June 15
Today was the first day of actual grassroots activity. The Obama campaign asked us to hold voter registration drives. We had two-and-a-half-hours to reach our goal of registering 7 people. My group was responsible for a stretch of 3 blocks along High St. which is in downtown Columbus. Now even though Columbus is the capital of Ohio as well as the largest city in Ohio don’t fall under the assumption like I did that Columbus must be like New York City or Washington, DC in terms of pedestrian traffic or activity. In reality, downtown Columbus on a Sunday afternoon looked like New York City in the movie I Am Legend, and I was Will Smith. Absolutely deserted. I must’ve walked 4 miles in a circle; I swear if I walked straight I would’ve reached Ohio State. I had conversations with and talked to 25-30 people. My end result was 0 registries. I was kicked off the property of an Episcopal church even though I believe I wasn’t on their property. Sorry Mr. Layperson for trying to enfranchise members of your congregation. It’s not like I went to them. They came up to me to ask to fill out the form. Maybe the guy didn’t like me because I was Catholic. I almost had one. I met a homeless guy by a bus stop. He wanted $.54 for a bus ride. I told him I didn’t have any money (I really didn’t. I didn’t plan on bribing people to register…I think that’s illegal anyway) but if he’d like he could register to vote. He gladly accepted. Problem was he was drunk. So his handwriting was illegible. I saw him stumble twice. So I told him that he could sit down and I’d fill out the form. That led to another problem of his lack of knowledge of his street name and zip code as well as many other pieces of information. So I decided trying to sign up a drunk homeless man wasn’t going to work out. I met this other homeless man. Very nice, having a smoke. He said he wanted to register. I told him he could put the homeless shelter as his address. So he started filling out information, stopped, and told me he had to turn himself in two days from now. Another disheartening blow. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be out by November 4th. We still talked about how both of us hated Bush and the war in Iraq. I left smiling and laughing, but without a completed registration form. Those were my two best chances. This one very well dressed man going to a play at the Palace Theater, which is one of the nicest theaters in Ohio, was walking with his family. I thought it would be a nice civics lesson for his kids to have a volunteer approach him to ask about registering to vote. He, very smugly, brushed me aside. I later overheard him say to people he was standing in line with, “They’re supporting that Muslim guy for president. I was shocked, not because of the statement (it’s expected) but because HE said it. I guess that was a prejudiced decision on my part. Just because you’re well-off, or at least show the appearance of being well-off doesn’t mean you’re informed…or have half a brain. How I wish that the homeless guy about to go to prison magically swapped places with that “rich” a**hole.
On another note, my host family was nice enough to drive me to Ohio State University, what will be the new Columbus Clippers stadium, and the Columbus Blue Jackets arena to give me a tour since they know I love sports. Their son pointed out the Horseshoe with its gigantic stained glass windows (amazingly beautiful), the basketball arena, and the academic part of the campus. In all honesty, I have to give OSU the edge on quality of the football stadium over Michigan. But UM definitely gets the nod of having a nicer campus. Of course Cornell has the best campus of all three hands down. Not even close.
