Cascade
10-01-2008, 04:34 PM
This is a story from my niece, who went up to New Hampshire to volunteer for Obama. She wrote yesterday:
"One of the most remarkable moments of my day, however, was witnessing a 20 something year old veteran who just returned from Iraq transform from the McCain 'New Hampshire for Victory' Veteran Coordinator to an Obama volunteer. It sounds unreal, but all happened between 10 am and 6 pm today. The first time he stopped in the office, Corey, the Veteran, was taking a break from his work at the McCain office to talk to his girlfriend, who happened to be volunteering for the Obama office. As he was clearly an atypical character, we began asking Corey what sort of work he was doing for McCain. He expressed dissatisfaction with his work there because his boss was trying to pressure him to write an op-ed piece on McCain's 'victory' in the debate and in support of Palin as the VP, two positions that he was uncomfortable in taking. Abby, one of the field coordinators offered to give him information, specifically about veteran affairs, the issue that he was clearly most interested in. He looked over Obama's policy and began talking about how his superiors were telling him he had to vote for McCain saying that they would lose their benefits under Obama. He confessed he really didn't have confidence that McCain would protect them because in his experience as a New Hampshire militia in Iraq he was rarely given sufficient protective gear, and the gear he was given was leftover from Vietnam War because NH has no supplemental funds from taxes to pay for new equipment. As he was perusing the information about Obama he made a number of jokes about how he was such a rebel because Republicans are not allowed to do research. He also expressed frustration at not being able to find a job solely because employers were not interested in investing in him given that he could be shipped off to war at any point. He did eventually left our office to 'go back to the darkside' but later in the evening, when I was in the middle of my list of calls, I turned around and saw that Corey was being trained by the field coordinator for Obama phone banking. Apparently he had gone to a veterans for McCain phone banking, was the only person there until his supervisor showed up 40 minutes late. He asked her a couple questions about McCain's Veteran policies, to which she gave him some half-truthful answers and he quit on the spot. Needless to say, he had the best line for calling the NH Republicans on his phone list -- 'I'm a Republican veteran calling in support of Obama ... ' Quite remarkable."
Today she reported that the vet had come back to continue volunteering for Obama.
Cascade
"One of the most remarkable moments of my day, however, was witnessing a 20 something year old veteran who just returned from Iraq transform from the McCain 'New Hampshire for Victory' Veteran Coordinator to an Obama volunteer. It sounds unreal, but all happened between 10 am and 6 pm today. The first time he stopped in the office, Corey, the Veteran, was taking a break from his work at the McCain office to talk to his girlfriend, who happened to be volunteering for the Obama office. As he was clearly an atypical character, we began asking Corey what sort of work he was doing for McCain. He expressed dissatisfaction with his work there because his boss was trying to pressure him to write an op-ed piece on McCain's 'victory' in the debate and in support of Palin as the VP, two positions that he was uncomfortable in taking. Abby, one of the field coordinators offered to give him information, specifically about veteran affairs, the issue that he was clearly most interested in. He looked over Obama's policy and began talking about how his superiors were telling him he had to vote for McCain saying that they would lose their benefits under Obama. He confessed he really didn't have confidence that McCain would protect them because in his experience as a New Hampshire militia in Iraq he was rarely given sufficient protective gear, and the gear he was given was leftover from Vietnam War because NH has no supplemental funds from taxes to pay for new equipment. As he was perusing the information about Obama he made a number of jokes about how he was such a rebel because Republicans are not allowed to do research. He also expressed frustration at not being able to find a job solely because employers were not interested in investing in him given that he could be shipped off to war at any point. He did eventually left our office to 'go back to the darkside' but later in the evening, when I was in the middle of my list of calls, I turned around and saw that Corey was being trained by the field coordinator for Obama phone banking. Apparently he had gone to a veterans for McCain phone banking, was the only person there until his supervisor showed up 40 minutes late. He asked her a couple questions about McCain's Veteran policies, to which she gave him some half-truthful answers and he quit on the spot. Needless to say, he had the best line for calling the NH Republicans on his phone list -- 'I'm a Republican veteran calling in support of Obama ... ' Quite remarkable."
Today she reported that the vet had come back to continue volunteering for Obama.
Cascade