"Your voice is changing the world ... "

Barack Obama during a surprise visit to our GOTV training in Columbus, Ohio on Friday, October 10th, 2008. He called us the “shock troops.”

Then he told the story of the woman who started the “fired up” chant and he told it well, telling us about a time when he agreed to go to the boonies of the boonies, a town called Greenwood in South Carolina, early on in the primary season. He remembered arriving into South Carolina, bone tired, dragging his suitcase, “dreaming” about the pillow, and being met by a staffer who reminded him that they had to be up and ready to go at 6am. He described getting up in the morning, longing for at least some blue sky when he opened the curtain, but no, the opposite, grey skies and pouring rain, getting in to the car, driving out into the middle of nowhere’s nowhere, to this place called Greenwood. When they arrived, there were about 20 people there to meet him, no more, all of them damp and wet. He said it was not a good time in the campaign. The press was giving him a hard time about something, and here he was, in the middle of nowhere, in the pouring rain, with barely anyone there to meet him, not feeling too good … when from behind him a voice calls out “fired up (pause)” to which the few people there respond, “fired up!” and the voice calls out again, “ready to go (pause)” to which the crowd respond once again. “Barack Obama!” the voice cries out, “our next president.” Barack looked around and sees this “little lady” behind him, calling out these chants. He was very funny in imitating this woman, he did the little dance that she had apparently done, her body moving to the rhythm of the words, and she repeated these chants, and the group joined in and Barack looked at his staff and realized that he was being upstaged by this woman, so sort of stood back and let her have it… and he said, what happened was, that he became fired up… this woman was firing him up, and changing the whole atmosphere in the room. So he used her refrain with his staff. “Are you fired up?!” and they would say, “yes, we’re fired up!” and so it became what it is now. And then Barack got the way he gets when he’s moving a crowd and which I always love to see. The sort of hunched over body, shoulders forward, fist moving almost as if he’s boxing. “Your voice can change a world,” he cries, “Your voice can change a nation … when you are out there knocking on doors, when you are talking to people, just know that your voice is changing the world … if we win Ohio, we win the Election, if we win the Election we can change the country, if we change the country, we can change the world …”

So yes, what a day. He finished up and started to shake hands. I was right there so I stuck my hand out. He missed it.

“It doesn’t matter,” I thought, “I’m all right …” but then I thought, “hell try one more time.” This time, we connected. He’s got a good firm grip does out next president. Always a good sign!