While 90 percent of the Binghamton population went home to enjoy the comforts of home cooking and their own beds, I stayed here, in the midst of the rain (and mist) and ventured down to Athens, Penn. to canvass for the Obama-Biden Campaign. While it was not the Athenian Democracy you might imagine, with the direct representation of the voters themselves, it was an example of an economically depressed town with churches plopped in the middle of neighborhoods, along with a guns and ammo store for good measure.
Quite fittingly, after I walked past the guns and ammo store, I saw a house with a McCain-Palin sign proudly stuck in the ground, while not too far off I saw an Obama sign, firmly holding its ground as well. It wasn’t until I started walking around that I realized how bizarre campaigning really is. I tried to tell myself that it was like trick-or-treating, except that my friend and I were dropped off in another state, in a town I’d never heard of, and all we had was a list of addresses, Obama pamphlets and a Google map to tell us where to go (although I don’t know too many people who would go to these great lengths for candy). Rather than ask for candy, you had to talk about a touchy subject that most tend to shy away from: politics.
The hardest part was trying to figure out where the hell you were and which place you should go to next, in accordance to the proximity of your current location. I couldn’t tell if I was being brave and noble, or naive and stupid, as I embraced my new role as an ambassador of the Obama campaign to these people. With the leaves turning mush on the ground due to the rain, the neighborhoods seemed more dreary and sleepy than anything else. Yet our first house lifted our spirits for a little while when we encountered an elderly woman who was very enthusiastic about voting for Obama — a relief considering McCain is closer to her in age. Surprisingly, it seemed that many voters were still undecided, even this late in the game. And there were those who were adamantly against another Republican president, yet felt the pangs of harsh feelings about Sen. Clinton’s nomination loss. I encountered one man who expressed these sentiments, and I sensed he was apprehensive about voting for someone who was black. I tried to put myself in his shoes by explaining that I’d feel the same if Sen. Obama lost, yet I’d vote for Sen. Clinton because she represents my political values far more than Sen. McCain; this is especially true being that Sen. Clinton has voiced her supporters to support Barack. He paused for what seemed to be a moment of reflection in response to what I had just proposed.
After walking around for a few hours and vowing to never walk around again, I got a greater sense of the ambivalence that permeated throughout Pennsylvania and I truly know why it is a battleground state. I only hope that my different perspective offered them some food for thought and had some sort of tangible effect on them. Perhaps I’ll never know exactly who I had an effect on. But if Obama wins Pennsylvania, maybe they were the change that I could believe in after all.