My Campaign trip to Colorado...

So my trip started off flying out of Reagan at 5 am to Denver. 8 AU students ended up going along with 8 GW students. It was an all expense paid trip to Colorado to Campaign for John McCain and Colorado U.S. Senate Canidate Bob Schaffer. Overall it was a good trip, I had a lot of fun. But it was also a behind the scenes look at how campaigns are run. I think I learned more about elections in those 5 days than I learned in any text book I've read.

When we first arrived in Denver we were picked up by campaign staff which took us straight to McCain and Schaffer Headquarters, which we in the same building. There we started working right away. At first we just did basic volunteer work. We put together yard signs and literature that we would distribute. We also did some phonebanking and we got to know a lot of the staff/ask them any questions we had about the campaign. Later we got to meet Mr. Shaffer and ask him questions about why he was running and about his campaign. He was really nice and open about the amount of work and money it takes to run a campaign. He started campaigning a year ago and has had a staff employed for about that long. Most of his staff was relatively young, with most just graduating from college a few years ago. The rest of the day we spent doing whatever the campaign needed from us. When we finally got back to the hotel which was around 1 a.m., we were all exhausted from our early morning flight, but had to be at headquarters by 7 the next morning.

Sunday we sign waved early in the morning, did some phonebanking, and spent the rest of the day for about 7 hours canvassing different neighborhoods. We knocked on doors talking to people and passing out literature. The neighborhood I went to was really nice, and most of the people I talked to were polite, even if they didn't support McCain. Later that night we were supposed to meet Sarah Palin at a rally in Colorado Springs, but the campaign decided to leave us behind to do things at the office while the staff went to the rally. We were all pretty disappointed, but we still had fun hanging out together in the office. However, we did get to meet someone cool that night when Mitt Romney decided to stop by our office. He was such a nice guy and is really easy to talk to, I was really excited to get a picture with him. He ended up straying for about an hour. Once people found out he was there, more people started showing up to see him. Eventually we had to move outside so he could talk to everyone becuase the building had become too small.

Monday we were driven to different campaign offices to work, (I went to the office in Greely)then we split up to canvas different neighborhoods all day. This neighborhood, unlike the first, was kind of bad. I was kind of mad that they left us there by ourselves, especially since I had two cars stop and I was chased by a dog when I went up to a house and didn't notice the rottweiler that was sitting on the porch on a leash. We ended up walking for 7 miles passing out literature. Later that night we went back to our different campaign offices and did more work and phonebanking. We ended up going to bed around midnight even though we had to get up really early on tuesday.

Election Day was the most fun I had on the trip. We got up at 2:30 and were at headquarters by 3 a.m. to go "signing." I learned you have to do this early in the morning so the city won't remove your signs. This is because canidates in Colorado (I'm not sure about the rest of the U.S.) are not alloweed to put up signs on highways or on city property without permission, but they do it anyway. At first I was a little hesitant to dress in dark clothes and get into cars to put up signs illegally, but I felt better when I realized that both parties do it, and if we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have had any signs up, while the democrats would have becuase they were out doing the same thing. It was a lot of fun to compete with the other campaign to see who could put up more signs. We did mess with each other's signs, which your not suppossed to do either, but it was done in friendly competition. We even posted signs in front of the democrat party headquarters, which were removed within 5 minutes. lol We watched our signs get taken down, and had some people yell at us, but we also ran into people who helped us and honked as we put up our signs. That was the most fun I had the whole trip. In the afternoon we passed out more literature at the polls, and then spent the rest of the time, until the last polling place closed, phonebanking. We called reminding people to vote and offering people rides to get to the polls until the last minute. Everyday we were at headquarters there were a lot of people volunteering and phonebanking, but election day was crazy. People used their own cell phones because the campaign ran out of phones, and people were everywhere sitting in the hallway and even in the stairs making phone calls. I was shocked by how many people came from far away to campaign in Colorado. I personally met volunteers from Texas, Nevada, Utah, Alaska, an American citizen from Germany, and a family from Illinois. Also, during the day a lot of congressmen stopped by to talk to people working and to campaign. We didn't really get to watch the news or see any results until after they had started coming in because everyone was running around doing things until the last second of the campaign. The atmosphere in the office was the best part, because even though we were down in the polls the campaign did a good job of making us hopeful. They held competitions to see who could make the most calls, and had an endless supply of food. lol I don't think I've ever eaten that much at one time before. Everyone was in such a good mood and very optimistic.

Afterwards, we went back to our hotel and changed for the "victory party" at a hotel downtown,which didn't turn out to be a victory party afterall lol. By the time we got there we already knew that both McCain and Shaffer had lost the election. It was a really formal event and it was nice to see everyone all dressed up, but it was also really depressing to be at, although the speakers tried to motivate us for 2010 and 2012, it was hard to listen to. However, I am glad I was in Colorado with other republicans, instead of on AU's campus from what I heard and saw on the news. Being in D.C. probably would have made me go crazy, even more so than I already did after the election. lol We ended up having a good cry, lamenting on how much work we had put into campaigning, and then having a late night dinner party afterwards.

Although I'm very moderate, this loss devestated me, and continues to make me very sad. Before I left for the trip I thought I would be ok with Obama as my President, but having put so much work into campaigning this past week and since the beginning of summer (back in Ohio) before then, and meeting him, and other supporters, I am not. Say what you you want about McCain, but he is my hero. I look up to him as a canidate, and as an overall good person. He is the person I supported for President from the beginning, he is someone I trust. I think America made a mistake and I can't wait until 2012!!! I would like to write more about the election and of McCain's loss, but I'll do it in another post.