Well-Oiled Machine

I attended a training for the Legal Voter Protection Team for Obama's campaign last night. For 2 hours, we discussed our legal role in protecting a voter's right to vote and ensuring that every vote counts. Many points throughout the night I thought about how this felt like a Continuing Legal Education seminar rather than a volunteer training to learn my role for volunteering on Election Day/Night. They presented a power point presentation and had people conferenced in on the phone to get the benefit of the training. There were no shortage of questions about how we should handle situations where a voter is being turned away, intimidated, asked to vote a provisional ballot wrongly, or just plain harassed. We learned the rights of the voter so that we can represent them at every turn where something might go wrong. The Voter Protection Team leader and trainer, a lawyer himself, answered competently and thoroughly every question slung at him and never once mentioned a partisan slant to the information. I was fully impressed by the well-oiled machine that is the Obama campaign in Montana.

Even more, I was impressed by the integrity in which the information was presented and portrayed. I had to remind myself at one point that, YES, this IS the Obama campaign. There was no grandstanding about Obama, no bashing McCain, and not even one Palin joke was cracked though she's the most ripe for ridicule in my opinion. They were gracious and helpful and made it VERY CLEAR that our help is totally nonpartisan.

I got a glimpse into the way Obama will run the country and these words come to mind: honesty, integrity, helpful, organized, and competent. If he runs the country half as well as he does his campaign, we will be 10 times where we are now. I have no doubt.