I've been following the primary on both side for what seems like forever now. So when a friend who is involved for MD for for Obama group called me to ask to go volunteer for Obama in South Carolina I jumped on the chance. We agreed to go down on MLK weekend. We left Friday after work, drove down to NC and spent the night at my friend's uncle place near Raleigh, NC. Saturday, we left around 2 pm and headed down to Columbia, SC. We checked in the most ghetto hotel available. The TV didn't work in the first room and we were moved to another. Since we had not contacted the Obama campaign before going down, we did not know what they had planned for the evening. We decided to watch some political shows. After about 2 hours, we were bored and I suggested that we go party hop around all the Republican primary parties. We started at Fred Thompson's Headquarters then to his party. Fred's Party was really sad. They were about 30 people there and at least 10 of them were members of the Media. My friend and I provided all the diversity for that party. When we were there we could Fred was going to drop-out of the race. As we were leaving, a Giuliani aide/volunteer was recruiting one of Thompson aide for Florida.
Rumors of the street had it that Mike Huckabee's (a.k.a "The Huck") party had good cookies and brownies, so we decided to head there next. The Huckaparty was much more happening then Fred's. The Huckabus was huge, although the C-SPAN bus held its own. We barely missed the Huck's speech but managed to get a few pictures as he exited stage right. Since McCain was in Charleston and the rest of Republicans were to lazy to compete in SC, that was all she wrote for that night. We got some food and headed to the ghetto hotel only to find 10 cops in the hallway.
On Sunday, we woke up bright and early to run some errands only find out that county law does not allow for sale of general goods before 1:30 PM on Sunday. No lie. We headed to Obama's headquarters. As soon as we walked in a gentleman said that we would be volunteering at an event where the senator was to speak. GREAT! At the event we were assigned to be Press volunteers or Press chaperone and bouncers as I called it. We help set up, we regulated rowdy photographers with the help of secret service, but mostly we took pictures and help ADA individuals.
On Monday, We woke up bright and early to march in the freezing cold and listen to Clinton, Edwards and Obama speak as well as some less than impressive NAACP leaders. At the end of Clinton's speech we bolted out of there. The trip felt a bit rushed, I wish I could have stayed a bit longer, maybe till the primary. Unfortunately work and other obligations called. I would def do it again. Although, I think I would have to be at least sympathetic to majority of the the candidate's views. It's just too much work for someone whose idea you disagree with.
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