with part of an exterior wall missing, windows that have exchanged a pane or two of glass for cloth or cardboard. Some of these places exude cold and are dimly lit by one light bulb hanging from a longish cord in the center of the room. Others house old men in cozy, cluttered rooms where we are invited to warm by the gas heater. There are the tidy homes of elderly women with plastic flowers arranged in window boxes and a sprawling clump of cactus or tropical vine that defies our climate, especially on a blustery January day. Almost everyone in this neighborhood has a porch. Some drink on them as evidenced by the bottles and the butts, some cook often on little grills over charcoal, some socialize around candles and plants and cozy knick knacks. We dodge the futile advances of chained dogs ever alert for one that is unchained.

We meet overwhelmingly with support even though a considerable number of the names and addresses on our list of likely supporters don't match. Some pull over in their cars to thank us for what we are doing. Two white people--both young--in the course of two days in this neighborhood have startingly similar reactions: the frozen stare, the shaking head, the I'm not voting for him. A third pulls over and asks for a flier. We won't know if we made a little difference by changing the minds of a few Hillary supporters or provided that last bit of motivation to a few people who were not sure they felt like venturing out to vote. We don't know if we've kept a few others from voting in reaction to our barrage of entreaties. We learn later that all of us door knockers and phone callers and rally goers have passed the ultimate evaluation: Obama wins by a landslide.

Earlier this month I proudly staked the first Obama for America sign I could get out on the nearest main route which also happens to be where my mailbox resides. At least 2 square feet of real estate on the Huckabee Highway would stand for change. When I went to get the mail the next day I found the sign keeled over, bent but not broken--an apt metaphor for liberals here--by the visible crush of a car wheel. I fixed the sign and relocated it across the road where it would be harder for a passing motorist to target. In less than a week the sign was stolen. I know that living in an especially conservative part of a conservative state can color perspective but I felt discouraged that the multiple Americas that exist here could come together sufficiently to vault a win.

On the stage at a rally just before the election I looked wearily at the machine gun sentries positioned along rooftops and FBI agents scanning the crowd so thoroughly that I was afraid to fish around in my pocket for a cough drop. From this stage where Obama delivered his stump speech, I had the opportunity to take in the diverse, energetic assemblage. An elderly supporter told me of his youth growing syrup cane, cotton and corn as we discussed the campaign. At the rally, in the presence of such an inspiring candidate, surrounded by people representing a couple few Americas, I realized that it was possible, that we could come together for the more than a couple few things that need to change here and everywhere else in our country.