The following piece was produced through OffTheBus, a citizen journalism project hosted at the Huffington Post and launched in partnership with NewAssignment.Net. For more information, read Arianna Huffington's project introduction. If you'd like to join our blogging team, sign up here.
On my OffTheBus junket to cover the Obama grassroots campaign in California, I leave East Oakland (see my previous posting) and drive out to Concord in Contra Costa County, a place of gentle hills and fruit orchards that have been claimed by subdivisions and mall sprawl. My destination is AJ's Sports Pub & Grill, where owner Andy Steinberg, a Democrat, has offered the big-screen TV for an Obama event, a Sunday afternoon replay of the Democratic Debate from Iowa's Drake University earlier in the day. Searching for a legal U-turn, I see that AJ's part of Concord is home to immigrants from Mexico, India, and Southeast Asia. The modest shopping center next to AJ's is home to the 99 Cents Only Store, El Taco Man, Nuevo Estilo Beauty Salon, T.J.Maxx, TJ Fades Barbershop, and Launderland.
The dozen Democrats gathered in the back of the sports bar are, with one exception, white and therefore not reflective of this new demographic. Not all of them are old-school, however. Carol Toms, the team coordinator for Obama '08 in California's 10th Congressional District, introduces me to the younger people who have just joined the local Democratic Club. Excited about the new recruits, Carol is thinking ahead to the make-up of Contra Costa's delegation to the national convention. "I need to educate them about it, about choosing delegates --how that works," she says. I ask her if every person ordering beer and fries and taking seats around the TV is an Obama supporter. "No. But we're all Democrats. I guess you could say I'm wearing two hats here. Personally, I'm for Obama, but I also work for the Contra Costa Democratic Party." Like Stanford, the Obama volunteer I have just met in East Oakland, Carol has also been to Camp Obama, in San Francisco. "An intense experience," she says, "with long, long days."
The gathering at AJ's, like the park event in East Oakland, is not exactly as advertised on the Barack Obama campaign web site. Neither, as it turns out, is it pure Barack. Nevertheless, I decide to sit through the televised debate for a second time, but not before Carol introduces me to a guy whom she describes as "one of our top fundraisers." "He got $9,000 for Obama in $250 donations from lawyers in Contra Costa County," she says. The young man (whose name I fail to record -- fortuitously for him, perhaps) is quick to chime in, pleased with himself about how he has been able to get busy lawyers to take his phone calls. "I call a law office and give a name," he says, indicating with a smile that the name is made-up, "saying I'm their local assemblyman -- and it works, because not too many people know the name of their assemblyman, right?" I ponder this Obama enthusiast's confidence, in all meanings of the word, as I hear Obama himself quip for the second time today that to prepare for this debate he "rode in the bumper cars at the state fair." At the least, the cold caller has been engaging in pretexting. But I suppose lawyers are always fair game and I decide to leave it at that.
Instead of watching the debate, I watch the Contra Costa Democrats, none of whom, except Carol, had seen the debate earlier in the day. Allegiances are hard to discern, although everybody boos heartily when Hillary Clinton defends taking money from lobbyists. For the most part, as I soon see, my fellow Democrats at AJ's are engaged only desultorily -- this is our umpteenth debate, after all. I sense that everybody, myself included, is nitpicking. I note that John Edwards does not know what a bunker-buster bomb is. He seems to think it's some kind of nuclear weapon. I roll my eyes at Bill Richardson's plan for "an all-Muslim peace-keeping force" in Iraq. The room is silent when Dennis Kucinich says that he has been "praying to God you will call on me." I wish that Barack Obama would stop referring to the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan as "the hills."
When the debate is over, no one lingers. From the parting comments of this little band, however, I construct a metaphor for Democrats '08. The image pops into my head. The Democrats are like a couple who for the first time in awhile has some discretionary income. The couple enters a flower shop intending to buy. They know they are going to come out with a bouquet. That's a given. And they are shopping in a high-end store, not standing in front of the flower bin at their local grocery. So they know they are going to like what they see. But they're not in a hurry. They take their time. Perversely -- perhaps because they have money and time -- they find themselves criticizing the displays. Are the peonies exceptionally full -- or are they past their prime? Some of the roses look like they will never open. Why aren't there any French tulips? The sunflowers are too big, and there aren't any red ones. In the end, the couple leaves, pleased with themselves, and pleased with their just-purchased beautiful arrangement.
So I'm beginning to suspect that Democrats may be indulging in a luxury they aren't confiding to pollsters: taking their sweet time to pick and choose. If I am right, that is good news for the Obama grassroots campaign, which has been slow to gather momentum. In retrospect, Camp Obama should have been rolled out mid-May, when some college semesters end. June, not August, should have been the big camp month.
Final note. As we leave AJ's, an older lady says, "Joe Biden is such a great man. We really need him in the Senate." An epitaph, perhaps? And perhaps that's exactly why the uber-ambitious, like Clinton and Obama and Edwards, don't rack up too much experience or get too comfortable in the Senate before making their move.
The above piece was produced through OffTheBus, a citizen journalism project hosted at the Huffington Post and launched in partnership with NewAssignment.Net. For more information, read Arianna Huffington's project introduction. If you'd like to join our blogging team, sign up here.