As the women had, the men marched up to the podium, one by one telling their stories and making their pitches. A tall man with a shock of prematurely white hair and an easy manner spoke to us about how he once met Barack Obama at a campaign event. They were shaking hands when Obama asked him ‘So where do you live’ ‘Amsterdam’ replied the man ‘Oh really? How come’ asked Obama – ‘Because current U.S. civil law does not allow my same-sex partner to reside in the U.S. as a domestic partner’. The man said that at this point Obama dropped out of politician-pressing the flesh mode and looked directly in his eyes – and suddenly it was just the both of them in the room – ‘That’s not fair!,’ He said, ‘I mean that’s really not fair’. The man was already an Obama supporter and this moment just made him even more so. He finished off by commenting that America needs a ‘healer not a fighter’.
A man who looked to be in his mid-thirties took to the podium and perhaps uttered one of the best one liners of the day “As a Texan living in Macedonia, I’ve been waiting 8 long years to tell Bush to c’mooon Home’
A young man in his twenties who had built and sold his own software company by the time he was 25 and wanted to share some pro-Obama ‘ammo’ explained that he had reviewed all the candidates technology platforms, and Obama’s was decades ahead of anyone else’s. He went on to share his belief that technology has been and always will be 90% of the driving force behind economic strength and Obama clearly gets it when it comes to the important technology issues of the 21st century, such as network neutrality and open protocols.
There were many more. A funny kid from Hyde Park whose parents had been some of Obama’s first financial backers ‘which isn’t saying much’ he added, when he made his first run for the state senate. Another young man, biracial and a recent Harvard graduate living in Oxford said it was uncanny reading about Obama’s life and seeing it so closely mirror his own.
My new ‘Lebanese’ friend spoke passionately about the importance of sending a delegate from the only Democrats Abroad chapter in the Arab world, where local Lebanese often come to the meetings and see a very different face and voice of America than the one in Iraq or being broadcast from the news.
Finally a professorial looking older white-haired gentleman took to the stage. He spoke slowly and deliberately of how he was born when Woodrow Wilson was president and how his first presidential vote was for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A hush came over the conference room. The sense of history and reverence for this man was palpable. He went on to say that nothing would make him happier than to see President Barack Obama in office in 2009.
Another round of voting took place but we ran out of time to complete the second round. So we were told we would continue again in the morning at ‘Oh Seven Forty-Five’ which met with a small chorus of groans.
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