What does CHANGE look like

The Columbia Daily Tribune covered the "Change Today" meeting last week. All in all it was an accurate piece. The reality was there was some of the tension present that was reported.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2008/Dec/20081214News006.asp

What was missing from the piece and I do not fault the reporter was the positive energy that developed in the break out groups outside of the Policy group. The major instance is the work being done by the Charity / Community Service Group.

In the six weeks since the election this band of people who have worked so hard to change the politics in Washington have also turned their attention to changing the local community for the better. There has been a call to volunteers to assist in the annual "Everybody Eats" thanksgiving day meal hosted by Almeta Crayton of Columbia, a gift drive was organized, coordinated and executed for the Voluntary Action Center vacmo.org. This drive included the work of over a dozen volunteers and collected over a $1,000.00 in gift cards for the areas underprivileged for Holiday gifts. Now the Charity / Community Service group is turning their attention to assisting in the area of home heating cost and weatherproofing.

As a person who has been involved in this process from early on I can state that there may have been some missteps in communication along the way. That being said, we are volunteers with true intentions of making something positive of this moment in time. We may not be the best at setting a meeting agenda, but just look at what we accomplished when we put our energy toward a shared goal. Regarding the tension in the meeting, to be blunt the vast majority of tension originated from people who were not necessarily active in the Obama Campaign for Change. These were people more likely part of the established Democratic county organization. There has been tension with this group ever since the Obama campaign came to town and established itself independently of the county party. From my understanding this is an issue every four years and was probably even worse this time around because the Obama camp was so successful in fundraising and gathering volunteers that it was able to establish, hold onto and far exceed the efforts of the County party.

I can also tell you that out of the many many volunteers that I have worked with and talked to that they were not interesting in working within the county Democratic Party structure. Many of them were first time voters whether young or old who were motivated by the promise of Obama solely. A number of these volunteers where disillusioned with the Democratic party for years having voted for Nader previously and were drawn back in by the promise of Obama. A number of independents felt the same. Not to mention the traditional Dems who while having been a lifelong Dem was pulled that extra step to get active because of President elect Obama.

My sense was that some of the tension was based on the fact that the local party was fighting for its control. I sense and this is nothing more than speculation that some were more motivated by securing the base of power in the local political scene than affecting change in the community.