philly

Election Day 2008 was a dreary day here in Philly. The rain never quite came down, but it never went away. A constant dribble all day. It's supposed to rain for the next five days. It'll be a cleansing rain. Barack Obama is the new #1 and I'm proud to say I voted for him and not simply against the other guy.

Sneaker Villa on 10xx Market St was selling a few final Obama t-shirts outside today.

The Philly Chinatown office was buzzing all day. 20+ people were making final rounds of phone calls to make sure people voted.

People were sent all over town. I was deployed to North Philly, just north of Temple east and west of Broad St. We went and knocked on a few dozen final doors to get out those last votes. I heard others get sent far outside of Ward 5.

At center is Anna Perng, the Chinatown office chief. She ran a tight ship and she ran it well. It was incredibly organized every single time I was in that office which is more than I can say for other offices from what I heard anecdotally.

Here are a couple of people coming back after the polls closed. They had heard in the cab on the way back to the office that PA was already called for Obama. They were greeted by cheers from the office which had already heard the news.

And here's a photo of all the staffers still in the office at the end of the night before everyone headed to the afterparty at Finnigan's Wake. I was proud to be a part of the effort for the last week or so. Incredible. A few more photos from the day.

Incredible.

Locally, it seems like we'll have an anti-choice Attorney General and anti-choice Auditor General. There is still plenty of work to be done here in Philly. Even with a 400k+ margin, within that 400k, is a lot of wiggle room to the left.

Here's to tomorrow…

With 8.5 hours to go, my belly is full and I'm tired. Lady came out to volunteer with me today, after she finished work, and we had a great time with the people there as usual. The place was packed from 2p until 9p. And there's the official Center City East / Chinatown HQ pumpkin.

It was great to see wave after wave of volunteers coming in to phonebank, canvass and to pick up materials for the big day.

Towards the end of the night, the staffers were preparing packages for tomorrow's polls all over Ward 5.

The packed office.

The line managers gathered for a meeting by the 'I Voted' stickers. Check out that one in Hebrew.

And the funniest thing that happened? Cara from Real World Chicago was there phonebanking right across the table from me. That's her dirty blonde hair just to the left of Lady [and that's my laptop across from Lady]. When I saw her, I thought that's who she was, but then I thought I went to college with her. It wasn't until after she left when Lady confirmed who she was. Funny stuff. Cara from Real World Chicago: Obama supporter; Obama volunteer.

I'll be at work from 7a – 3p and then I'll head to my polling place to cast my vote for the big O. Then back to Philly Chinatown HQ for the rest of the night. More pics were added to the previous set from today here.

Also, Mithras has been working out of the Chinatown office as well. He's got a few posts up here, here and a post with a photo of me in it here. He's been kicking butt with the rest of the team.

And the Philly Chinatown office is buzzing with volunteers making phone calls in at least 3 different languages. Pizza just arrived to feed the hungry mass of people.

There are at least a dozen different people making calls right now and another few entering the data of all the volunteers from the past few days.

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