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>>>Actually, I think the nomination was still in play in 2008 when the PA primary took place. It certainly was in NJ.
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>>I was volunteering for Obama by then, and I remember being disappointed about HIllary winning PA, but knowing that it wasn't going to matter.
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>>For example, this was from March 4, after the last set of primaries before PA: http://www.newsweek.com/hillarys-new-math-problem-83849
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>>Tamar
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>Just curious, what made you decide on Obama over Hillary? (obviously, I've never volunteered for either one, so I won't debate...just curious)

I never felt comfortable with the Clintons. Although Bill did a good job as President for the most part, he never seemed trustworthy.

Beyond that, I foolishly believed that things in the country would be less divisive with someone other than Hillary. I wanted to see an end to the ugliness that had characterized both the Clinton and Bush years.

I started out looking for a candidate to support and over time, Obama impressed me more and more.

As for volunteering, that went back to the 2004 campaign. I had believed there was no way Bush could be reelected, and wasn't that enthusiastic about Kerry, so didn't do anything to help. After that election, I promised myself I wouldn't let that happen again. (FWIW, though I went many years without getting involved in presidential campaigns, one of my earliest memories is of handing out "All the way with LBJ" buttons with my father, and in '72, I used to take the subway downtown after school to help in McGovern HQ.)

Volunteering for the campaign was a really great experience. As I think you know, I live in a diverse community and that diversity was well-reflected in the local office. Beyond giving the campaign one day a week, we also housed a campaign staffer for 3 months (a very nice young man who'd just spent a year in AmeriCorps) and provided weekend housing for out-of-town volunteers who came in now and then (mostly from NY, where the outcome wasn't in question), as well as for some people who came in for the last four days for Get Out the Vote. Election Day was amazing. Marshal and I went door to door to get people out to vote. One of the nearby neighborhoods we were sent to was and is mostly black middle-class. While most people weren't home, many of those who answered the door had already voted and a great many thanked us for being out there. We spend the last couple of hours of voting in a local church hall, calling people who hadn't yet voted (based on the reports of volunteers who'd been tracking at the polling stations) and reminding them to get to the polls. The room was a microcosm of the US. When PA was called for Obama pretty much as the polls closed, the group cheered resoundingly.

Tamar