Road to the White House 2008

2008-01-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

I am back home and I am missing New Hampshire! I am definitely missing the excitment of the primary. This experience has definitely been one I will never forget. I came into this course knowing practically nothing about presidential campaigns and came out with knowledge that will last a lifetime. I am lucky to have experienced this being so young. It makes my first voting experience memorable. I can go on and on about how much I loved this trip. I made friends from all over the country and their passion inspired me. I am now more than ever motivated to stay in tuned with politics and be more involved and informed during the election process. Senator Clinton winning New Hampshire made this experience even more rewarding. She won every ward in Nashua, which definitely paid off for all the canvassing our group did. Win or Lose, I am glad I experience the first in the nation primary and I hope to participate in it in 2012!

primary day!!!

2008-01-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

Adam and I at 5 A.M. ready to start our day!

Hillary shaking the volunteer's hands

The boys and I holding signs at the school

It's primary day!! Adam, Emilio, and I are watching the results via our hotel room with our vending machine snacks. I am going to recap the day as the results are coming in.

Our day started at 4:15 A.M.. We headed into the office to get our assignments for the day. We were all really excited that this was primary day. I was a little nervous since the polls were not in Hillary's favor. Regardless, Adam, Emilio, and I diligently went to everydoor and hung door hangers on the front door of undecided and confirmed voters doors to remind them to vote. The weather was amazing today! It was 67 degrees!! After we finished our list we were told to head over to Fairgrounds Middle School, which was one of the many places where one could vote. We served the visibility volunteers coffee and donuts and awaited Hillary's apperance! Hillary's bus finally arrived and seeing her again was just as exciting as the 3 previous times. She walk around the crowd thanking them all and it just showed how commited she was to this campaign and this election. When she was gone, the crowd quickly disappeared and we continued on hanging the door hangers and canvassing trying to get every supporter out to vote. Our driver Jim, was amazing! Actually all of our volunteer drivers were great! However, Jim was ultimately my favorite. He drove us back and forth from our new hotel in Chelmsford, Mass. so many times and he was just great entertainment. He encouraged us and while we were all tired he kept us motivated. We couldn't have survived the day without him! We returned to headquarters around 6ish and they told us that there was a record number of voters and that they needed to make sure that the targeted residents in ward 6 and ward 4 went out and voted. We were dropped off to ward 6 and we started canvassing. By this time it was dark and the streets were very spread out. We knew this was going to take a very long time especially on foot. At that moment, Jim called and asked us where we were and he came and drove us around the canvassing area. We found that canvassing at this hour, the majority of this area were senior citizens. The responses that we got were that most of the voters had already voted or they were sleeping. We finsihed our maps at 7:55, which was five minutes before the polls closed. At this point, I felt like we did everything we possibly could to ensure every supporter voted. After a long day of canvassing, the 3 of us went back to the hotel to have a little victory party. We were all so exhausted from the 10 days.

It looks like Hillary is in first with 40%! Obama has 37% with about 67% of the votes in!!

Redbull and Swedish Fish

2008-01-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

It's the day before the first-in-the-nation primary!!

After a few hours of sleep, we met as a class as usual and headed out to our campaigns. When we arrived at the office we were informed that the headquarters now was to be at the VFW a couple blocks away. Upon arrival we immediately started canvassing. Today Emilio, Adam, and I spilt up and went canvassing together and we had a blast. At this point when everyone is so tired, stressed out, and delirious, the only thing we could do was to go through each house feeding off of each other's last bit of energy. Lets just say between the 3 of us, we made the best out of our 9 hour day of canvassing.

Today we had so many helpful volunteers. Everyone, including our canvassing driver's truly pulled together to make this last day productive. Our canvassing driver's were both really nice. The first one Jack , took us out to an amazing lunch at Michael Timothy's. It felt so good to actually eat real food and sit down at a nice restaurant. It had the best cinnamon raisin bread!

At around 7 we finished our folders and headed back to headquarters. We were happy to hear Doug tell us that we can go back to the hotel to get rest before the big day tomorrow !!!! It was nice to actually get to bed before midnight tonight!

Tomorrow is Primary Day!!

2008-01-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

I am exhausted!! We had almost a 15 hour day today and it was intense! Everyday we come into the office we see groups of new people from all over coming in to help out. The Mayor of Los Angelas kicked off the morning along with a few congressmen. Our class journalist Paul shadowed us today and he got an amazing interview with the Mayor in spanish. After the kick off we spilt up in to canvassing groups. We stopped by the rally at the high school along the way and was so excited to see that it was completely packed!

Canvassing was so much fun today! Adam and I worked together and had a great time speaking with the voters. I felt that since the debate was over and the primary being so close. People are deciding exactly who they are voting for and sticking to it. After we were all done canvassing we headed back to the office to get ready for some visibility in front of an Edwards event. The visibility was overwheling.

2 more days till the primary!!!!!

2008-01-06T04:39:00.000-08:00

Today is another day The class is meeting at 8 and we are going to be sent off into our campaigns! Today is another rally and I am hoping we will get to have the opportunity to attend it. We'll see!

Welcome to Massachusetts!!

2008-01-05T23:14:00.000-08:00

It's a little late but I thought I would write about today's crazy day!!

Our morning started out peaceful, I slept in a little bit thanks to my alarm not going off but I still made it to breakfast on time. Today we met with Dante Scala, the author of Stormy Weather. This is one of our books on our required reading list. His seminar was very interesting. I learned a lot and he reinforced everything we read. As we were sitting in our seminar we heard the fire alarm go off. It did not seem so important at the time, until Dr. McLauchlan's husband Ramsey informed us that there was indeed a fire. We did not know at the time how serious this fire actually was until later on in the day. We left to our offices, as we usually do. We were not allowed back into the hotel. All of our stuff was in our rooms including our laptops, ipods, and all of our clothes.

We decided that we should just all go to our offices and continue on with our campaigning. About an hour later, Dr. Mclauchlan called me and told us that we were able to come retrieve our things at the hotel for a short period of time. By this time, We were on a huge campaign bus with about 20 people from Cape Cod canvassing in Hudson. The driver drove us back to the hotel and we started to pack. The three rooms on our hallway were the only three rooms of the group allowed to retrieve there things. I was really lucky, I felt horrible for my classmates who could not get to their things. We joked about only the Democrats got their things and the Republicans did not. The hotel was shut down so we had to go to a Radisson hotel in Massachusetts. The 20 of us packed into the van and we headed over to the our new hotel!

By this time it was near 3:15 P.M and we were delirious! We had the worst dinner at Hong and Kong and discussed the craziness of our day.

Later, is when the night became really exciting, we drove in to Manchester with a attorney from Washington to watch the Clinton debate watch party. The party was held at a place called the Chateau. The event was small but it was nice to be surrounded by Hillary supporters. Halfway through the event we started to notice the secret service and staff roping off a corner of the room where the event was taking place. We asked and found out that Hillary was going to be stopping by after the debate!! I was so excited! We were going to see Hillary twice in 2 days! We moved closer to the ropes to score a good standing stop and awaited her arrival. She finally arrived and and when she spoke she was speaking straight from the heart. Press was not allowed at the event and I think this made a huge difference. She seemed relaxed and just encouraged us to get out the vote. Tonight we also recieved the opportunity to get a photo with Bill! After the event, we walked back to the Manchester Radisson where we were parked and along the way we ran into Chris Matthews from Hardball at a tavern! All in all this day turned out to be great!

Hillary...twice in one day!

2008-01-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

Today was the best day by far!! Waking up at 5 A.M. to get ready for Hillary was definitely worth it. It was -1 degree and we were doing visibility to show our love for Hillary. Our excitement was building!! When Hillary finally arrived, everything that we worked for was justified. Since we were front row we had the opportunity to shake all 3 of their hands! I can not even describe how it felt to have Hillary shake your hand and look you straight in the eye and sincerely say thank you for everything! It was an amazing feeling! It was also amazing to see Bill and Chelsea Clinton so close! The rally was amazing. It was such a great experience to be there in person and see her speak. Senator Clinton answered each question thoroughly and sincerely. Everyone was so inspired after the rally and we were eager to return back to the office to continue working for this amazing woman. We were sent out canvassing and about 20 minutes in we received a call telling us to return back to the office for an event. When we returned everyone was frantically running around make 150 signs for Hillary! We immediately got to work. I loved coloring signs. A half and hour later, the whole office piled into vans and headed over to a town called Milford. We were doing counter vix in from of the Dome which was hosting the 100 club dinner. The visibility was amazing , once word got to the Obama crew, it was not long before they showed up with signs! However, we still dominated. Debbie, Adam, and I found out that we had the opportunity to attend the 100 club dinner! I was so excited! We hurried back to the hotel to get ready and took a cab to the event! The dinner and the environment was exciting! When we arrived we found out that some of the Obama supporters took our table. They were so rude and ended up not getting up. I never thought that adults could be so rude. We eventually found seats at another table. Raymond Buckley, the Chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party hosted the event. It was cool to watch him because we met him a couple days before. Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Barack Obama spoke. Kucinich was passion and I actually was blown away by his speech. All the candidates did really well. Seeing Hillary speak in person again really solidified every reason why I am supporting her.

A picture of us from this mornings event was on Yahoo New today!!!

Caucus Day!

2008-01-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

Today is Iowa! The wind chill is -14. AHH!!! Everyone is anticipating the results of Iowa. A journalist from the St. Petersburg Times came to our seminar this morning and interviewed us about our experience. We are about to get in the van now!!!

Hillary and Bill Clinton are coming into the state tomorrow!!!!

Today was phone banking day!!! We phoned banked for about 4-5 hours...what an experience!! Most did not pick up or they just hung up...phone banking is definitely not glamorous. However, it did keep us out of the -14 degree weather! I got a little nervous whenever a registered voter would say they were supporting Edwards it was like sticking a knife in my leg. It was painful!!!! I know Senator Clinton can pull it off!

For lunch we ate at the infamous Martha's Exchange due to many sightings of political figures. It was delicious! It also had amazing cheesecake!

To finish off the day, Team Hillary did literature drop off to advertise the event for tomorrow.
Senator Clinton and former President Clinton are arriving at Nashua Airport tomorrow at 8! What an exciting experience. I am excited to be surrounded by all the other Clinton supporters!!

We watched the Iowa Caucus with our class at the 99 Restaurant and Hillary finished third. We'll make up for it in New Hampshire.

yoyo

2008-01-02T04:18:00.000-08:00

Good Morning! This morning we are going on a field trip to Concord then we are heading to our placements. It's going to be a long day! The Iowa Caucus is tomorrow! We'll see how that goes...

The field trip was fun!! It took us about an hour to get to Concord which is the state capital of New Hampshire. Downtown Concord's architecture is so cute and old fashioned. The state house was beautiful. Our first stop was at the New Hampshire State Library. The class went to the primary museum. The museum was so informative and had many interesting artifacts from Presidential races from the past. It was cool to see the old literature and signs from the campaigns from 1960's and such. We also went to the Democratic and
Republican Party Headquarters where we met with Chairman Raymond Buckley and Fergus Cullen. They explained to us a little bit about the parties.

After a lunch at Burger King, we drove back to Nashua and headed back to our offices. Right away we were sent out to canvas. The campaign gaves us a 15 passenger van to canvas together for the day. The 5 of us and one UNH jersey girl layered our clothes and knocked on doors. During the day, the canvassing went really well. I still can not get over the fact that the New Hampshire residents are so in tune with the political situation of our Country. However, some still are unfriendly and annoyed with us canvassers. For example, we can see the family sitting watching tv and we will see them get up when we knock on the door. We did have one lady who got all the way in our car and chased us down to tell us she supported Senator Clinton!

Once the sun went down Canvassing was a whole different story. Adam and I took on the streets in the 15 degree weather and literally felt everything in our body feel numb we thought we were going to die! In the end we survived and got out the vote!

2008-01-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

Day two was crazy! We just got back to the hotel about 11:30! This morning we had a conference call with Professor Redlawsk about the Iowa Causcus. He explained to us the procedure of the caucus and the expectation of this year's results. It was very informative. Then we all went to our campaigns. The first thing we made were special visibility signs for primary day. We had our little USFSP assembly line. Steve folded, Debbie cut, Adam used the staple gun, and I stapled the edges. Then it was time to canvas. Debbie and I canvassed from 12 P.M.-8:30 P.M.. For the first 2 hours it was snowing uncontrollably. It was horrible to walk in the snow. The residents were very supportive even though they were not supporting Hillary. We were thanked so mant times for our commitment. Today we had many "not homes" because it was New Years Day. The homes that did answer were actually pretty normal. We returned back to the office around 8:30 and finished our visiblity signs. We were having so much fun we lost track of time and realized it was 11 o'clock! I am tired!!!

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day!! It was amazing!!! Let's just say Obama and Edwards better watch out!We started our lecture at 8 and we all headed to our campaigns. The first thing we did was introduce ourselves to the other staffers. They were all so enthusiastic about the fact that out of the 18 students in our class, 5 were working for Clinton. We then canvassed all day! That was definitely the most fun! Debbie and I knocked on about 258 doors and we gained 14 more supporters! In between our streets we would play in the snow and we took a 5 minute break to build a snowman! after 6 hours of walking through the snow we went back to the office for about 20 minutes and we put out campaign signs all around nashua for 2 hours! all in all pretty eventful! I had an awesome time! At 8 we met as a class and had dinner. It was fun to hear the others stories of their first day! Its almost midnight!...

Happy New Year!!

2007-12-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

WE ARE HERE!!!

The temperture is pretty comfortable and the land is beautiful! We just got to our hotel rooms and we are getting ready to go shopping soon...

...will write more tonight!!

2007-12-29T20:10:00.000-08:00

It's finally here! Tomorrow we leave around 8:45!!! I've been packing all day trying to imagine how many layers I am going to have to put on to stay warm. For those who know me, I get cold at anything around 70 so I am not anticipating the freezing weather!

However, I am ready to go up to New Hampshire and see all of the excitement. Dr. McLauchlan told us that there is nothing compared to the New Hampshire primary. I am also looking forward to see the Clinton campaign headquarters. I have never worked on a presidential campaign or even seen a campaign headquarter before so I do not know what to expect.

Ok well I am off to finish my last minute packing

2007-12-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

I just read that the Des Moines Register just endorsed Senator Clinton in the Democratic Race!!!!! Hopefully this should influence the outcome in Iowa!!!

13 days till NH!!

I am not anticipating the cold!

2007-12-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

Wow! I was just looking at my calendar and realized that at the end of this month we will be in New Hampshire! I can not wait to be working for Senator Clinton's campaign. I feel that her strength and experience will give the United States the leader it is looking for and that is why I am supporting her. I am looking forward to the trip!