Nairobi Star (Nairobi)
Maina Kiai
22 October 2008
column
The Barack Obama campaign is not just focused on the issues affecting the youth: It is staffed and driven to a significant extent, by the youth. Youth here is taken to be people below the age of 35, unlike the infamous Youth for KANU money making machine that included professors and “businessmen” well into their mid 40s and 50s all seeking a piece of tax-payers and other resources that Moi put at the group’s disposal in 1992.
Many politicians—and especially in Africa and Kenya—pay lip-service to the youth saying they will put the youth front and center in their policies and governments. But when they form their governments, it is clear that youth are in the backseat--except for those few whose family name is more important than their intellect or leadership skills. Or those prepared to do whatever it takes in “defending the community.”
The lip-service to the youth is often cynical, understanding that in many African countries the youth are easily the majority of citizens. In Kenya, for instance, people aged below 40 years old form 65 to 70 percent of the population. Such a massive group is impossible to ignore, even if the attention is rhetorical, or symbolic as with the creation of Youth Ministries and departments (often focused on sports), for politically Africa is a continent of old men, some of whom have been in politics since independence or soon thereafter.
Oh, some say this is African culture where elders are revered and are the natural leaders due to their experience, and until they die off, they should lead. But let’s be clear, African culture respected elders, but hardly allowed them to govern once they became elderly knowing that their energy and faculties were sufficiently compromised around the age of 70. So let me confess that I am one of those who believe that if we have a minimum age requirement for candidates for President at 35, then we should have a cap on the other end too at 70, since the logic is similar: If one can be too young to be President, then one can also be too old and senile and tired to be President.
But I digress… In the Obama campaign team, young people—working 16 to 18 hour days—are the norm. Take Nick Traverse for example who is a field organizer in the Tampa field office in Florida. He graduated in June from Harvard University and spent months volunteering for Obama, before getting a staff job after proving himself. He is now in charge of about 400 people who volunteer for Obama, motivating them; ensuring that they have all that they need and that they are happy doing their jobs. Ms. Shannon Valley graduated last year and after volunteering in Iowa from June 2007 to January and then other places, is now the Operations Director for the Florida State operation. Each of these young people has tremendous responsibilities and roles, and they take them seriously.
In fact, given the campaign machine that Obama has put together, it is a venerable training ground for young people as leaders and managers. A field organizer, for instance, is responsible for precincts that are allocated from the State Campaign Office, and she or he puts together teams led by Team leaders who are opinion leaders and committed supporters, often having a background in either labor issues, NGOs, or other community organizations. A field organizer could easily have 4 or 5 team leaders—who are volunteers—working with them. The Team leaders are a critical piece of the Obama movement. They recruit volunteers and each have a team of between10 and forty people that they are responsible for in terms of motivation, and results. And this is very much a results-driven movement, and as Nick said, “…each day, I am responsible for making sure that volunteers make 1000 telephone calls as part of our phone banking and I have to explain why we did not reach that goal when we don’t. I have to ensure that the Team Leaders have assigned specific volunteers to do the phones, others to do the door to door canvassing and others to man big events. I also need to ensure that our out of state volunteers have a place to sleep, which the locals provide for free.”
The volunteers themselves are the engine of the Obama movement. Yes, there is lots of money put into adverts and other forms of campaigning, but the key difference between this Obama campaign and others present and past, is its reliance on personal contact as the key in pushing the agenda. This means phone calls on a regular basis, as well as door to door contact. Vanessa Macsom, a volunteer, told me that there is absolutely nothing that makes undecided voters consider Obama better than the visits that are made and the explanations provided for the issues they care about.
And what is fascinating is that the Obama campaign brilliantly combines a tight control on the message together with flexibility. And this flexibility is based on trust and belief in the staff and volunteers, who are encouraged to tell their own personal stories of why they support Obama, from the heart, without a script. They are encouraged to be creative and think out of the box, especially when confronted by difficult voters. And often these more negative exchanges revolve around the issue of race. And talking to the staff and volunteers I came away with a renewed sense that the cynicism of politics, which is so common here in Kenya where politics is a business issue, has been overcome at least this year by the Obama movement.
For Nick, who is white, the two or three times he has been confronted with the race issue, he has responded that “America has moved on since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and I am sorry that you [the racist voter] have been left behind.” And they are told to be calm, and imagine themselves as Obama and how he would deal with the matter.
For many reasons, including his message, use of technology and savviness, Barrack Obama is the overwhelming favorite with the youth. They comprise about 25 percent of voters in total and between 65 to 70 percent of them are confirmed Obama supporters. And his clear confidence in the youth, in word and deed, is clearly one of the reasons that they work so diligently for him, and support him.
Driving in the mid-west:
They often say that to understand America, one needs to get away from the coastline areas to the middle country. I drove around in rural Ohio and it’s a world apart from Washington DC in many ways. And because I drove on small country roads through towns and villages I got a good glimpse of this America that determines who wins. It is not accidental that Barack Obama has spent a significant time in these parts, courting voters and recently, doing the door to door canvassing that his volunteers do on a regular basis. Talking to the people in these parts, one comes away with the impression of good warm people who really want to know the candidate and want to see that the candidate cares and understands their issues. They know that life will not change overnight after the elections, no matter who wins, but they want to see if the candidate can provide hope and space for them to blossom and move forward in their lives and if they have similar values and interests.
For me, what is striking is that they don’t ask for money for the here and now. They don’t demand goodies such as roads and clinics—and by the way even these small country roads in rural Ohio put our Uhuru Highway to shame and they have no potholes! They don’t insist that the candidate hires their people to positions, only that he hires competent and good people. They don’t beg for transport to and from the rallies.
This, for me, is emerging as one of the critical challenges facing African politics: how do we return to the days of pre-independence politics when citizens believed in the candidates and parties and rather than asking for handouts, provided the transport, accommodation and resources that the parties needed? If it was doable then, when Africa was way poorer than it is now, it is doable today. For mark my words, as long as we maintain the culture of handouts that our “leaders” instituted to fill the vacuum of ideas, we will always have pathetic leadership.
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