In the Transition Period

I am probably like you, still coming down from the high of Barack securing the Democratic nomination last Tuesday night. Maybe it’s because of Hillary Clinton’s delayed concession and suspension of her campaign that has made it seem like this is still so recent, but I still feel like I’m basking in the glow of our great success.

I also recognize that there is so much more to do, and I’m preparing myself for the next phase. I have spent so much time at the Palo Alto Obama office, but since last Tuesday night when I celebrated with about a hundred of my closest friends, I haven’t done much. I did go out of town to see my newest grandson, but I’m back and I don’t want to burn too much daylight.

I have volunteered to be in charge of my neighborhood when I attended the grand opening of the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee office, and that was a fabulous event, but there is so much more to do. The Democratic National Convention in August seems so far off, and I am so excited to attend and represent my constituents and district as an Obama delegate, but I am starting to feel restless and I’ve got to get back into the groove I was in just last week.

I want to encourage any of you that feel a little lethargic like myself to push yourself. I’m ready to pivot into a new position, but I don’t know what that is just yet. I’m ready to do just about anything, but I could use a little help. Anyone who reads this from the campaign office, feel free to contact me and give me something important to do. I will be joining groups in my area registering voters, and I will be perusing the recent information that I received from the campaign of ways that I can participate and looking at mybarackobama.com as to what is going on around my area.

I received an email the other day from a lovely woman and a good friend of mine from the Silicon Valley/Palo Alto office, and she was expressing something that I also feel very strongly, that the friends and acquaintances that I’ve been fortunate enough to develop over the past six months have been so critical and important to me, that they really have become my family away from my at-home family. The camaraderie that we’ve shared and the ups and downs that we’ve experienced have brought us so close with one another, and I am almost desperate to get that feeling again.

But I’m not an unrealistic dreamer, and I can get so much personal satisfaction out of anything positive that I’ll be doing for the campaign. I am sufficiently emboldened when I see misinformation and lies spread about Barack, and it makes me more and more determined to make sure that everyone I know or come across at least hears the truth about who Obama is and what he stands for and plans to do for this country, and if they won’t listen to me, at least I will have tried.

I have no illusions that everyone can be convinced. There are a few people around me that think they know better, that somehow I’ve drunk the Obama Kool-aid and am just so naïve, but every one of these people (and they know who they are) have not followed Barack the way I have, they have not read his books, they don’t get their news from a variety of sources, and everything else that allows us to be well informed about what the truth is. These same people have relatively no knowledge of who McCain is, either.

I find it close to incredible that the same people who are so frightened of change or anything new are also the same people so woefully uninformed, so culturally and political unaware and so smugly clinging to agendas of years past. I will consider it my personal mission to make sure that all of these people hear from me, and if they don’t wish to open their minds, so be it. Like I said, at least I will have tried. If I add this responsibility to the list of things that I know I’ll be doing in the coming months leading up to the general election, I doubt that I’ll have much time to be in a funk for too much longer.