Posts Tagged ‘Chicago’
Meeting President Obama For The First Time November 5th, 2008
Chicago
Just as promised, the world changed on Tuesday night. Barack Hussein Obama became president elect of the United States. Less than two years ago, he had the wrong middle name for the job, he was of the wrong colour, and recently, it was pointed out, he had the wrong associates.
On Tuesday night, however, he was undoubtedly the right man. America voted for its first black president in a way so unequivocal that the world celebrated as it watched him ascend the stage in Grant Park, at the heart of Chicago, to accept his prize.
On Michigan Avenue, at the entrance of the park, they lined up from the morning. Those with tickets to one side, looking slightly privileged, with deck chairs laid out on the street and sunglasses. Those without tickets, to the other with placards begging to be taken in as a ticket-holders guest since they were from Seattle.
On a November day so perfect that many were reading it as “a sign”, whether they had tickets or not, there were picnics to be had while waiting on the sidewalk. Crabby babies to be fed. T-shirts, and new age ‘high definition’ Obama buttons to be bought. The buttons were just like regular ones, except they were like Obama’s message in a way: sharper, clearer (and dearer).
Evening fell and the barricaded gates of Grant Park opened to let about a quarter of a million people in, others watched from behind the tinted glass of insulated condos or hotels. Everyone straining to find out from the big screen or a neighbour whether Ohio had been carried or if Florida had failed them. Within three hours of the gates opening at 8, it was over, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennyslvania, Obama had prevailed everywhere. The TV stations announced the winner.
People held their heads in disbelief. The audience, even those without the celebrity or the additional tear glands that Oprah Winfrey possesses, cried, hugged and whooped. The last, did not stop for hours after Barack had come, seen and conquered (yet again). Tears rolled down Jesse Jackson’s face. Jackson had wanted to be president once as well, but he couldn’t get the democratic nomination because the wisdom of the time was that whites wouldn’t vote for a black man.
Twenty years since that bid, Obama was delivering his victory speech, glorying in America’s colour-blindness. It came just after McCain made his classy concession. If Obama placed the credit of victory at the feet of the electorate, McCain said the burden of loss was his and no one else’s to bear. For a brief while, the power of the old man’s words, spoken from a lectern in Arizona to an audience that was in despair, quietened the crowd in Grant Park.
And then, Obama appeared. Presidential, even when his wife whispered ‘love you’ in his ear, he spoke with an awareness of both the scale and the nature of the event he was at the centre of: “This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations… he said, going into an anecdote about 106-year old black woman who had stood in line to vote for him. “Tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.”
He’d pressed the button. That creed, or variants like ‘yes we did’, kept resonating through the streets of Chicago. Interspersed with cathartic whoops (that were composed of joy and bewilderment, though you couldn’t tell in what proportion) from wave upon wave of supporters. It was no point trying to speak out a solicitation, so the figure crouched on the pavement across the park merely held a placard: “I’m just hungry and homeless.”
Tags: Barack Obama, Chicago, Grant Road, President Obama, US Elections 2008
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Tomorrow has come November 4th, 2008
Chicago
By the time you read this, the world would have changed. The last stretch of that process is on right now, as a record number of Americans line up to vote on Tuesday. They don’t want history to pass them by–again–so two third of those eligible are expected to turn up, the highest turnout since 1908.
As I write this a block away from Grant Park, where an Obama victory rally is planned in about 12 hours, Barack himself is voting, accompanied by his wife Michelle in a Chicago booth. This is a live event on all major news channels.
He had just one word for his audience at his last campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia late on Monday night: “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow has come. He appears cool, smiling, talking to Michelle and his daughters, on a day his grandmother Madelyn Dunham (the woman who “poured everything she had” into Obama) would have loved to have seen. She died at 86 on Monday.
He was very close to her, but in an understated way, he’s moved on. He takes an incredibly long time to fill up the ballot. If everyone takes this long (about 10 minutes at the very least) then a lot of people will be left standing.
Joe Biden, who the democratic campaign made sure would vote in Delaware right after the Obamas finished in Chicago–just as a bit of airtime freed up–got the job done real quick. For those standing in queues in precincts around the country, this is more like it. Some of them came to vote as early as 5.30 in the morning–spending an acceptable hour and a half to complete voting. Already, there have been as many as 11,000 complaints of overcrowding and machine malfuctions, a notable complaint came in from veteran journalist Barbara Walters.
The polls all have Obama ahead: solid leads beyond margins of error that will lead to a resounding victory that no one thought was possible as he entered the race for the democratic nomination so many months ago.
He outlasted the Clintons. He also outspent them–which tells you what a strong idea he was selling. “Not a red America or a blue America, but a United States of America.” To the youth, on whom so much will depend today, he was the one they were waiting for.
When stood up to give speeches, he seemed to read poetry. When he sat down to listen–to opponents in a debate, for instance–he looked like a languid jazz musician who’s set his instrument down briefly, but is ready to pick it up and answer by hitting notes so precise they would have to be mathematical.
The economic crisis helped his cause. People became colourblind as their savings got wiped out and their houses foreclosed, they just wanted the right man for the job. Even by elimination, John McCain wasn’t the man: he blundered through the height of the crisis, at one point suspending his campaign to go to Washington.
This was inexplicable, because he said absolutely nothing there, and did even less. He also ensured that he hollowed out the experience argument against Obama by choosing Sarah Palin, who fumbled through the campaign like a B-list impostor trying to play vice-presidential candidate.
As if to confirm this (widely-held) view she told a reporter who asked her who she had voted for as she left a booth in Wassilla, Alaska, that she was excercising her right to privacy by keeping that information confidential.
That she may, perhaps by an act of God, still get to the White House is gives people the shivers even though halloween is over. It is much more likely that she will go back to shooting poor Alaskan animals from the air, in time to hoard meat for the winter, forcing the joke writers for the networks to go into hibernation.
This might change the world for the better. But there are far more profound changes in the offing. Should Obama get elected, the signal that the United States sends out to the world is that it has genuinely transformed. That it is not in denial about the financially destructive, militarily senseless and gravely injurious addiction of the Bush years, and is ready for rehab.
A large number of Americans don’t like the selfish, arrogant, consumptive, overweight–and now poor–person they see in the mirror the world holds up to them. They view this election as a chance to correct that.
Grant Park is getting ready. There’s an unprecedented number of cop cars. There are ribbons of roadblocks across orange stumps everywhere. Some say a million people will turn up. But it seems quiet in the morning, unless you listen hard to the sounds of the Chicago. The anthem of the election is playing out as traffic rolls down the streets and voters march to their booths, keeping time to ‘Yes we can, yes we can.’
Tags: Avirook Sen, Barack Obama, Chicago, Grant Park, John McCain, US Elections 2008
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A ‘Front Row Seat To Witness History’ Contest November 3rd, 2008
Chicago
I’ve been getting urgent mails from Barack Obama over the last few days. Me, and a couple of million other people, inviting us to join him at a rally in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night. National polls–even including the one conducted by Fox News–show Obama ahead by about 6 points overall and in unexpectedly opportune positions in States like Ohio, Virginina and Indiana. The rally has a victory theme to it–at the moment.
But there’s more to the mails than that. Obama’s ’signed’ mail a couple of days ago, was what you might call an initial offer: “This election will come down to what we do — or don’t do — in the next few days” he told me.
“John McCain and the Republican National Committee had $20 million more in the bank than our campaign and the DNC combined as of October 15th. They are pouring it into crucial battleground states, and we’re facing an onslaught of negative attacks.
“Your support will have a huge impact.
“Step up during this historic moment, and you could be there on Election Night.
“Will you donate $30 or more today?
As a bonus, we’ll send you a special edition Change the World T-shirt.”
$30 for a T-shirt? A second, improved, offer comes in, this time from Marianne Markowitz, Chief Financial Officer, Obama for America:
“This weekend the McCain campaign said they would outspend us by $10 million in the final days. This is on top of recent news that, as of October 15th, our opponents had $20 million more in the bank than our campaign and the DNC combined.
“We knew the McCain campaign was saving its resources for a last-minute blitz, and now we know just how much they’ll pour into it.
“No matter what, we need to match what our opponents are spending in the final stretch. We can’t slow down between now and Election Day.
“If you give today — any amount — you could be one of 5 first-time donors who will have a front row seat for the big Election Night event in Chicago with Barack.
“If you’re selected, we’ll fly you and a guest in and put you up in a hotel. You’ll go backstage at the big event and — no matter what happens — you’ll have a front row seat to history as we celebrate the supporters who got us over the finish line.”
Campaign manager David Plouffe, weighs in as well. But he doesn’t raise the offer any further.
The candidates have managed to make this the most well-funded campaign in history–well over a billion dollars have been spent already and–and in the final days it looks like they’re hosing the country down with dollar bills.
Obama, not limited to depending on party funding for his campaign (unlike McCain) had raised $640 million by mid-October. A quarter of this money coming from small donors with the allurement of a T-shirt or a front row rally seat, or, (why be cycnical) a promise of change.
There is no greater endorsement for a product than the fact that it sells $640 million worth. Also remember that the other three-fourths of Obama’s money is actually coming in from large donors/businesses. This is happening at a time when the mere mention of the phrase ‘distribution of wealth’ freaks people out.
But as people count down the hours to November 4, the Obama campaign is still counting its money. It’s never too late to get that extra $5. Besides, the ‘First time donor front row contest’ has added costs.
There’s a flight ticket, a hotel (they did not to mention a type, but let’s just assume it’ll be Motel Change, or similar.) And then there is expectation management: what if Motel Change is one of those common shower set ups with bugs between the sheets and no HBO?
You’ve been promised they’ll swap your room–even change the hotel. What you may not have been told is that it might take a few years.
| Latest National Poll round-up: |
| Gallup: 51 Obama, 43 McCain. Up from 49-47 last week |
| Rasmussen daily tracking: 51 Obama, 46 McCain. |
| CBS: 54 Obama, 41 McCain. |
| CNN: 53 Obama, 46 McCain. |
| Fox News: Obama 47, McCain 44. |
Tags: Avirook Sen, Barack Obama, Chicago, Fox News, Get Out The Vote, Grant Park, John McCain, US Elections 2008
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Looking for change in Chicago October 15th, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
I haven’t made an appointment with him. But I meet him on the corner of Rush and Oake Streets in downtown Chicago because he’s seeking change. I get straight to the point.
“So who’s it going to be, man?”
“You mean, for Prezeedent?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, Obama, man. Obama. Do you have some change?”
There is that distinctive sound of metal-on-coffee cup-on-metal that you will only find in the disposable begging bowls of the West, as he shakes his chalice of change. And then, to someone else, he says: “Don’t be sad man.”
I have just got out of a jazz bar called the Back Room. (Don’t be fooled by the name. Not much politics here, just a cover charge and the ‘J.W. Williams Blues Band’–with ‘Patricia Scott’, but we missed her–playing stuff like ‘It’s a wonderful world.’)
“Don’t be sad, man”, says my man, smiling from his wheelchair, his folded jeans, thighs downward, swinging ever so slightly in the light autumn breeze, grazing the top of his footrest. There are no feet on it.
A man, a black man, in a good suit–the kind you saw on TV perhaps, walking out of Lehmann Brothers carrying a cardboard box a week or so ago, that kind of suit, but unattached to a box–strides by. He is forced, much the way many others are, to stop and stick out a fist. It doesn’t open to pour out change. It just meets the one that’s pointed in his direction from the wheelchair in polite acknowledgement.
I begin to think about the fuss that was created after just such a handshake a few months ago, when the fists that met belonged to Barack and Michelle Obama. I think this because the well-heeled black man reminds me of Obama.
He is made to look even better by the fact that he has the gait of a middle-weight boxer (most other men on Rush and Oake this midnight are oscillating between light swaying and staggering). The few words he says to my man, he says clearly. This is more than can be said of several people who articulate a response to “Don’t be sad, man.”
Even though the man in the suit didn’t offer any change, I ask my man if he reminded him of the future prezeedent.
“Who, that guy? No, man he’s two shades darker than me. And I’m ’bout three shades darker that Obama. Know what um sayin’?”
It was either the street lights, or it was just me. But I told him I didn’t understand: just on the basis of empirical evidence. I saw the man in the suit; I could see him in his wheelchair; and I had watched Barack Obama without adjusting my television set.
“He’s not so black. Know what um sayin’?”
Now if I got that right, what he meant was that his vote would go to a white black guy (visions of Michael Jackson invaded my already addled brain). I felt sorry for Obama. I mean, here’s a guy trying his damndest to knock a country semi-conscious about race and colour, and this is what he gets? Being called whitey by the brothers? But what the hell, he’s ahead in the polls so something must be working.
I change the subject to my man’s personal situation.
“Lost ma legs 31 years ago. Shootout, yesssir. Got 16 bullets in me. (Here, just to back this claim, he lifted his Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt to expose enough craters on his stomach and back for me to be embarrassed into saying: “I believe, you.”)
I ask what happened to the shooter: “Oh, he’d dead.”
“But I like to give back, you know what um saying… ‘How’ your night been baby, dont be sad (some change gets into the coffee cup)…’ know what um saying.
I do volunteer work with people who are in bad situations. At the hospital. (And now, he invents a beautiful word). I mean my situation was ‘uncopable’ man. I tell them, if I can make it…
More possible donors come our way…
‘How’ you’re night been baby? Had a good time? Don’t be sad…
And give it a pass…
‘Know what um sayin’?
“If you’ve coped, then why do you sit here every night? I ask. (I cannot get myself to be more direct: as in, so why are you begging?)
But he seems to know what I meant to ask. “I try and make people feel good, man. And get
some of their change–if possible. Heh, heh. Anything’s possible, know what um sayin’?
His soliciting style isn’t that different from Obama’s, actually. It differs only in the details. At a base level, both these guys try and make you feel good–and make a living off it. After that, one takes the styrofoam route and goes solo, with relatively low expectations. The other takes the internet way, with an army of faithfuls, and a set expected minimum.
I just got one of these in my mailbox a few days after I met my man.
avirook –
I’ve never asked you to make a donation before.
But I’m about to make some major decisions about deploying field staff and volunteers to key battleground states.
The resources we have on hand going into October will directly impact our voter registration and Get Out The Vote operations. And now that early voting has begun in eight states — including Ohio as of today — we need to move as quickly as possible.
Please donate $5 or more before the deadline to help register voters, get out the vote, and win this election.
We’re stretching every dollar and doing everything we can with what we have. But every day I see firsthand how much more we could do — and how far your donation will go.
Thanks for your support,
Jon
Jon Carson
National Field Director
Obama for America.
Everyone’s seeking change. Know what um sayin’?
A drunk white bum walks up, and without bothering anyone else, asks my man for an alm. He gets a cigarette still good for at least three puffs. He likes to give back, my man.
“But I got to sit here, man. I get $562 from welfare. I stay round here at the YMCA, that’s $390 in rent. Know what um sayin’?
‘But what changes for you if Obama is elected?’
Issues, I mean healthcare, man. Like right now, I could go to any of the fine hospitals in Chicago and they’d see me and all, but they wont admit me. Cos I dont have proper insurance.”
My man, and about 47 million people in the States have this in common: they can be diagnosed, but not treated in a hospital, because they don’t have insurance and 8.6 million are recent inductees to this unfortunate club. The Bush administration accounted for them.
Yes, universal healthcare is one of Obama’s issues. In theory, if you are an American citizen you will get treated no matter what under President Obama. I was about to ask my man what convinced him (beyond Barack’s oratory) that this would indeed happen, but he was gone.
I turned and saw a stationary cop car and an outbound wheelchair at top speed. The officer had evidently told my man that he should seek his change elsewhere in Chicago, if at all. And definitely not around the Magnificent Mile.
Here, on cool autumn evenings you don’t need to be told, ‘Don’t feel sad’. You can hear them sing ‘It’s a wonderful world’ instead. That should be good enough.
Know what um saying’?
Tags: Barack Obama, Chicago, US Elections 2008
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