Politics and Disasters

So I was accepted as an Obama Organizing Fellow, which is awesome- and because they were looking for volunteers for a few early states (like Iowa) I volunteered, because I have some connections down there. A long a tortured story later, I decided that, given the circumstances, I wouldn't want to go down there and campaign for President, I'd want to go down there and sandbag! Or something! If I was going to spend my summer not getting paid for something, I'd much rather it be something useful instead of bothering people about an election few people in Iowa are going to care about right now.

Bless their hearts though, the Obama people in Iowa persisted- and I almost considered going down there, but then I didn't have a car, so I'm thinking I'll defer involvement altogether until the program starts up in Minnesota. (And if McCain puts Pawlenty on the ticket then Minnesota is gonna matter a LOT.) And today, they called me wanting to know if I'd be willing to be in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids or Waterloo.

This gave me some pause. They said they'd talk some stuff over and get back to me (probably with a 'no' I'm guessing) but it still gave me pause. The original plan was to have training in Des Moines (water rising rapidly, levees south of 1-235 going to capacity by Saturday), with some helping out at the State Democratic Convention (postponed). I had to wonder if anyone in that office had actually read a newspaper in awhile containing something other than political news.

Cedar Rapids is underwater.
Waterloo isn't much better.
And Iowa City has it's own problems right now.

Never mind the fact that if they would have stuck me in Cedar Rapids or Waterloo, they would have had to find me housing. (Please pause for the implications of this to sink in, given the current states of both towns right now.) Given the fact that Cedar Rapids is about to lose its drinking water and currently there's only one way into Iowa City from the north (per the Iowa DOT) I'm staying right where I am. Though it'd be impressive to see if the Obama people actually could find me housing in Cedar Rapids right now. And if they could for me, they should get some housing for people who really need it.

I'm not going to accuse the Obama Campaign in Iowa of being out-of-touch- one has to hope that they have, in the past week or so, noticed the massive flooding going on across the state. But rather, I'd suggest they have misplaced priorities. Drop the phone banking, drop the voter registration efforts, put every one in an Obama T-Shirt and send them out sandbagging. Or get them to collect drinking water for people. Something useful, please. People are more likely to remember the Obama Volunteers who helped sandbag than the annoying phone bankers that wanted to get voter registration data.

Drop what you're doing right now. Declare a moratorium on politics for the duration of the crisis and get to work. It'll pay you more dividends than trying to run for President right now.