{"id":174,"date":"2009-08-02T10:33:23","date_gmt":"2009-08-02T17:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/35.225.155.113\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/08\/02\/campaign_for_change\/"},"modified":"2019-10-13T13:10:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T20:10:43","slug":"campaign-for-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/08\/campaign-for-change.html","title":{"rendered":"Campaign for Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><br \/>\n<title><\/title><br \/>\n<meta name=\"GENERATOR\" content=\"OpenOffice.org 3.1  (Linux)\"><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\n<!--\n@page { margin: 0.79in }\nP { margin-bottom: 0.08in }\nA:link { color: #0000ff; so-language: zxx }\n--><br \/>\n<\/style>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">A little over a year ago I packed up my car<br \/>\nwith a weeks worth of clothing, left my home in Chicago for<br \/>\nthe unknown awaiting me in St. Paul, Minnesota. Two weeks previous I<br \/>\nhad agreed to take on the position of State IT Director for Barack<br \/>\nObama&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barackobama.com\/\">Presidential Campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/Campaign\">Campaign<\/a> is most definitely the right<br \/>\nword. I have never been in the military, but given the stories I&#8217;ve<br \/>\nread and heard from strangers and friends I feel that even if I can&#8217;t<br \/>\ntotal relate, I understand parts of the experience: Life away<br \/>\nfrom home; 18 to 20 hour work days, seven days a week; extremely<br \/>\nlimited resources; time, money, personnel and materials.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">The job was something akin to working<br \/>\nas a Quartermaster for the Army; Optimizing limited technical<br \/>\nresources so that the campaign staff and volunteers could get to<br \/>\nwork. In one quite surreal moment I was aghast in our Mankato office &#8211; a<br \/>\ntown of 30,000 people some 90 miles southwest of St. Paul\/Minneapolis<br \/>\n&#8211; shaking my head at a hulking old HP LaserJet 5 printer that the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Minnesota_Democratic-Farmer-Labor_Party\">DFL<\/a><br \/>\nhad procured. The machine was useless. Actually, less than useless<br \/>\nsince it took up quite a bit of room in an office that had none &#8211; the<br \/>\n&#8220;office&#8221; being housed in a former beauty salon that had a total<br \/>\nof three salon stations turned into desks. The printer in question<br \/>\nhad no internal printer server &#8211; the card no doubt having been<br \/>\nremoved by the refurbisher who sold the unit, no standard parallel<br \/>\ncable &#8211; HP having used a non-standard PIN configuration for their<br \/>\nparallel ports and a power cord that would work just fine, for a 240<br \/>\nvolt outlet commonly found in the United Kingdom and Ireland.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">I&#8217;ve been asked if working on the<br \/>\ncampaign was &#8220;fun.&#8221; Fun is not the word I would use to describe<br \/>\nit.  By my third sleep deprived, highly stressed day on the job, I<br \/>\nfelt like I had made a terrible mistake. I can say without at doubt<br \/>\nthat I &#8220;worked more&#8221; in those months leading up to the election<br \/>\nthan in any other period of time in my life. While the feeling of<br \/>\nmisstep abated as I got a better handle on the job, fun still doesn&#8217;t<br \/>\ncome to mind. The controlled chaos of Election Day, participating in<br \/>\na <a href=\"http:\/\/my.barackobama.com\/page\/community\/post\/xavierlopezayala\/gGgH3T\">Michelle Obama Rally<\/a>, witnessing first hand <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/#hl=en&amp;q=Al+Franken&amp;aq=f&amp;oq=&amp;aqi=g10&amp;fp=WJN00bVEX_k\">Al Franken<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alfranken.com\/\">Senate<br \/>\nrun<\/a>, meeting new and interesting people and watching people&#8217;s<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com\/2008\/08\/24\/obama-offices-in-st-paul-vandalized\/\">passions being unleashed<\/a> would be, haunting, impressive, and<br \/>\nextraordinary. Memorable. Yes, memorable would be a better one word<br \/>\nadjective.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">Of course that, in part, is to be<br \/>\nexpected. To try and take advantage of just that I wrote a bit while<br \/>\nworking on the campaign. While my plan of writing at least once a<br \/>\nweek ultimately didn&#8217;t pan out, I lacked time to decompress and<br \/>\norganize my thoughts collectively; I did get in a few moments of<br \/>\nthought clearing writing in:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">July 26th: <a href=\"http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/2008\/07\/tired-on-the-first-day.html\">Tired On The<br \/>\nFirst Day<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">August 2nd: <a href=\"http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/2008\/08\/what-day-is-it.html\">What Day Is<br \/>\nIt?<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">August 10th: <a href=\"http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/2008\/08\/the-olympic-movement.html\">The<br \/>\nOlympic Movement<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">August 23rd: <a href=\"http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/2008\/08\/the-ticket.html\">The<br \/>\nTicket<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">Oct 30th: <a href=\"http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/2008\/10\/five-thirty-eight.html\">Five Thirty<br \/>\nEight<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">Plus the usual photos and videos which<br \/>\ncan be found here on <a href=\"http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/\">pdw.weinstein.org<\/a> and elsewhere:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"><font color=\"#0000ff\"><span lang=\"zxx\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/campaign-for-change\/\">http:\/\/pdw.weinstein.org\/campaign-for-change\/<\/a><\/u><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"><font color=\"#0000ff\"><span lang=\"zxx\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/minnesota.barackobama.com\/page\/content\/mnhome\">http:\/\/minnesota.barackobama.com\/page\/content\/mnhome<\/a><\/u><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"><font color=\"#0000ff\"><span lang=\"zxx\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/mnforchange\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/mnforchange<\/a><\/u><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"><font color=\"#0000ff\"><span lang=\"zxx\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/barackobamadotcom\/\">http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/barackobamadotcom\/<\/a><\/u><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"><font color=\"#0000ff\"><span lang=\"zxx\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pdweinstein\/sets\/72157617105373228\/\">http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pdweinstein\/sets\/72157617105373228\/<\/a><\/u><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\">Enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A little over a year ago I packed up my car with a weeks worth of clothing, left my home in Chicago for the unknown awaiting me in St. Paul, Minnesota. Two weeks previous I had agreed to take on the position of State IT Director for Barack Obama&#8217;s Presidential Campaign. Campaign is most definitely [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[134,135,189,23,137],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":736,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}