Dear Canadians for Obama Subscribers,

We’ve just posted some of the stories that have been sent in to us over the past week.

Check out Stories from the Road

STORIES FROM THE ROAD

Over the past couple of weeks Canadians for Obama has been collecting stories of fellow Canadians who were able to volunteer with the Obama campaign (and also those who wanted to share their congratulations). Thank you all that have contributed your stories thus far.

Featured Stories

Katie Skinner	Rajdeep Salooja	Malgosia Mikula	Glyn Lewis
Vancouver	Washington, DC	Montreal	Vancouver

NEXT STEPS for Canadians for Obama 

Well now that we’ve gotten Obama elected, what do we do next? We got some great ideas to channel all this empowerment and energy:

1. Volunteer in your community. Now that you’ve been re-energized and feel all this power to do good,  let’s go out and change the world!
Great article in the NY times:

Mr. Obama doesn’t have to tell anyone what to do, only to do something good. All you phone-bank callers and door-to-door volunteers, you envelope stuffers and canvassers, who worked countless hours and now may have a little time and energy left over: Help homeless and hungry people. Work for an environmental organization, a food pantry or a community garden, or all three.

2. Help Obama rebuild America. If you’re interested please email us and we’ll let the Obama staff know.

3. Go to Inauguration. If you’re interested in going South January 20th, 2009 to see Obama give his first speech as President, let us know. but tix will be hard to find [check this story]. If you live in the Ontario/Quebec area there is a group already organizing to go down:

4. Help the Canadians Political System! Get in touch with your municipal, provincial or federal parties to help out where you can - we need all the help we can get our own country rebuilt! Email us and we can give you some leads.

For more stories from across Canada and the US click more below.

Have a story to tell? Send it in and we’ll post it! Whether it is phone banking, going to the US or just your thoughts about the elections we’d love to hear from you!

  CANADA 

BC	BC	ALBERTA	MANITOBA	ONTARIO	QUEBEC
Cheryl Anderson Vancouver	Ajay Puri Vancouver	Ricky Agnihotri Edmonton	Tyler Glen Brandon	Laura Cedrone St. Catharines	Malgosia Mikula Montreal
Braeden Caley Vancouver	Katie Skinner Vancouver	Susan Shields Banff		Pam Fitzgerald Ottawa	Bob White Montreal
Carol Fyfe-Wilson Ladysmith	Sid Tafler Victoria			Richard Lamothe
Maureen Harwood (Dual) Vancouver	Chuck Wootten Vancouver			Justin Noble Toronto
Sean Lauer (Dual) Vancouver	Lois Yelland Vancouver			Ray Sharma Toronto
Glyn Lewis Vancouver
Paul Livingstone Maple Ridge
Andriy Mishchenko Vancouver

USA

Kimberely Fenton - Canadian living in Raleigh, North Carolina
Gabby - NYC [coming soon]
Petar Malesev - Cleveland, Ohio

 I am based in Cleveland, Ohio, and have been busy with the local campaign effort here in Cleveland!

Rajdeep Salooja - Washington, DC

FULL STORIES

Braeden Caley, Chuck Wootten, Ajay Puri, Andriy Mishchenko, Sean Lauer - tentatively refer to media section for stories from the road

Braeden Caley

Not a citizen, but prouder than ever to call myself a friend
Monday, January 19, 2009 at 9:06pm
Carrollton, Texas - March 3 2008

For me, a remarkable string of campaign trips started because of a casual conversation - a conversation between good friends about how a certain aspiring American leader was offering and in many ways exemplifying so much of what we sought from our own politics. I never thought I’d meet that man, talk to him, and certainly not travel tens of thousands of miles to campaign for him, repeatedly(!) - but in 2008, I did - and the experiences I had along the way, and the cherished memories I hold from them, will stay with me forever.

Years before he would eventually become President of the United States, Barack Obama began to fascinate us. He inspired many in 2004, with his call for an end to the steep divisions that have - for far, far too long - defined politics not only in the United States, but throughout much of the world. He demanded unity, and he demanded better from his fellow citizens and leaders.

As a candidate for President, his demands began to resonate more strongly with my friends and I. His story was so compelling, his promise so exciting, and his courage so necessary for a troubled and violent world that we quite simply decided we had to be a part of ensuring Barack Obama and his ideals could win.

In a spur of the moment decision, we packed three carloads full of enthusiastic Canadians and campaigned for the final push in the Washington Caucuses, way back in February of 2008. We phoned relentlessly, that first night. We made posters, we folded pamphlets, prepared walk packs, set up caucus station leaders’ packs and had an absolute blast. We were in Snohomish County, on the edge of Everett. I thought, going down to work on this brief campaign, that it would be a first and last quick foray into the inner machinations of a one-of-a-kind Presidential campaign, but what we discovered when we won that on Saturday Caucus in February - the day Barack won his first state after ‘Super Tuesday,’ - was that this was not so much a campaign as a movement. Excited, inspired, and motivated by how easy it could be to help bring about such important change, we then became some of that’s movement’s most active footsoldiers.

I campaigned in Washington, Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, and Virginia. We took some big groups and some small ones - all inspired young Canadians (with the exception of Kaila Ann from Snohomish!!!) from across the full spectrum of Canadian political affiliations - and some who had never been involved in any sort of politics ever before.

Texas was bittersweet: The Obama campaign had found itself again after a string of small victories. It had field offices speckled everywhere throughout key counties, and the magic that I had heard so many stories about from the small state openers of Iowa and New Hampshire had transplanted itself into the State where "everything is bigger." We had loads of fun campaigning over vast rural territory. I was chased on numerous occasions by dogs of all sizes while on our targeted walk routes, and even once got ran out of a farmyard by a young goat! Must have been a Republican goat…

It was in Texas that I first met Barack Obama, in Carrollton, and took the brief moments in which I held his laser-like eye contact to encourage him to remain firm in his opposition to the War in Iraq. In Texas I also met Dean Fluker, the Obama staffer-extraordinaire from Iowa who until that point I had only worked with over the phone. He led us in many of the states we went to, and no one went to greater lengths to empower, include, and involve us in this historic campaign. He always inspired the greatest possible level of drive, effort, and commitment. But for all that was special about it and the people we met there, Texas was a challenge.

Every state was a challenge, but some more than others. When it comes to voting problems, everything was indeed, again, "bigger in Texas!" The now-mythic Obama machine was not yet so mighty everywhere, and around Mansfield for instance, our voters were easily pushed around and their votes suppressed by those with vested interests in their voices not being heard. The caucuses that Glyn and I were responsible for, in largely rural Mansfield, Texas, were planned to start at 7:15pm that critical Tuesday night, but they were delayed until past midnight, an occurrence that repeated itself throughout that whole county, where our other volunteers were stationed. Thousands of voters in those predominantly African-American communities were turned away that night, or forced to return home to care for their young families before having the chance to caucus. Not all inspiration is arrived at through positive experiences, and many of us were even more motivated to realize Barack’s vision and goals by this negative twist than we had been ever before - and so onward we went.

——-

Pennsylvania for some of us was a chance to work and lead within the famed Obama youth movement. I was assigned to campaign at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy-League institution in the heart of Philadelphia, the cradle of American Independence and the place where Barack had freshly given his historic speech on race. It was here that I think I might have learned the most - about how to campaign effectively on a campus, and how to use every tool imaginable to engage and connect politically with fellow youth on our own terms and in our own ways.

There were a number of people there, at UPenn, who exemplified how well Americans in all of these different states welcomed us bright-eyed eager Canadians into their everyday lives for this critical campaign. Troy Stevenson got us all set up; Cori Allen, Harrison Kreisberg, Cameron Monagle, and Jordan Harp showed us the ropes of how things worked in the Philly office; Ash Bhumbla got us oriented on a campus he loved; and Michael Feliu, Nathan Miller, and Michael Stratton campus-campaigned the hell out of us in that final weekend!

I’ll never forget the angry mob of seniors we had to contend with at the CNN Rick Sanchez event, all the energy drinks I consumed dorm-knocking in the "Quad," or, for example, when we met at midnight for a flyer-drop blitz (a task later repeated on a much smaller scale in Virginia)! The crew at UPenn demonstrated how keeping a campaign fun, edgy, well-organized and creative can pay dividends even against great adversity: Barack won at UPenn with more than 70% of the vote despite a rally with Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton held on campus the night before Primary day - mere hours before voting began.

——-

North Carolina was a return to familiar campaign faces and a hybrid of both campus-campaigning (at UNCC) and the neighbourhood-to-neighbourhood get-out-the-vote drives that our particular group of Canadians (and Kaila Ann!) were getting so especially good at. On our first night in Charlotte, we went dorm-knocking with Kal Penn, who lent his speaking talents, unique history of involvement, and celebrity buzz from the very recent release of ‘Harold and Kumar 2′ to a night of probably rare political excitement and engagement in those UNCC dorms.

After that exciting start, it was mostly a matter of doing campus campaigning early in the morning, then heading out into key neighbourhoods in the afternoon and most of the evening, and finally back to the office long into the wee hours as we prepared our activities for the next day and helped other districts’ teams do the same.

Glyn and Robin had arrived there when I was still in Pennsylvania, and had got us set up with campaign vans to use. And boy did we ever use them, culminating in a 14 hour marathon Primary Day on May 6th in which we must have criss-crossed the country 3 or 4 times!

To kick off the morning though, we had facility managers at UNCC steal all of our election day materials and "chum" (Obama memorabilia used to keep voters from leaving their lines) and run off in a golf cart as the sun rose over the leafy southern campus. It was quite the scene, to put it nicely! We gave chase for about 20 minutes snaking in and around the brick buildings before finally losing track of them, but the police were able to track down both the offending facility staff and our materials only about ten minutes after that. Another bizarre story from a campaign full of unexpected twists and turns.

In North Carolina, finally, Barack Obama won again - and did so rather impressively. It was a turning point - a milestone at which point Obama went from being a shaky, challenged frontrunner for the nomination to a clear leader in the race. Everyone knew it would be hard to stop him then, but our little crew wasn’t going to take any chances!

Robin was on to Kentucky, and I was on to Oregon with a crew second in size only to our first foray into nearby Washington. Oregon was a whole different style - ten hour days instead of twenty, a decent enough amount of time to explore Portland, and a record-setting 70,000 person rally around which so many of the week’s activities were focused. Oregon had a mail-in ballot, so instead of just one election day, every day counted, but the intensity was taken down a notch. Interestingly, we were even allowed to collect citizens’ mail-in ballots on behalf of the campaign who would then deposit them - a procedure that allowed us to pretend to cast a few ballots of our own back at the central Obama Campaign Office’s collection station. And Hannah in Portland was another tremendously awesome Field Organizer to work with!

The change of pace in Oregon was a welcome one. We had a chance to talk a lot more with citizens throughout Portland, learn more about what was driving their voting decisions, and hear more of their stories, histories, ideas, and ideals. We also had the chance to meet Barack (again, in my case!), acting on a last minute tip from one of his staff of when to be at his hotel one morning, the Portland Benson.

Like North Carolina, Oregon was a clear and decisive win for Barack, and then the nomination was all but his - On June 3rd, less than two weeks later, Barack Obama was indeed the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

——-

The end of the primaries meant a four month hiatus from the Obama campaign. Within that time period, an entire Canadian general election campaign started and concluded, and not with the result that progressive Canadians had been hoping for.

It was refreshing therefore to get back in the Obama campaign’s saddle shortly after Canadian election day. First on Glyn’s advice and then after seeing how truly close the polls were in this definitive battleground state, we chose Virginia to campaign in for the final week of the General election campaign.

The state had not gone "Democratic blue" since 1968 - so the effort was certainly a long shot - but Barack’s movement and its unprecedented engagement of new and youthful volunteers was redrawing the American electoral map. However, John McCain and the Republicans had their old Bush coalition and a number of skeptical independents to rely on, and only a few points separated Obama and McCain for the vast majority of the campaign’s final thirty days.

Virginia, in the end, was one of just a handful of states that would decide the election, and we wanted to do everything we could to help Virginia decide in favour of Barack.

For Virginia we had a 6-person crew that packed into a 5-person Dodge SUV crossover throughout the hotly contested battleground of west Fairfax Country. It was Glyn Lewis, Katie Skinner, Wei Li, Oz Jungic, Ben Lee and myself - working out of Oakton and Centreville, towns largely consisting of Republican holdouts in an area of Virginia that was otherwise trending Democratic for the first time in decades.

Located just half an hour and across the Potomac River from the White House and the Lincoln Memorial (which we visited twice), this battleground campaign was set amongst geography, landmarks and history which once again demonstrated to us the enormity of what Barack Obama was seeking to achieve, and how far this nation had come. We had only a few days to do whatever more we could to turn his campaign into a Presidency, and in Virginia’s case, this meant doors, doors, and more doors!

It was a particularly interesting place. There was a higher level of ethnic diversity here (not overwhelmingly African-American or overwhelmingly Caucasian, as had been the case in different parts of previous states), and more voters seemed to remain undecided very close to election day. But as in every other state, the engagement of citizens was astoundingly high, and many voters had hearts and minds open to persuasion in what were increasingly tough times for themselves and their families. The generational divide seemed more pronounced, as well. It was common to have voters on our lists who were our age, and supporting Barack Obama, but whose parents would not let us remind them to vote because they were supporting John McCain!

I will never, ever forget speaking to a young Asian American family in a cul-de-sac south of Centreville. I spent about five minutes having a discussion with the father, who had always voted Republican and was until then planning to do so once again. The whole time we were speaking, his son stood leaning against his leg listening attentively but silently - he could not have been more than five or six years old. As soon as I had said goodbye and began to walk away, the son stomped his foot firmly and said "DAD! How could you NOT vote for Barack Obama!?!?"

There were tons of inspiring moments from our few days on Virginia’s doorsteps, but we also had the opportunity to take a break for one of the campaign’s most historically-important events. As if after all this traveling the candidate himself had somehow decided to catch up with us, Barack Obama chose to hold his final rally of the historic election campaign in Manassas Virginia, just about a 15 minute drive south of some of the precincts we were working in. There we joined almost 100,000 fellow Obama supporters for his final address of the campaign, and got ‘fired up and ready to go’ for the election day that would come just hours later - for us, with a midnight flier drop that would keep us occupied until nearly 4:00am.

Then at 7:00pm on Tuesday, after another crazy day of getting out the vote - my sixth Obama election day - there was nothing left we could do. It was all in CNN’s hands now, I joked at the time. As we drove to Alexandria to watch the results with some of the volunteers and organizers we had worked with, we (I) once again got ourselves lost driving in the heavy rain, and so we stopped at a roadside Chili’s restaurant to watch the returns together. We anxiously made each other shut off our phones so we would all get the news together and all at once.

Virginia was tight, and at first Barack was behind rather badly, but then the results from Fairfax County - our home for that last ditch effort - began to roll in strongly. With just 45 seconds to go before Barack Obama was declared the President Elect of the United States of America, he was declared the winner of the race in battleground Virginia. We hugged, we cried, we phoned our families, and then we… raced back to the car to get to Alexandria in time for Barack’s victory speech!

Once that was also concluded, it was off to the spontaneous festivities outside the White House and in the streets of Washington DC. An unbelievable end to a remarkable adventure, and an enormously new beginning at hand. The streets of DC that night were alive with cheers of "hope" and "change," and our decked-out Obama rental car ended the night by leading a crowd of two hundred revelers down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building, with people on the hood, the trunk, and hanging out the windows as horns sounded relentlessly throughout the city in celebration.

——–

The next day, our first stop was the Lincoln Memorial. We were all so incredibly exhausted, but it is hard to find the words necessary to express just how uplifting and inspiring it was to stand where Martin Luther King delivered his "I have a dream speech," and to stand there the morning after the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.

So much of the dream had then been realized, and it had been accomplished by volunteers and organizers willing to sacrifice their time and energy to bring about a new era of hope, equality, and meaningful change. Many said it, but in that spot, at that time, we *felt* it: "Yes, We Did!"

And what a journey it was. As we set about trying to elect Barack Obama as President, Americans of all ages and backgrounds opened up their hearts, their homes, and their doors to us, and in doing so showed us the true meaning of what it means to be good neighbours.

Thank you - We won’t ever forget it.

After a year spent living through some of his campaign’s greatest trials and triumphs, I will be ecstatic and thrilled to see Barack Obama inaugurated today as the 44th President of the United States.

I may not be a citizen, but now I am prouder than ever to call myself a friend.
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Maureen Harwood - Vancouver (Dual)

Maureen tells her stories through photos. Maureen and her family mailed in their ballots for Obama!

Why Can`t We?
This past summer while roaming the Frankfurt international airport I picked up a copy of an international publication to see what the rest of the world was saying about Barack Obama’s US Presidential campaign. As I looked around the store I found the same story splashed across almost every major daily paper and publication. The print media were hyping Senator Obama’s upcoming visit to the once deeply ideologically divided city of Berlin. A city which had once beaconed the great fault lines of political philosophies for the rising baby-boomer generation of the 1960’s: East vs. West, Authority vs. Freedom, Collectivism vs. Individualism, and Secularism vs. Religious Faith.

As the boomer generation - my parent’s generation - came of age these amongst countless other ideological and cultural forces perforated a number of social institutions. The result was the ominous pitting of young people against old, fathers against daughters, students against administrators, citizens against their government, and radical protesters against those who served their country. As the dust settled on these early years it became clear that in many was the sprouting generation of the 1960s and 70s had been deeply wounded. Nevertheless, a phalanx of skilled and impassioned survivors, from both the Left and the Right, were being quickly launched into the halls of power within the intertwined network of the political, media, advocacy, and think-tank universes. It was within these halls where many hunkered down and set up base. The unfolding "you’re with us or you’re against us" polarized discourse became increasingly entrenched within a matrix of vitriol, division, and distrust. The back and forth petty power struggles quickly spiralled into full fledge hyper partisan warfare stultifying our politics, and poisoning our discourse. The result has been the ominous corruption of our democratic processes.

For the past forty years the socio-political discourse has painfully limped from Vietnam to Iraq, from Secularization to Abortion, from Environmentalism to Globalization, and from Same-Sex Marriage to Immigration. Along the way many new recruits have taken up arms only to be mentored and indoctrinated in a win-at-all-costs style of politics while many others - sadly and yet understandably - have simply tuned out. There are those who have been disenfranchised by politics not because of indifference but because they sense their democratic voice have been usurped by deeply imbedded special interests and lobby groups who spend millions purchasing influence. There are those who have been disillusioned by their elected representatives who seem more interested in partisan posturing than coming together to find common solutions to our common problems. Lastly, there are those who have been down right disgusted by the unprincipled political gamesmanship of fear, distortion, and division.

While the aforementioned state of affairs reached new cultural lows there were rising stars who acknowledged the deep society wide yearning for a new style of leadership. Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign spoke often of reuniting the country and ending the petty differences bogging down progress. Unfortunately, this proved to be little more than a branding exercise as the Clinton 92′ campaign turned around and relentlessly engaged in full contact bare knuckle battle. After being credited with the creation of the campaign war room, once in the power, it is of little surprise Al and Bill found their relationship with the soon to be Republican controlled Senate to be frustratingly hostile, to say the least. Then there was the George W. Bush campaign of 2000. After eight long years of Ken Starr, Monica, and Newt Gingridge, people wanted to keep the economic good times but with less drama, and lower taxes. At his 2000 Republican nomination speech President George Bush struck a chord with a pledge to, "Change the tone of Washington, to one of civility, and respect". In reality, instead of working to change the ways of Washington the Bush clan, under the messianic guide of Karl Rove, helped push the limits of the conventional political modus operandi to a whole new sordid frontier. Instead of unity there was Florida, instead of civility there was Swift-Boating, and instead of respect there was the Moral Majority.

As a Canadian observer-activist what has interested me most about the state of Democracy in America is that while the players, issues and intensity may be different the fabric of our Canadian democratic processes are mired in all the same generational battles. Ultimately, this is the importance of Barack Obama’s historic victory for the rest of us. It was an incredible affirmation of what remains possible when we the people rise up to reclaim the meaning of some of our most powerful institutions.

When I first decided to head to Iowa to help with the ground game the Obama campaign was 15 points behind the Clinton establishment. The skeptics and the pundits had all but written off our chances. However, there were literally thousands of fired up volunteers from all around the country and around the world who knew this was not an ordinary election year and that this was not your conventional political campaign. To help the grass-roots campaign coalesce the Obama brain trust opted against accepting campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists or Political Action Committees and instead would rely on thousands and soon millions of small donations by the American people. People from every socio-economic background could sense power was tilting back onto their side of the decision making table. Moreover, whereas past presidential candidates had long preached respect and civility Senator Obama, by and large, made good on the promise to turn down the heat on the highly polarized discourse. The message of a progressive politics born of respect, empowerment and inclusion widened the tent and quickly garnered the campaign an incredible amount of respect. This movement was successful in rewriting the very fundamentals of that universally accessible political textbook because millions of Americans were tired of conventional divide and conquer politics and they got out there and did something about it.

As momentum picked up and predominately white states began to overwhelmingly judge Obama by the content of his character rather than the colour of his skin millions of people all around the world found themselves transfixed by the possibility of a rising and inclusive generation of leadership which would work towards reclaiming instead of rejecting the meaning of social, religious, economic, and political institutions. Many saw the Obama campaign as vehicle towards changing their own flawed apparatus of public service. It was therefore of no great surprise that when I walked into our campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa a month before the monumental January 3rd caucus I found to my left a wall sized map of the world. The map was littered with dots, each of which represented a young Obama supporter who had flown in to help. They came from France, South Africa, Brazil, England, New Zealand, Canada, and Holland, to name just a few. Following in the footsteps of Alexis de Tocqueville thousands of these seasoned torchbearers will all now go home to spread the message, mechanisms, and the vision of improving our systems of democratic representation. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of others who are equally hungry and committed but were unable to physically join this catalytic campaign. As we collectively now look inwards and onwards the great question of our time may very well be: If in that historic year of 2008 the American people were able to work together, at the grass-roots, to significantly change the way politics works right up to the very highest of offices in one of the most powerful countries in the world, then why can’t we?

If Canada is truly hungry and is ready to get out there and demand better at every level of representation, our time will come.
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Cheryl Anderson - Vancouver BC

Has two sons, both dual citizens, one on the East Coast of Canada mailed in his ballot and was able to vote but her other son in Seattle was not [coming soon]

Ricky Agnihotri - Edmonton, Alberta

 - Not a dual citizen

Why did you get involved?
Got involved because I felt a responsibility.  I get involved in provincial and federal politics here in Canada, but I felt strongly that the outcome of the election in the U.S would affect everyone…and that all should feel a responsibility to get involved. 

What did you do? 
Unfortunately, I didn’t get an opportunity to fly South to help out, but I have a network of family and friends that I made calls to.  I managed to convince some of my younger cousins to volunteer with the Obama campaign.

Interesting Story
I guess the one interesting comment that I got from some of my friends in the U.S when I called them was…"What’s it to you?  Why do you care so much what happens?
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Pam Fitzgerald - Ottawa, ON
Trustee, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
Further Background at School Board site.

From her home in Ottawa Pam was able to make the necessary calls:

I spent some time pulling out the vote in North Carolina. It was great to be part of it all. Thank you for your help.

                       Yes we can,

                        Pam

Richard Lamothe - ON

Went to northern NY area - [coming soon]

Carol Fyfe-Wilson - Ladysmith, BC

We drove our car with an Obama bumper sticker through Oregon, WA and lower Vancouver Island for several months. While traveling in US we chatted with anybody willing to talk about the election and their feelings. The younger people were very optimistic ‘Obama offered hope!’ We were, however, surprised to hear from one person (a shop owner) that racism is alive and well (although covert) in states that supposedly are very liberal. She also mentioned corporate and bureaucratic corruption at the highest levels, as did many others with whom we spoke.T he shop owner went on to say that if Obama did not win, she and several friends would be moving to Canada (as would my brother and his wife) as US would be "doomed". We also talked to Canadians in our own little town and in Victoria. All shared the same sense of optimism should Obama become President. Our countries as so closely allied, that what happens in the US has repercussions on Canada.

On Vancouver Island, we noticed a huge billboard supporting Obama on the Pat Bay Hwy heading towards the ferries. A very high volume highway.

Cheers.
Carol

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Rajdeep Salooja - Vancouver, BC (Living in Washington, DC)

There are moments in each of our lives that teach us lessons we will never forget. Mine came in February 2007 as I was trying to catch a connecting flight in Chicago. At my gate standing in front of me, was Senator Barack Obama. It was the weekend before he announced his candidacy for President of the United States of America and there we both were clamoring for the attention of the ticket agent. I wanted to speak with him but was unsure the awkward shape my words would take as they tumbled out so I decided to keep my mouth shut. While I never did get the chance to meet him again, I did have the opportunity to speak on his behalf when I found myself knocking on doors asking Americans to vote for him.

 I have been living in Washington, DC for the past two years, first as a grad student at Georgetown University and now an employee of the World Bank. While I dearly miss Vancouver and its all-you-can-eat sushi sessions, I have found in this pocket of America a concentration of individuals who are politically passionate, obsessed with the facts and driven by a desire to serve the public. They display a fervor for action that in unlike anything I have seen - it is a fervor that is contagious and in part, drove me to get involved with the Obama campaign.

As a part of Foreign Policy Professionals for Obama - I worked to canvass in Centreville, a enclave of Virginia that was adopted by the organization. We worked door to door, working through lists of registered voters categorized by their voting history. There is something truly humbling about talking to the voter, face-to-face. No op-ed pieces, no statistical regressions on how they would vote and no blogging heads. These were not people to be slotted and categorized . None of that mattered as soon as they opened the door, the dog running out and a child at the hip.

I met people from all over the world who were out volunteering and yet without a vote. They all had their own reasons but I needed to answer my own questions about why I was doing what I was: more involved in the American polity than Canadian. The answer however had always been with me as a student of international relations but it was now that I was given a reason to articulate it. Nations do not live in isolation from one another and while particular events abroad may not impact our tax rates, our roads and our health care, they occur in a world of which Canada is a part. So there I was, a Canadian for Obama, doing the little that I could to renovate our global neighborhood.

I don’t believe the unprecedented political outreach and participation that we witnessed in this election is unique to America; it is unique to democracy and a demonstration of its capacity as a system. For Canadians, U.S. politics often seem like a fantastic show to which we have great seats. It is time to get up from our seats and take the show home. In the words of President Barack Obama, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

- Rajdeep Salooja
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Kimberely Fenton - Canadian living in Raleigh, North Carolina

You’ll be pleased to know that, as a Canadian living in Raleigh, NC (an
historically red state) I did my part to support Pres. Elect Obama. I am unable
to vote here as I’m not a US citizen but I canvassed door-to-door asking for
votes. I’m proud of the work that I did on behalf of the Obama campaign and am
very pleased, of course, with the outcome. I am so happy to say that I live in
the "blue state" of NC!

Laura Cedrone - St. Catharines, ON

I would love to share my story!

Thanks for your fantastic work!

Laura

- Not a dual citizen. Just a Canadian citizen.

Why did you get involved?
I got involved because I believe in Obama, and I was hoping to get people to vote (especially young voters). Even convincing one person to vote would have made it worthwhile.

What did you do?
I actually called all of my friends south of the border and asked if they were voting. If they were, I asked them to be sure to mark in on their calendar and make it a priority. If they were unsure, or were not intending to vote, I initiated a discussion about the importance of voting and tried to encourage them to get out and vote.

Interesting Story
Though it is a commonly used line, I asked a friend, "What if everyone had the ‘my vote doesn’t count’ attitude and no one voted?" He paused, then asked if I could wait a moment while he went to get his agenda. He decided then and there that he would vote because ‘just one’ voice does matter.

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Malgosia Mikula - Montreal QB

SO happy about President-elect Obama! Truly one of the best moments of
my young life. Thank you Ajay and the rest of the Canadians for Obama
team for your help in making it happen!

I had a phenomenal time calling up voters! My friend Alicia helped me
call about 30 people the evening before Election Day (we started off a
bit slow), and the next day I called another 90 people when I came
home from work (I also squeezed in a few calls during my lunch break,
haha!). I wish I had thought about volunteering earlier, but I am
nevertheless very happy to have been able to help in even this small
way. This was my first time volunteering for an American presidential
campaign (it was the first time I’ve felt so excited about and
inspired by a presidential candidate), and at least now I have a
better idea of what I can do in 2012 to help get Obama re-elected!

A few highlights:
- Exchanging high-fives through the phone with one Obama supporter who
had just come back from casting his vote.

- A very enthusiastic 72-year old woman, when asked if she had voted
for Obama, answered: "Chiiiild, if I hadn’t, I would have had to go
back and change it now, wouldn’t I?"

- One voter told me she had already voted for Obama and had received
many calls from the campaign, but asked me if I would talk to her
daughter who had voted for the first time (also for Obama) and hadn’t
had the opportunity to talk to anyone associated with the campaign. We
proceeded to have a lengthy conversation — I told her I was actually
calling from Canada and that I wished I could have voted for Obama
myself. She was pretty surprised and told me she "didn’t even know any
Americans who were so gung-ho about getting Obama elected".

- My mom felt inspired at one point and decided to call our extended
family in Denver, CO, who we hadn’t talked to in years, to try and
convince them to vote for Obama… alas, the babysitter picked up.

The excitement was definitely palpable! Mostly we got answering
machines though and tried to make our messages sound as peppy (and
convincing) as possible.

Hope you had as great a time calling up voters as we did!
I’ll look forward to reading your stories!

Thanks again for everything!

Take care,

Malgosia

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Ray Sharma

He’s an Information Security Advisor with a bank in Canada and started following Obama’s bid for the presidency in 2007.  Since he couldn’t vote (not a US citizen) he felt the next best thing would be to support Obama’s candidacy by volunteering for his campaign.  This past Saturday (November 1st) he drove to Buffalo, NY to the campaign headquarters and called approx. 200 people as part of a phonebanking effort.  He must say it was exhilarating being able to contact voters and asking for their vote for Obama/Biden.  He’s continued making calls Monday and Election Day hoping that his calling makes a difference.

"I spoke to an elderly woman on the phone while I was phone-banking and when I asked her If I would count on her vote for Obama/Biden she said that if she had to crawl to the polls she would go out and cast her ballot for Obama and make it count ‘all the way.’  That was heartwarming."
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Katie Skinner

A Return to Hope

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Paul Livingstone - Maple Ridge
As a life time member of the New Democrat Party of Canada, a father of 5 plus 2 step children, 18 grand children, 6 great grand children, and my wife being a US citizen - we have many family members that live in the USA and we are pleased to see now that we’ll have a good life!

All of us can now reach the American dream. Thank you all for your hard work to get Obama elected God bless the USA

Tyler Glen - Brandon, MB
Tyler is a 35 year old Radio DJ in Brandon, Manitoba. After hearing Obama’s 2004 speech in Boston at the DNC convention, he knew this was going a special person. Upon winning the primaries after the battle with Hillary Clinton, Tyler quickly became a volunteer with the Minnesota DFL and worked closley with campaign organziers based out of Moorehad Minnesota. Knocking on doors, making phone calls, and working out of the Congressional District #7 Minnesota Campaign office, Tyler worked with members of the Obama Iowa primary campaign crew to help the Minnesota for Change campaign. This campaign also included work for the Al Franken senate race.

http://www.in-forum.com/video/

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