http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24588813/
Candidate's foot soldiers encounter name-calling, vandalism, bomb threats
By Kevin Merida
The Wa****ngton Post
updated 2:04 a.m. CT, Tues., May. 13, 2008
WA****NGTON - Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama
campaign
headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list
in
the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless
sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day
before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while
canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur
since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State
University,
in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.
Here's the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of
Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting sup****t for Obama at malls,
on
street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into "a
horrible
response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of
them
had anticipated.
"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black
person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just
weren't receptive."
For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of
his
field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are
encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed
--
and unre****ted -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their
faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white
volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping
from
people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the
first African American president.
The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public
events
and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is
largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot
soldiers
deal with away from the media spotlight.
Meeting cruel reaction
Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty
one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she
could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in
Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The
responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he
couldn't
possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F.
Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for
Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would
not
vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered
this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white
people, and black people look out for black people."
Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the
experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly
positive.
The campaign released this statement in response to questions about
encounters with racism: "After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50
states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but
impressed
and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans
from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama's
view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest."
Campaign field work can be an exercise in confronting the fears, anxieties
and prejudices of voters. Veterans of the civil rights movement know what
this feels like, as do those who have been involved in battles over
busing,
immigration or abortion. But through the Obama campaign, some young people
are having their first experience joining a cause and meeting cruel
reaction.
On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were
holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers
cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a
common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign
staffers.
Frederick Murrell, a black Kokomo High School senior, was not there but
heard what happened. He was more disappointed than surprised. During his
own
canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had "a lot of doors slammed" in his
face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip in broad daylight?
"I was very shocked at first," Murrell said. "Then again, I wasn't,
because
we have a lot of racism here."
Vandalism, bomb threats
The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office
was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A
large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other
windows
were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor,
the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO"
and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright."
Ray McCormick was notified of the incident at about 2:45 a.m. A farmer and
conservationist, McCormick had erected a giant billboard on a major
highway
on behalf of Farmers for Obama. He also was housing the Obama campaign
worker manning the office. When McCormick arrived at the office, about two
hours before he was due out of bed to plant corn, he grabbed his camera
and
wanted to alert the media. "I thought, this is a big deal." But he was
told
Obama campaign officials didn't want to make a big deal of the incident.
McCormick took photos anyway and distributed some.
"The pictures represent what we are breaking through and overcoming," he
said. As McCormick, who is white, sees it, Obama is succeeding despite
these
incidents. Later, there would be bomb threats to three Obama campaign
offices in Indiana, including the one in Vincennes, according to campaign
sources.
Obama has not spoken much about racism during this campaign. He has sought
to emphasize connections among Americans rather than divisions. He
shrugged
off safety concerns that led to early Secret Service protection and has
told
black senior citizens who worry that racists will do him harm: Don't fret.
Earlier in the campaign, a 68-year-old woman in Carson City, Nev., voiced
concern that the country was not ready to elect an African American
president.
"Will there be some folks who probably won't vote for me because I am
black?
Of course," Obama said, "just like there may be somebody who won't vote
for
Hillary because she's a woman or wouldn't vote for John Edwards because
they
don't like his accent. But the question is, 'Can we get a majority of the
American people to give us a fair hearing?' "
Skilled at bridging divides
Obama has won 30 of 50 Democratic contests so far, the kind of nationwide
electoral triumph no black candidate has ever realized. That he is on the
brink of capturing the Democratic nomination, some say, is a testament to
how far the country has progressed in overcoming racism and evidence of
Obama's skill at bridging divides.
Obama has won five of 12 primaries in which black voters made up less than
10 percent of the electorate, and caucuses in states such as Idaho and
Wyoming that are overwhelmingly white. But exit polls show he has
struggled
to attract white voters who didn't attend college and earn less than
$50,000
a year. Today, he and Hillary Clinton square off in West Virginia, a state
where she is favored and where the votes of working-class whites will
again
be closely watched.
For the most part, Obama campaign workers say, the 2008 election cycle has
been exhilarating. On the ground, the Obama campaign is being driven by
youngsters, many of whom are imbued with an optimism undeterred by racial
intolerance. "We've grown up in a different world," says Danielle Ross.
Field offices are staffed by 20-somethings who hold positions -- state
director, regional field director, field organizer -- that are typically
off
limits to newcomers to presidential politics.
Gillian Bergeron, 23, was in charge of a five-county regional operation in
northeastern Pennsylvania. The oldest member of her team was 27. At
Scranton's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade, some of the green Obama
signs
distributed by staffers were burned along the parade route. That was the
first signal that this wasn't exactly Obama country. There would be
others.
In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough
Mayor Norm Ball explained his sup****t of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack
Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There
is
so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world.
His
stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against
the
white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on
him.
"No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on
the
Bible when they take the oath of office."
Obama's campaign workers have grown wearily accustomed to the lies about
the
candidate's supposed radical Muslim ties and lack of patriotism. But they
are sometimes astonished when public officials such as Ball or others
representing the campaign of their opponent traffic in these falsehoods.
Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest
polling
location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by
a
Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert
replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on
Seifert's T-****rt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can
you trust that?"
Racial attitudes difficult to measure
Pollsters have found it difficult to accurately measure racial attitudes,
as
some voters are unwilling to acknowledge the role that race plays in their
thinking. But some are not. Susan Dzimian, a Clinton sup****ter who owns
residential properties, said outside a polling location in Kokomo that
race
was a factor in how she viewed Obama. "I think if it was somebody other
than
him, I'd accept it," she said of a black candidate. "If Colin Powell had
run, I would be willing to accept him."
The previous evening, Dondra Ewing was driving the neighborhoods of
Kokomo,
looking to turn around voters like Dzimian. Ewing, 47, is a chain-smoking
middle school guidance counselor, a black single mother of two and one of
the most fiercely vigilant Obama volunteers in Kokomo, which was once a Ku
Klux Klan stronghold. On July 4, 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest Klan
gathering in history -- an estimated 200,000 followers flocked to a local
park. But these are not the 1920s, and Ewing believes she can persuade
anybody to back Obama. Her mother, after all, was the first African
American
elected at-large to the school board in a community that is 10 percent
black.
Kokomo, population 46,000, is another hard-hit Midwestern industrial town
stung by layoffs. Longtimers wistfully remember the glory years of
Continental Steel and speak mournfully about the jobs ****pped overseas.
Kokomo Sanitary Pottery, which made bathroom sinks and toilets, shut down
a
couple of months ago and took with it 150 jobs.
Aaron Roe, 23, was mowing lawns at a local cemetery recently, lamenting
his
$8-an-hour job with no benefits. He had earned a community college degree
as
an industrial electrician, but learned there was no electrical work to be
found for someone with his experience, which is to say none. Politics
wasn't
on his mind; frustration was. If he were to vote, it would not be for
Obama,
he said. "I just got a funny feeling about him," Roe said, a feeling he
couldn't specify, except to say race wasn't a part of it. "Race ain't
nothing," said Roe, who is white. "It's how they're going to help the
country."
People with funny feelings
The Aaron Roes are exactly who Dondra Ewing was after: people with funny
feelings.
At the Bradford Run Apartments, she found Robert Cox, a retiree who spent
30
years working for an electronics manufacturer making computer chips. He
was
in his suspenders, grilling ****sh kebab, which he had never eaten.
"Something new," Cox said, recommended by his son who was visiting from
Colorado.
Ewing was selling him hard on Obama. "There are more than two families
that
can run the United States of America," she said, "and their names aren't
Bush and Clinton."
"Yeah, I know, I know," Cox said, remaining noncommittal.
He opened the grill and peeked at the kebabs. "It's not his race, because
I
got real good friends and all that," Cox continued. "If anything would
keep
him from getting elected, it would be his name. It might turn off some
older
people."
Like him?
"No, older than me," said Cox, 66.
Ewing kept talking, until finally Cox said, "Probably Obama," when asked
directly how he would vote.
As she walked away, Ewing said: "I think we got him."
But truthfully, she wasn't feeling so sure.
Staff writer Peter Slevin and polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed
to this re****t.
© 2008 The Wa****ngton Post Company
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