YES WE CAN

posted by: Nick | on: Thursday, 23 October 2008, 11:44

Yesterday we veered off our intended schedule …because Barack Obama was in town. Well, actually he was 30 miles away in Leesburg, Virginia but given the size of this country that was as good as down the road. It was simply too good an opportunity to miss.

According to the media there were 35,000 people, literally standing in a field in the middle of nowhere – almost double the crowd the organisers had been expecting. People queued for hours to hear the Presidential candidate speak for 20 minutes. By the time he came on stage the weather was freezing but no-one was complaining.

Earlier in the day everyone went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Everyone except me that is, as I was having to deal with the latest twists and turns in our Employment Bill campaign back home. More on that later.

Our group has now swelled to 16, with the arrival of two more people from the UK. It is great to have so many people out here but it is just increasing the logistical problems – not least because our van can only take 12 people!

Following the Obama rally we headed back into downtown DC to meet Chuck Rocha, the political director for the United Steelworkers Union. Over a fabulous Italian meal Chuck explained how his union was mobilising the vote in the election. We’ll be meeting up with Chuck and the USW folks again in our trip but one part of the discussion really resonated with me. In talking about how his union were dealing with the Obama race issue Chuck explained that they confronted it head-on. As Searchlight argues back home – you just can’t dodge the tough issues. The results over here is that internal polling shows that slightly over 70% of USW members are backing Obama.