Fuente: © Barack Obama
http://www.barackobama.com/

US ELECTIONS 08: BARACK OBAMA: Blog: Meet Linnie

/noticias.info/ The Washington Post ran an article yesterday about one of Obama's delegates from California. Meet Linnie:

It all started last summer with a $10 online donation -- her very first political contribution.

With another click of the mouse, 52-year-old Linnie Frank Bailey, a political neophyte, morphed into a campaign volunteer. By fall, she'd taken on the titles of "area coordinator" and "regional field organizer." And by winter, she'd become a field commander of sorts, organizing a 10,000-square-foot presidential campaign office in southern California.

Now, nearly a year later, more than just the seasons have changed. Here inside Room 307 of the Sacramento Convention Center on a recent Sunday morning, a once unengaged but now thoroughly committed woman sits alongside seasoned political activists and big-money donors at the only meeting of the state delegation to the Democratic National Convention. The mother of two, the middle-class homemaker, the self-described "blogger-on-training-wheels" is now one of California's 166 pledged delegates for Sen. Barack Obama.

…One Saturday morning in early November, she drove 30 minutes north to attend a Camp Obama meeting at a storefront church. She had read about the event online. Organized by Obama staffers, Camp Obama is Politics 101 for volunteers, where they learn the value of phone-banking, the goals of precinct captains and how to register new voters. About 25 people attended -- young and old, black, white and Latino. When she introduced herself to the group, "Hi, I'm Linnie," a few recognized her name.

She left the meeting tasked by Obama staffers as the "area coordinator" in charge of Corona. Working with Jose Medina, 55, the area coordinator in nearby Riverside, she scheduled an informal meeting of those from the two cities at a Barnes & Noble the following Wednesday. She posted it on BarackObama.com. They expected 10 people. About 20 showed up.

After the meeting, Medina, a fixture in the local political scene who teaches Chicano studies at Riverside Polytechnic High School, suggested they run as Obama delegates for the convention. She agreed. Outside the bookstore, they shook hands on it.

The period between December and February was, in Bailey's words, "a complete whirlwind." She was so effective in organizing meetings, attending rallies and networking that Jocelyn Anderson, an Obama staffer overseeing southern California, asked Bailey to be a "regional field organizer." "Here's the thing about Linnie," Anderson says. "She was always on overdrive and she never said no."

…"It was just one thing after another, and everyone was so helpful," Bailey says. "I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I didn't know what an area coordinator did, or what a regional field organizer did, or how to open a campaign office, or what it even means to be a delegate. I've seen the conventions on TV, but I didn't know what delegates did or how they even got there."

…But she does. Though Obama lost to Clinton in Riverside County 59 to 34 on the night of Super Tuesday, Obama, like Clinton, earned two delegates from the 44th District. Being a delegate, in a way, is an insider's game. You run a mini-campaign in your voting precinct.

Two months ago, after running for office for the first time, Bailey was elected as a delegate.

…She didn't foresee any of this activism. There was "no grand plan," she says. She never thought politics would define her life; she had spent more time watching HGTV and the Food Network than reading news articles. But gone are those apathetic days. The Web, she says, has "awakened" her.

After the initial $10 online donation, after hours and hours of volunteering, then opening Obama Riverside, then winning a delegate spot to the national convention and, later, deciding to run for local office, Bailey, politically, has been born anew.

Though she's talking about Obama Riverside, she could well be talking about herself when she says, "To think, we went from nothing to something.

As part of her volunteer efforts, Linnie created the myBO group "Boomer Women for Obama" which reaches out to women ages 45 or older. This has been her way of connecting to other Obama supporters. Find a myBO group that you can connect with today. notas_de_prensa_archivo