Five people came up to our Obama table and said they switched from Clinton to Obama [View All]

[zulchzulu]

It was pretty funny.

We have an Obama table at the Madison Farmers Market (WI) where at least 10,000 people can be seen shopping or just having a great time. As usual, we signed up close to 120 names on our signup sheets (we've signed up over 500 people since April). We ran out of 50 bumperstickers and about 70 buttons. We only gave those to people who were sincere, not collectors. We went through a bunch of home-made Avery label stickers with Obama '08 on them.

People from all over the World stopped by to talk to us...my fave visitor was a Kiwi from New Zealand who wished that Obama would be president, saying it was about time an African-American was a World leader and he knew people back home who liked him. Of course, everyone loathes Bush/Cheney...even some Republicans that stopped by to kick the tires expressed absolute disgust with Bush. This made me think that there could be a big migration of Republicans joining Democratic ranks thanks to the recklessness of Bush (even the Newt is predicting it).

What was especially fun was seeing some people sign up and get a bumpersticker and the actually sheer joy in their eyes when we would hand it to them. I've never seen anything like it and I've worked on grassroots efforts for campaigns for a few election cycles.

Over the five hours we were there, we had five people come by and say they had been for Senator Clinton if only because of name recognition but changed their view when they saw the last debate and heard more about Obama. They could have just walked by, but they made a point to come by and get a bumpersticker or sign up to get involved. The overwhelming reason why was that they saw Obama as a unifier and inspirational; they feared that a Clinton nomination would be a disaster.

That message needs to be addressed by the Clinton campaign or it's just going to gain even more momentum. Where ARE the supporters of Senator Clinton in the streets? I've seen supporters for Edwards and Kucinich as well as Obama, but other than that, there is no other representation in the street...yes, on the web, but I find that the real message gets out in the wide open street.

Anyone else doing grassroots efforts these days? It's not too early...