As Obama HQ opens in Ann Arbor

from National One Corps


Saturday July 26, 2008: I was invited to the opening of the Obama HQ
in Ann Arbor, MI, to mark 100 days before the election.

It was a hot, hazy, humid morning, but I went, and found 160 others
there, including Debbie Dingell, a total plus in the Michigan
Democratic Party. I also ran into a very cool Obama volunteer there,
Denise Heath. A self-desccribed Leftist, Denise was originally a
supporter of John Edwards. Outmaneuvered by morons in the Michigan
Democratic Party, Denise could not vote for JRE in the Michigan
Primary on January 15, however due to the fact that the National DNC
had stripped Michigan of its delegates for “jumping the gun” ahead of
Super Tuesday. The paid volunteers were kinda creepy. I got the
feeling they had only read the Cliff Notes to The Audacity of Hope.
The staff member who introduced Debbie to the crowd introuced her as
"Mrs Dingell" as if she were a elderly matron or mental patient.
Debbie gave the best speech of all, warning that GOP had yet to pull
out their weapons in this critical race to take back the White House.
Michigan polls have McCain and Obama running neck and neck. Scary,
eh? Let's forget the primary and focus on the general election.
Michigan has 17 electors! Gore won Michigan handily in 2000, and
brought in a mediocre Senate candidate (Debbie Stabenow) on his coat-
tails, dumping a Bush sycophant (Spence Abraham) and helping keep a
Democratic voice during the middle Bush years

Bored with the Obama people, I strolled up Liberty Street toward
campus, and then down State Street to the Michigan Union. There, I
thought about a young John F. Kennedy, standing on those steps on
October 14, 1960, feeling, like Denise an incredibly brash feeling of
American hope after 8 years of Republicans in the White House. Jack
spoke without notes to Michigan students on those steps, referring to
his own Harvard as an Eastern branch of the University of Michigan:
“It is the most important campaign since 1933, mostly because of the
problems which press upon the United States, and the opportunities
which will be presented to us in the 1960s. The opportunity must be
seized, through the judgment of the President, and the vigor of the
executive, and the cooperation of the Congress. Through these I think
we can make the greatest possible difference.

How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your
days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing
to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around
the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one
year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to
contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the
answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think
Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far
greater than we have ever made in the past.”

On that day, on those steps, the Peace Corps was born. Thanks Jack.
Your torch still burns, as I learned today, from Denise and from other
new friends like Peter I had met at the Obama HQ!

Peace Corps? One Corps? Shall we organize here to celebrate the 48th
anniversary of October 14?

The author posts as antonius.alta