my prediction

obama: 

colorado

new mexico

nevada

virginia

north carolina

ohio

pennsylvania

michigan

florida

missouri

mccain:

indiana

georgia

north dakota

montana

e-day

100 high school students

the mark udall bus (plus mark udall and wife)

samantha standing on a chair at the door

the north park slope staging location was quite a bustle when we arrived.  the trip would end as it began- a rally with the udall.  it appears that the u bus was hitting all the staging locations on e day to fire up the volunteer crowd.  

the high school students paraded the main streets waving obama signs and riling up the drivers.  we headed out to hang door knockers for the second day at a pretty easy pace.  

the honking was contagious so we headed to highlands and stood on the corner for a bit

michelle's final rally

unexpectedly took place in littleton this afternoon.  we paused our volunteer efforts after pushing scores of door hangers in north park hill and headed to a high school gym for michelle obama's final rally of the campaign.

benediction- some old guy, it was great.  very heartfelt talk about humanity and the earth

2nd- congressman earl perlmutter, or something like that, who currently represents the district

3rd- governor bill ritter (this is our 3rd time to see him speak).  hoarse as always, and pretty genuine.

4th- senator salazar (our second witness) gave a low-key address which highlighted his work with barack in the senate

5th- senate candidate mark udall (2nd as well) was the most fired up of all- he is running for office

and finally michelle.  her speech covered a number of topics and was touched by the passing of barack's grandmother earlier in the day.  i, like most of the crowd, had not heard the news and it was a stirring recognition.  she started off very strong admiring the work of young people in the campaign, how barack had inspired them, believed in them, and to whom he ultimately intrusted his campaign.  she does not come off with the smoothest delivery and that is an asset to her likability.  she closed with a story about a young girl she had met in a barbershop before the scarolina primary and it was quite effective.  

we spotted the same ridiculous spaz guy from the hillary clinton rally.  he shouted 'we love you' repeatedly at both railies and i liked how michelle just gave a cold look in his general direction.  

after the rally she made the rounds, really doling out the hugs, especially to the elders.  i told her 'great speech michelle.'  and she said thanks as we shook hands.  and then i said 'it was quite something.'  another brush with the obamas

salazar

waiting in line for the michelle obama rally in littleton i had a little chat with senator salazar.  i mistook his assistant for his brother (they were both wearing denim head to toe) whom we had canvassed for in cortez as he is running for a congressional seat.  he thanked us for coming out to campaign.  he said 'call me ken.'  we chatted about the volunteer efforts and we posed for a glossy.  

GOTV

get out the vote began yesterday.  for the past 2 weekends there have been preparation runs for the final push to make sure that colorado goes to vote on tuesday.  there had been 50 offices around the state but each office has now metastasized, turning into multiple staging locations that are placed according to polling places and having volunteers work canvassing shifts that overlap voting precincts.  these are more informal places, often private residences, that aim to get everone in the precint to vote.  with so many locations it was pretty chaotic during the dry runs when you had way too many volunteers for the task at hand.

this morning we are going to park hill, site of our previous denver canvassing, to work the GOTV.  the neighborhood was the first to integrate in the city and is home to a large population of african american and hispanic voters.  

pueblo rally

barack, michelle, wes clark were there.

having been on the front row for the ft collins rally we decided to volunteer for this one.  i stood on the sidewalk and said 'white tickets go over the bridge' about once every 10 seconds for about 3 hours.  

barack seemed to be a bit more relaxed this go-round.  the line- 'he's not a maverick, he's a sidekick for george bush' was pretty effective.