When I was a kid, my mom took me canvassing the neighborhood for Abner Mikva and McGovern, and I have never stopped. So it came as instinct to me when I was called upon by the Obama campaign to pack up the kids and get on the bus to Iowa. Actually, it was more than that. I called the friends, called mom, and then made reservations with the campaign for ten of us.
The day started at 5:45 with an argument with my eldest who wanted to stay in bed. Maya, I told her, there are times when you just say to yourself, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead, and then get to work on the important things in life.” Of course, she retorted, “If I get out of bed right now, I might die a lot sooner than you want.” Luckily, I knew better.
The Bus from Evanston took about four hours to get to Davenport with a rest stop in the middle. My son, Itamar, fell asleep instantly. Maya and Sahar read, and my friend Fran and I studied Yeishayahu Leibovitz, the Israeli peace activist, scientist and Talmudic scholar.
In Davenport, at the Obama headquarters, we were trained in canvassing. It wasn't what I had expected. We were not messengers of an Obama message so much as messengers of early voting possibilities and accounting for the who actually lived in the area we canvassed. We met about 60 percent of our roles and 90 percent of them were already planning to vote Obama. We met one felon who we informed about changes to the voting laws that would allow her to vote and one Ron Paul voter who warned us that Obama and McCain were both war mongers and Zionists. He was a very scary guy and I was afrain my daughter Maya would share that she was born in Jerusalem.
I was very disappointed when we returned to the Obama campaign headquarters and were served Dominos Pizza on Styrofoam plates. My compulsion to quietly rebuke acted up and I asked one of the organizers why we were supporting Dominos and eating on plates that were bad for the environment. I was told that the plates were donated and so was the pizza. I said that the moment when the pizza was received was a teaching moment and that the campaign could have taken the opportunity to share with people about the conservative views and contributions made by the owners of Dominos. The same for the plates. They could have said, “thank you,, but no thank you,” and maybe created a new environmental consciousness in the donor. The person I spoke to said that the campaign welcomes donations and that the real focus needs to be on Barak's progressive policies regarding health care and ending the war. I disagreed in my heart and didn't make a teaching moment of it. I didn't want to “sin” in the process of my rebuke, and didn't want to make my hosts feel uncomfortable. I decided to make the teaching moment something I would write here. So here's what I think
On the one hand, as my baseball coaches always taught me, “Don't swing for a homerun. Just get on base.” The analogy here is to shoot for something more obtainable, get a president elected who will end the war and create a good healthcare system. But getting on base is not inconsistent with trying to do good for the team. On the other hand, what the Iowa office was doing was inconsistent with their goals. There is no good baseball analogy, but think about this. We want a president who will respect women's rights to rule their own bodies and who will work to end global warming (and ideally green our society) and the money that goes to feed us lowly canvassers gets spent on pizza whose profit goes to funding Operation Rescue – the major antiabortion vigilante group – and to buy products that are not biodegradable. This is both hypocritical and shortsighted.
But I am not such a purist as to not accept that sometimes you cut corners or act inconsistently in order to obtain higher objectives. I am not a pacifist and will defend myself in order to be able to live and contribute to the world in spite of threats, but I also will start my self defense with my legs and run away before being forced to fight. There are times when the world is gray and it is hard to discern right from wrong or good from bad, but what would have been wrong with asking the donors of Dominos to try another company next time or the plate providers to try paper, even if it costs a bit more.
Now on the bus back to Chicago, I am feeling very good that I lived my Torah for my kids and with them. I made canvassing fun. We got to live democracy in action, and I think they feel like they made a difference. Hopefully, election day will prove this point. Maybe I'll have to spend the next few Shabbatot (Saturdays) on the campaign trail in order to strengthen my chances
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