Sunday, November 09, 2008
I had to tell this story several dozen times at RubyConf, so I thought I’d wrap it up for posterity.
It all started with an email. The campaign was running a contest entitled “Front Row to History,” and would select
5 first-time and 5 repeat donators to attend the rally in Chicago— what would later become a massive victory celebration.
I had donated to the campaign before and had, like many of you, become more and more fervent in my support of Obama as election day approached. I’m an independent voter, but my support was won after researching policies and watching the tone of the campaigns as they progressed.
So, I did a bit of early voting with my wallet. Again.
Halloween night was fantastic. I spent the evening with my wife, Melissa, and sons Braedyn and Jamis (Peter Pan and Captain Hook, respectively) in the Hyde Park neighborhood in Austin, guests of my generous boss, Steve Sanderson, and his lovely family. We had a blast; with well over a thousand kids and blocked-off roads, this was the place to be.
Then, unexpectedly, the Barack Obama blog called, wanting an interview. They had read the little blurb I had added on the donation form as a cathartic gesture, detailing my support in light of the fact I was an Arabic Linguist in the USAF for 6 years, before 9/11 and through the first couple years of the war. As they explained it, they were just looking for material for a blog entry. I expected a cross-section of donors would be detailed on the blog, and that in essence I would just be a part of a campaign funding post-mortem, or something equally mundane.
But something about the interview struck me: it was deep. It seemed like more than the material for a pedestrian blurb and picture. Did they really have the time to invest so much energy in a long list of interviews, mere days before the election?
I joked with my wife that maybe they needed to prep press decks ahead of time for “Front Row to History,” since they’d want to announce the winners as late as possible, but they’d need to gather the material for the release as quietly as possible. We laughed; me a little more uneasily.
But stuff like this doesn’t happen to people like us, right?
Around noon on the 3rd I was sitting at work, furiously trying to track down a bug in a piece of software I was writing when I received a call from the friendly Obama blogger. My side of the conversation probably went something like this:
Oh, hi Molly, how are you doing today? Great, great. Doing very well… umm.. what? WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS? REALLY? Yeah, I think I can do that. No, really. Yeah. takes breath Okay, I can’t believe this, this is insane! Okay, I’ll wait for the call from travel…
I went home early. I’ll get to that software bug eventually.
The next day, off I flew to Chicago, taking my friend Damon (who was probably even more surprised, considering he was visiting family in Tulsa, and didn’t see this coming at all).
More on the election night party itself soon.
Welcome to the personal website of Bruce Williams, longtime Rubyist, graphic designer, language enthusiast, amateur chef, and oil painter of little skill. I am a work in progress.
I have the good fortune to write code for a living. Take a peek at my work and personal projects.
Read more about me here.