34 Days, 15 Hours, 1 Minute

The morning after the 2004 presidential election, I left my adopted home in Cincinnati to take a long, somber drive back to Brooklyn. Signs of Jesus punctuated the pastoral scenes along the rural expanse of Ohio’s I-70 highway, but I barely noticed them or anything else that day. Having spent three weeks campaigning to defeat George W. Bush, I was thoroughly depleted. The election had brought a deluge of out-of-state volunteers like me, but the Democratic party was wholly unprepared. My friend Bob and I spent election day working a polling station at a suburban senior center along with several other out-of-town volunteers. The Republicans had a small number of locals who knew everyone by name. Later that afternoon, realizing that inner city residents, who were overwhelmingly Democratic, were not coming out to vote, the campaign dispatched a caravan to make some noise and roust these voters. This was when I realized we were probably going to lose the election. Hamilton county, a traditional Republican stronghold, was a rout.

This year will be different. When Barack Obama, whom I had been supporting since before he decided to run, improbably won the Democratic nomination, I knew I would be heading back to Cincinnati. Ohio may once again determine the presidential election, but this year there are more states in play. The campaign’s field operation in battleground states is enormous, well organized, and disciplined. They’ve asked willing volunteers to commit to at least five weeks of work, in an effort to make sure that as the election draws near, the ground game is staffed by people who know the area they’re working and are prepared for the enormous amount of work that will take place in the month before the election. So I am headed to Ohio tomorrow morning, this time taking my friend Jon to help work the college campuses during the week where voter registration and early voting are both allowed. After that I will be fielding hundreds of volunteers to persuade undecided voters and ensure that this time the people come out to vote.

You can be a part of it this campaign. Please contact me if you want to come to Ohio and help put Barack Obama in the White House. As of this writing, 34 days before the election, the polls in Ohio are now dead even. All the pundits are predicting a close election in Ohio, and nationwide. But this year, there may be an Ohio surprise.