Valentina Pasquali

Birmingham, AL –  From inside this box-shaped maroon-painted building on the South side of Birmingham, Diane Derzis has been providing abortion and contraception services to the women of the American south since 1975. Her clinic, New Woman All Women Health Care, sits right across the street from Al’s, an exquisitely greasy Greek deli. The facility was the very first in the state, and Derzis, renowned for her vociferous activism, has been dubbed “the abortion queen” of Alabama.

Today there are five such clinics in the state, and only one in neighboring Mississippi. As a result, women who choose to have an abortion must travel for hours, sometimes for days. “Overall, we see around 2,000 patients a year,” says Derzis, who oversees a staff of 12 employees, including five physicians.

Diane Derzis

“We have women from their early teens to their sixties, rich and poor, black and white, democrats and republicans,” Derzis explains as she enjoys a smoke on a bright Saturday fall afternoon sitting outside of Al’s Deli. However, since an abortion costs about $425, one group of people rarely seen at Derzis’ clinic comprises the very poor and uninsured.

Diane Derzis is an assertive woman with eye-catching short hair and an unabashed taste for cigarettes. She has an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Law degree from the University of Alabama. She is a native of Virginia, where her husband resides and where the couple owns a farm and a second abortion clinic.

Derzis became involved in the abortion rights movement in her early twenties, after undergoing the procedure herself in 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade was decided. Roe v. Wade is the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that established a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy as an integral part to her right to privacy. The Court established that this right should be upheld until the moment “the fetus becomes ‘viable.’” Viable was determined to mean the point at which the fetus is “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.” The Supreme Court set this viability requirement at somewhere between 24 and 28 weeks. That requirement for abortions now varies on a state-by-state basis.

Since she opened her practice, Derzis has had to deal with a plethora of families and individuals; from married couples who cannot afford the sixth child, to single women who work full-time and go to college, to thirteen-year-old girls who have been the victims of violence or are, more simply, sexually active at a very premature age. The only thing all these people have in common is that they have decided not to carry a pregnancy to term. “One time, a car with a license plate saying ‘choose life’ pulled in our parking lot,” Derzis recalls, “I thought it was a pro-life activist who wanted to protest.

” Instead, a middle-age woman got off the vehicle, walked inside the clinic and filled out the form to have an abortion. Derzis asked the woman about the license plate. To Derzis’ surprise, the patient simply answered: “That was before, before I got pregnant!”

In spite of the wide variety of women who choose to terminate a pregnancy at some point in their lives — independent of race, religion and class — abortion still carries a social stigma, especially in the heavily conservative – Christian south. In fact, the so-called “pro-life movement” has been growing in recent years and has become increasingly outspoken. During the campaign for the 2008 presidential election, anti-abortion activists were to be seen at all the most important events including the Democratic National Convention in Denver and the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. They carried vivid life-size photos depicting late-term aborted fetuses and bluntly accused then Presidential nominee Barack Obama of being a “baby killer.”

Judy and Lisa sit on picnic chairs outside ‘Planned Parenthood,’ the only other abortion clinic in Birmingham. They move their fingers along the beads of their rosaries and seem absorbed in deep meditation.

Judy and Lisa of Forty Days for Life

They are members of 40 Days for Life, an anti-abortion initiative that takes place at regular intervals in cities across the U.S. and all the way to the American Samoa. Placed next to Judy and Lisa’s chairs is a large poster portraying an all-American family. At its center, is the silhouette of a child with no face, suggesting that a rightful member is missing, having been the subject of an undue abortion. “We are not here to cause any problem, we are peaceful,” Judy explains. Not at ease with the media, they decline to give their full names and speak to an anonymous campaign coordinator on the phone for a long time before answering any questions.

40 Days for Life began as a local campaign in College Station, Texas, in 2004. “After that first campaign we realized that the number of abortions dropped 28% locally,” says Director for Outreach Shawn Carney. The organization went national in 2007 and, since then, it has conducted three full-fledged campaigns, the latest instance of which occurred at the height of the presidential race in September and October.

Overall, the volunteers of this Christian, yet non-denominational, initiative have appeared in 204 cities in 49 states. The tenets of the movement are: prayer and fasting, constant vigil and community outreach. The 40 Days volunteers rotate every few hours in front of abortion clinics and insure a ‘round-the-clock presence, seven days a week, rain or shine, for forty straight days. “We want women to know they have alternatives and we also try to comfort those who come out having had an abortion,” Carney explains. Simply with its presence, Carney says, 40 Days for Life has changed the mind of over a thousand women thus far and secured “1,100 saves,” babies born after the mother decided to forgo the abortion. According to Carney, women who find themselves in those circumstances are looking for someone to stop them. “We are there to tell them that they are not alone,” he maintains.

Both Judy and Lisa are stay-home moms and sit outside Planned Parenthood wearing jeans and sweaters. To cover today’s watch they will drive 50 miles each way as their homes are in the distant suburbs. “I believe abortion is murder,” argues Judy, “and that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.” This gray-haired grandmother doesn’t admit any exception to her conviction, not in the case of rape nor in the case that a pregnancy might present a risk to the life of the mother. “Pro-life issues are my top priority,” echoes Lisa, the younger and the less talkative of the two.

Planned Parenthood of Birmingham, Alabama

Inside this branch of Planned Parenthood, in a hilly residential neighborhood of Birmingham and overlooking a quiet tree-lined street, the clinic’s CEO doesn’t mind the pair of eyes watching them 24 hours a day. “They are fairly harmless,” Barbara Buchanan says of the visitors who sit at her front door night and day. “The only problem is when they start engaging our clients while they are entering the facility, which they shouldn’t.” Planned Parenthood, the best known provider of women health services and with a presence in all 50 states, is a federation of affiliates operated by a local board of directors. In 2007 Buchanan saw a total of 4,000 women come through the door, for services that ranges from providing contraception and STD testing, to abortion.

Unlike Diane Derzis, who came to her profession very young, driven by personal experiences and a sense of activism, Buchanan arrived at Planned Parenthood only two years ago from the private industry. She holds an MBA and a Master in Public Administration from the University of Alabama, and has extensive management experience in the health care sector. “I’m a life-long card-carrying member of Planned Parenthood,” claims Buchanan. However she then clarifies that she took the job primarily because it represented a wonderful professional opportunity.

Although Buchanan’s protesters Judy and Lisa do not appear to harbor any plans to hurt or harm anybody, not all anti-abortion activists follow the same peaceful path. In fact abortion clinic bombings and slaying of doctors providing this procedure have often adorned the headline news.

Doctor David Gunn was the first one to lose his life, in Pensacola, Fla. On March 10 1993, Michael Griffin saw the doctor stepping out of his car in the parking lot of one of the clinics where Gunn used to work. Griffin shouted, “Don’t kill any more babies!” and shot the doctor three times in the back. New Woman All Women Health Care, Diane Derzis’ facility, was also bombed in 1978. Although nobody was killed, Emily Lyons, the nurse at the time of the attack, lost one eye. For his part, Shawn Carney defends the peaceful approach of 40 Days of Life as a new wave in the anti-abortion movement, claiming that his organization is making history. Everybody who offers to volunteer or work for the initiative must sign an agreement pledging that they will not resort to any form of violence.

The general dedication — which has often turned to rage and hostility – and renewed enthusiasm of the anti-abortion movement, is a little surprising if one considers the fact that the number of abortions performed in the U.S. has been steadily declining since a peak reached in 1990.

According to a 2005 study by the government agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 1990 there were 1,429,247 registered cases of legally induced abortions, while in 2005 this figure was down to 820,151, just above the levels found in 1973 (615,831 cases), right when abortion was first made legal. Furthermore, the pro-abortion rights movement argues that general family planning, going well beyond abortion to include various forms of contraception and counseling, helps raise happier children and more stable and secure families. “Planned families are healthier, planned children are healthier,” argues Planned Parenthood’s Barbara Buchanan repeating the mantra that gives her organization its name.

Local governments however have been imposing more stringent restrictions. In Alabama, the state legislature recently passed a law requiring women to wait at least 24 hours between the moment they first check in at a clinic and the time when they can have the abortion.

This new regulation bears a particular burden for rural women, who must travel away from their homes to go to a health center, and need to either stay overnight or drive back to their towns and back to the clinic again. Or for those women who cannot take time off from work. For someone who can only check in for a first visit on a Saturday morning, the new law now means that she will have to wait until at least the following Saturday for the procedure to be done. The state-enforced delay can cause troubles for those women who might be close to the 17th week of pregnancy, the legal abortion term in the state.

Moreover, although clinics always provided counseling to their patients to ensure that they were aware of the significance of the decision, Alabama has now produced an extra set of videos and publications which abortion providers are required to show their clients prior to proceeding with an abortion. Such info material, extremely graphic, normally depicts images of fetuses at the late stages of a pregnancy, and is meant to prepare — some would say dissuade and discourage — women for an abortion. “It is so offensive; they think women are stupid and don’t know what a fetus looks like,” complains Diane Derzis.

In Derzis’ experience, very few patients are at all shaken by the explicit imagery that appears on the state-mandated info material. And only a small number of women will feel remorse and regrets after the procedure. “All studies show that women that have not been pressured into getting the abortion, but rather have chosen to do so independently, do not suffer from emotional distress afterwards,” she affirms.

New Woman All Women Health in Birmingham, Alabama

According to Derzis, the belief that a woman who has already made up her mind on getting abortion can be convinced out of it is fundamentally wrong. The truth, Derzis maintains, is that a woman who has decided to terminate an unwanted pregnancy will do so regardless of what it takes. An extremely low number of women who arrive at an abortion clinic are willing to even consider alternatives, such as giving the born child up for adoption, despite being informed about such possibility. In a sense, the legalization of abortion in 1973 simply acknowledged a practice widely used even before and made it safer, guaranteeing the legal and sanitary conditions that would afford a woman to terminate a pregnancy in a facility properly equipped.

Shawn Carney disagrees. “First of all, making something legal doesn’t make it safer,” he says, claiming that the abortion procedure has changed relatively little since before 1973. “And, most importantly, something that might be safe doesn’t necessarily have to be good,” Carney argues, citing slavery as a practice that would not be dangerous but yet unquestionably intolerable. “Abortion is the most merciless act this country has, against the most innocent creature,” states Shawn Carney explaining that the mission of 40 Days for Life is not directly to overturn Roe v. Wade but rather to have a presence on the “frontline,’’ in the local communities where abortion actually takes place.

The intensity of the debate over one of the most controversial legal decisions in the history of the United States, and one that has found a prominent spot in the political discourse is unlikely to abate anytime in the near future, and this is probably the only thing that both sides agree on wholeheartedly.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Chicago, Illinois – The improbable political journey of Barack Obama, son of a man from Kenya and a woman from Kansas, began in the far South Side of Chicago, in the mid-1980s. Obama came to Altgeld Garden from New York City to work as a community organizer – a fact the junior Senator from Illinois often liked to quote during his long presidential campaign. In this forgotten project ridden with unemployment and crime, he helped set up a job training program and a tenants’ rights organization.

Altgeld Garden comprises a few blocks of modest single-family homes and low-rise apartment buildings at the southern edge of Chicago, a public housing development stuck on the side of Bishop Ford Freeway. A solitary enclave separated from the rest of the city by Lake Calumet to the East, railway tracks to the North, and major thoroughfares all around, Altgeld Garden remains a place where outsiders don’t like to visit and even the police rarely ventures into. “We haven’t seen a taxi here in thirty years,” said resident Derrick White pointing to the few yellow cabs parked on East 131st Street on Election Day. Those taxis drove here curious journalists – most of them foreign and the only non-African Americans around.

Despite high unemployment, health issues related to air pollution caused by industries nearby, and another automobile plant — a Ford factory — soon to shut down, on Election Day the mood in Altgeld Garden was joyful. A burgundy-colored Toyota SUV parked by the curb played loud hip-hop music as a group of young people chatted loudly about the election, looking almost like they were waiting for “one of their own” to be elected President of the United States.

Mr. White, a man in his forties wearing black sweat pants an old white t-shirt and a black bandana on his head, works as a custodian at a nearby high school and is active in the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union.

He remembers Obama only after Obama’s campaign for the U.S. Senate of 2004, during which White worked the polls for him. Surprisingly, many residents here don’t seem to recall much of the years when Obama was a member of the Illinois Legislature, let alone the Senator’s history prior to that. “I thought from the start that he was a very intelligent man,” White claimed, “but I didn’t think he was going to come this far this quickly.” He hopes that President Obama will fix the economy and heal the racial wounds that have plagued this country since its founding: “There are no jobs here, people don’t have health-care. You should go to the county hospital, they started charging for service,” he explained.

White’s only fear is that history will repeat itself once again and that the President-elect “will be assassinated.”

Many people in this neighborhood share the same morbid notion. “I’m telling you, he won’t make it through the four years, he will be assassinated,” declared a positively convinced Michael Johnson. Mr. Johnson, who works as a forklift operator, believes that people here need more and better role models; successful people that can inspire them. Most importantly, residents at Altgeld Garden need jobs: “Big companies must come and employ locals,” he argued. Pointing to the silhouettes of cranes sprawling up in the distance, Mr. Johnson maintained: “99.9% of those employed out there don’t live in this neighborhood. We need to keep more money here where it’s needed.”

Barack Obama’s northward journey through Chicago – from Altgeld Garden, where his career began, to Grant Park, where he was crowned Wednesday night – mimics his quick rise to the top of the national political scene. He left the all-black and un-inviting projects at the very far South Side of Chicago in 1988, to attend Harvard University Law School in Boston.

When he returned to the city in the summer of 1989 to practice as an associate at the firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama had to become acquainted with a place known as South Shore. It was there that his then wife-to-be Michelle Robison had grown up. In many ways, Michelle represented Barack’s second stop in the geographical line of upward mobility typical of African American Chicagoans. Unlike Altgeld Garden, South Shore is a working class, mixed-income neighborhood, although still predominantly African-American. It is north of the projects and closer to the business district and the chic stores of downtown.

East 67th Street is lined with redbrick mid-rise apartment buildings overlooking Jackson Park — leaves of many colors fall from the trees onto the grass.

These few blocks of quiet and well-kept streets, proper although not upscale, are enclosed between South Stony Island Boulevard, dotted with gas stations and chain restaurants, and Lake Michigan. From the lakefront one can see the fancy high-rises of Michigan Avenue in the distance.

Doris Beard Wollman is a resident of Senior Suites, a subsidized apartment building for citizens sixty-two and over. On Election Day Senior Suites is also one of the designated polling places in South Shore. Ms. Wollman, a nurse who was put on disability and Medicaid after surviving a heart attack, is outside, enjoying the blue sky and the warm weather. Here too most people, Ms. Wollman included, remember Barack Obama only since his 2004 U.S. Senate bid: “I was impressed by how dynamic he was,” Wollman recalled, explaining that she immediately felt that the young State Senator was a star on the rising. “I remember when Martin Luther King said ‘One day.’ When I saw Obama speaking, I believed,” said Ms. Wollman. She maintained, however, that she chose Obama over Hillary Clinton in the primaries based on foreign policy considerations: “I felt that so many countries hated America and I thought that they would be more receptive of a person of color, especially in the Middle East.”

Someone who remembers Barack Obama since the very beginning of his Chicago political career is Yesse Yehudah, who ran against the President-elect in the 1998 elections for the Illinois Senate. Mr. Yehudah, who then drew only a 10% of the vote, is a lone African American republican amidst the stream of democrats entering and leaving the Senior Suites polling station. Yehudah declined to say whom he voted for this year, although he professed allegiance to the GOP. “I think Obama is a quality guy. I also think that God had more to do with his success than Obama himself. We’re at such a low point in the history of the United States and in the history of racial relationships, it seems like the country needed Obama,” Yehudah said. In his words, he is a republican because he is closer to the GOP on issues such as business development and family values. Yehudah also believes that the African American community, like the rest of the United States, needs a “two-party system and that it is not beneficial to anybody that blacks only vote Democratic.” However, he admits to being displeased with the direction taken lately by the Republican Party. He doesn’t like how “republicans set themselves up to be stereotyped as an all-white, anti-minority party, which they are not.”

Barack Obama’s final stop along the Chicago lakefront was Hyde Park. This is a much more affluent neighborhood situated around the University of Chicago, home to a long list of Nobel Prize laureates and where the President-elect taught Constitutional law for many years. Young African-American professionals reside here and work at the University or commute downtown, which is just north of here. Fancier high-rise condominiums sprawl up on larger residential streets with a view of Lake Michigan. Lovely single-family homes overlook the sports fields of the local public schools. On Election Day the Obamas voted in one of them; Shoesmith Elementary.

Ramona Storall is waiting in the school courtyard for her husband to cast his ballot. She is a forty-two year old police officer on maternity leave and she just finished voting for Obama. “As soon as we heard him speak, many years ago, we knew he was going to be a Presidential candidate. With my husband we joked about Obama 08 from the start,” said Storall. She hopes that President Obama will focus on the economy without forgetting the war: “I have many family members who serve in the military.” Rising gas prices hit her family budget the worst. Storall’s parents live in a suburb away from this neighborhood but it has become impossible to visit them as often as she used to: “We also had to downsize to using just one car out of the two we own,” Storall explained.

While she heads back home, a poll judge leaves the school for a short lunch break. Sandra Young has been handing out ballots to voters the whole morning. She was one of a large number of people who voted early for Obama. Young actually worked with the President-elect in 1993-1994 on the IBA Walles Housing Development. Mr. Obama was training people, among them Young, on programs to help families moving from welfare to work. “I hope that, as President, he keeps his word. I know that things are not going to happen overnight, but our people need jobs,” she concludes.

Finally, it was Grant Park — Chicago’s front yard — that witnessed the apex of Barack Obama’s political ascent. On Wednesday night, with the luxuriously lit downtown skyline as a backdrop, the President-elect drew an adoring crowd of over 200,000. Whites, blacks, rich, poor, young and old, gathered to celebrate his victory in the 2008 elections. “This is a good day, it’s the proudest day of my life as an American,” screamed Ray Krouze, a thirty-five year-old Chicago attorney.

“I feel fantastic, this is great for the USA and for the whole world,” echoed fifty-two year-old teacher Sharon Davis. Cat Brunson, a middle-age woman and a microbiologist, is “exhausted but elated.” She and her husband stood in line at the gates of Grant Park since 4:30pm on Wednesday afternoon to see Obama speak.

While Chicago celebrated in Grant Park, an entire nation cheered in front of television screens, in hotel ballrooms and in the streets. For a man with a middle name like Hussein who grew up between Indonesia and Hawaii, this was quite the improbable journey. “For the generation of the baby boomers who experienced the 1960s, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Reverend Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, this is the most exiting election in over forty years,” argued Evan Brandstadter, a retired Professor who taught American History at Cornell University in New York. Nevertheless, this Chicago resident worries that the expectations for President Obama has already been set so high that it will be all too easy for him to disappoint them. The metaphor Brandstadter uses to explain his concern is inspired by the 1967 movie The Graduate. Just to recount, the film ends when the protagonist Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) successfully pulls away his love Elaine Robison (Katharine Ross) from the altar where she is about to marry another man. The two elope on a bus, escaping the rage of relatives and friends. Once the engine begins to run, Ben and Elaine look at each other in growing disbelief. “Right at that moment,” explained Brandstadter, “when all the enthusiasm and the excitement are finally over, only one big question remains: and now what?”

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Chicago, Illinois – The sun is shining in Chicago today and with temperatures in the 70s this could be the warmest Election Day since 1964. With the tops down, drivers took their convertibles out for a ride in the morning and are driving around town while an endless stream of runners jog along Lake Michigan on the eastern edge of the city.

Chicago residents are also flocking to polling places and voting operations seem to be running smoothly in spite of the high turnout.

Even during early morning rush hour, lines were kept under control with waiting times that never exceeded the one-hour mark. In this democratic stronghold most voters are casting their ballots for Barack Obama.

There is anticipation in the air and the city waits impatiently for tonight’s returns. “I voted for Obama,” says Paul Walker, “If it had taken seven hours, it wouldn’t matter; I’d still be in line. I hope he wins.” While this service industry worker speaks, a woman passes him by and shouts, “Obama! He’s the only one.”

The mood around Chicago and especially in predominantly African American neighborhoods is cheerful. People hold high hopes and are preparing for a big celebration.

Senator Obama, who voted early this morning in Hyde Park, the neighborhood where he resides, will be speaking tonight at a mass rally held downtown. The Obama campaign and the Chicago Police Department said they are expecting as many as a million people to show up for the event in Grant Park.

“If he loses we are going to be in serious trouble,” believes Elsie McBride, a grandmother who just voted and is now taking care of her two grandchildren. “McCain would take on right where George W. Bush left off,” she worries. As many other African American residents of Chicago, Ms. McBride is also concerned about the potentially angry reaction of her community in case Senator Obama lost the elections. “I was talking about this with my daughter recently and we both agreed that there is a possibility that riots will break out,” Ms. McBride explains.

Ricky Johnson, forty-nine year-old employee of the Chicago Park System, is not as nervous: “If Obama loses he loses and we will just keep going,” he says. “I hope he wins though, people need jobs.”

Karyn Morrow, a sales clerk, is working as a poll judge today and is handing out ballots to voters. She will cast her own later in the day, once her shift is over, and she hopes that Senator Obama “will change bad things into good ones.” Although she concedes that losing would represent a great disappointment, Ms. Morrow appears optimistic and concludes: “I don’t think he can lose. It is time for change.”

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Virginia Beach, VA – Teya Kelley is twenty-five, and a volunteer for Barack Obama in Virginia Beach. Ms. Kelley came here from Washington D.C., where she works as an organizer for local union Unite Here – whose red t-shirt she wears proudly. “This is the undecided district of the undecided state,” she declares with some conviction. Since September, Ms. Kelley has been deployed, along with another 15 members, to this southeastern tip of Virginia to walk low-income and prevalently African-American neighborhoods and register new voters for the November 4^th elections. On weekends, Ms. Kelley volunteers with the Obama camp.

Perfecting Saints Worship Center

Known as the Hampton Roads, and nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, this region of Virginia just above North Carolina is one of the most fiercely contested turfs in this year’s battle for the White House. It is here that the cities of Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Suffolk cluster together in one of the most populated metropolitan areas in the state, home to the largest naval base in the world. Virginia Beach, the heart of the local military complex, went for President George W. Bush in 2004 approximately sixty-to-forty percent. Neighboring Norfolk, where much of the workers servicing the Navy live, fared in precisely the opposite way, with over sixty-one percent of voters choosing Senator John Kerry. Suffolk was somewhere in between, with President Bush winning fifty-two to forty-seven percent.

“I came to Virginia because this is a swing state,” explains Lystra Campbell from Maryland. Also a Unite Here worker, Ms. Campbell has been registering voters in southern Virginia since September and, like Ms. Kelley, volunteers for Barack Obama on weekends.

Ms. Lystra Campbell

The reality is that Virginia has not been a swing state in decades — the last time it went for a democratic presidential candidate was 1968. Since then, the state has trended consistently republican, especially thanks to the conservative worldview of the military establishment along the coast and the small town values along the western edge. However, Ms. Campbell is correct, this year is a completely different story.

First of all, the demographics of the state have been changing to the advantage of the democrats; in the last few years, while the more rural and conservative regions of Virginia experienced a trend toward depopulation, the more liberal suburbs of Washington DC grew exponentially. Also, thanks to the excitement created by Barack Obama, the 2008 election should witness a higher than average turn-out by African Americans, who have a history of low participation because of the belief that the state would necessarily go for the GOP. Simultaneously, republicans disappointed by the job of President Bush might be more reluctant to go to the polls. As a result, Virginia is in play. Not coincidentally John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have all made separate stops to various parts of the state just in the last ten days.

News coming from the Commonwealth is very encouraging for the democrats. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests that Senator Obama is leading by eight percentage points over Senator McCain. According to almost all observers, this must be explained, at least partially, with the unprecedented ground operations assembled by the Obama campaign even in places, such as Virginia, where democratic candidates have not dared competing for a very long time. Over the course of the last several months, the Obama camp has opened over 50 field offices staffed with around 250 employees managing the work of thousands of volunteers. Virginia has the most field organizers to population than any state except for Florida. Staffer Christina Arrison, who is one of two field organizers for Virginia Beach, and volunteer Teya Kelley are examples of the dedication of the Obama foot soldiers: “I get about five hours of sleep per night,” says Ms. Arrison, “but I expect it to go down to zero from now on.”

Ms. Arrison Preps her Volunteers

Under overcast skies and in a cold misty wind, Mss. Arrison, Campbell and Kelley, together with Ethel James, a volunteer from New York City, are on their knees putting together yard signs. Ms. Arrison and her volunteers are waiting under the front porch of a small church pinned on the outskirts of a residential neighborhood. The Virginia Beach operations are normally ran out of a field office a few miles away. However, Ms. Arrison elected this non-denominational Christian worship center as the base for the weekend canvassing sessions. The church is one of a few scattered non-descript buildings along a major thoroughfare at the northern end of the city. Pastor Joe Flores, who is running for City Council, heads the congregation.

At around 11am, much later than expected, a church official appears, only to tell the campaign workers that a board meeting held the previous week established that running canvassing for Obama from the church ground violates its tax-free status. Politely, the woman asks the campaign to move their cars and flyers to the adjacent parking lot.

After a quick pep talk, Ms. Arrison dispatches Ms. Kelley to walk a neighborhood enclosed between Northampton Boulevard and

Volunteers for Obama Prepare to Canvass Decisive Virginia Beach

Baker Road. This is a solidly middle-class district, lined up with large dwellings and multiple cars per garage, and it is racially mixed. It is also one of the more contested in the county and yard signs for McCain/Palin compete with those for Obama/Biden at every street corner. Although until recently the campaign was talking to undecided voters – “If undecided voters speak with a volunteer in person, they will be ten times more likely to vote for your candidate,” Ms. Arrison explained outside of Pastor Flores’ church – this last week is mostly dedicated to getting out the vote, knocking on the doors of supporters to remind them to go to the polls.

As a result, the majority of the people who open their doors to Ms. Kelley are African-American democrats, many of who did not vote in 2004. Ms. Kelley’s job is precisely to make sure they turn out for Barack Obama this year. Despite an overwhelmingly positive response, Ms. Kelley worries that Obama supporters might be taking victory for granted: “People hear the polls saying that we are ahead and so I feel that we lack a sense of urgency, that we forget that the outcome of this election is still unclear.” Despite intermittent drizzle and chill air, Ms. Kelley walks for several hours and knocks on about sixty doors. She recruits a few new volunteers for the remaining days of the campaign, plants signs on the front lawns of supporters and encourages a woman with a broken leg and another who will be leaving for boot camp before election day to go cast their ballots at an early voting location. After her long day on the streets, Teya Kelley finishes her Saturday by joining Christina Arrison at her field office to make phone calls.

Ms. Kelley and Ms. Arrison Ready for the Final Stretch

The last stretch of this prolonged election seasons will come down to just this: long days on the streets of America turning out one’s own supporters. Especially in a place like southern Virginia where the numbers of democrats and republicans are practically even and where the outcome of elections is normally determined by turnout, campaigns are giving it all to increase participation levels by their faithful. On election night, for example, Obama’s foot soldiers will give up sleep to walk the neighborhoods of Virginia and place door-hangers in high commuters areas between midnight and three and again between three and six in the morning, so that even early risers will find a reminder that the time has come to cast the ballot.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Woodbridge, VA – Lodged in a non-descript strip-mall in suburban Virginia, L & B Pizzeria and Sports Bar was in full capacity on Wednesday night prior to the final presidential debate between candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. By 8 P.M., as other businesses were closing down L & B remained the only speck of light overlooking an otherwise deserted parking lot.

The Republican Committee of Prince William County was having a watch party for the last Presidential debate between the two candidates and, from early on, republican supporters from the neighborhood flocked to this Italian-American pizzeria. They bought memorabilia from the McCain/Palin campaign and took their seats at one of the light wooden booths; blue and red balloons reached up to the ceiling.

Republican Supporters Celebrate Sarah Palin

The nearly 50-odd people aged fifty and above, were on a mission — cheering on the GOP Presidential hopeful to the slogan: “Keep Virginia Red.” Prince William County went for President George W. Bush in 2004 — fifty-three percent to forty-five percent — over Democratic candidate John Kerry. However this year, together with Loudon County, Prince William is one of few key districts in play, which could help the Democrats carry this unexpected swing state.

Despite the most recent polls, which give Senator Obama a distinct lead both at the national and state levels, Sen. McCain supporters at L & B projected a positive attitude: “I think that there will be a surge; people will wise-up and understand that John McCain is the right man,” said Mike Graumann, a fifty-three year-old construction worker married to a computer analyst and a father of two. Mr. Graumann sat with his friend Joe Mazzoccoli, a sixty-three year-old retired hairstylist of Italian descent. Mr. Mazzoccoli is married to an accountant and has eleven grown children and eleven grandchildren.

With Fox News playing in the background, the two friends discussed their biggest fear — the arrival of socialism in the U.S. “Obama wants to spread wealth from the bottom-up,” Mr. Mazzoccoli argued animatedly. “They’ve tried it before, in Cuba, the Soviet Union and then Jimmy Carter. Socialism is the first step and then there is communism. It never worked,” he declared.

Mr. Graumann is concerned that, if Obama is elected President, the economic crisis will keep worsening. Along with most Republicans, he believes that the roots of the current downturn are to be found not in the last eight years of the Bush Administration, but further back in the last few months of the Clinton Presidency. “Bush only came in at the wrong time, but the problems began earlier on,” Mr. Graumann claimed. “The first six-years under President Bush were very good from an economic standpoint,” Mr. Mazzoccoli echoed him, “then we began feeling the effects of the reckless low-income lending that was forced by Bill Clinton onto Fannie Mac and Freddie Mae.” According to them, it was the Democrats’ attempt to increase homeownership rates and help low-income earners to buy properties by means of subprime mortgages that triggered the excessive number of defaults and, as a result, unleashed the worst of the credit crunch.

Although both Mr. Graumann and Mr. Mazzoccoli acknowledge that the Bush Administration failed to take steps that could have mitigated the extent of the crisis, they excuse this failure with a national security argument: “Republicans made mistakes, but Bush had to defend our country, that was more important,” Mr. Mazzoccoli said. “We can’t let these people come in, bomb our buildings, kill 3,000 people and not go after them,” he stated. “Freedom is not free,” Mr. Mazzoccoli concluded before turning to the debate.

Sitting a few tables away, Anne Palmadesso, a senior resident of Woodbridge, was also getting ready to watch the face-off. She expected Senator McCain “to step up to the plate,” and to tackle issues of character and personality right from the start. “Character is very important,” self-employed Ms. Palmadesso argued, “Because, as President, they will act upon who they are.” She does not trust Barack Obama and thinks the Senator from Illinois is not clear on the direction in which he wants to take the country. Despite being worried about the fiscal policies of the Democrats and about “Obama’s socialist tendencies,” Ms. Palmadesso is one of those conservatives who vote primarily on the issue of abortion. “I’m rabidly pro-life,” Ms. Palmadesso declared.

Pro-life values are also Lori Bower’s motivation in voting for candidates. The director of a private child-care center in Fredericksburg and a forty-six year-old mother of four, Mrs. Bowers brought the entire family to L & B to celebrate the twelfth birthday of her youngest daughter while watching the debate.

Sitting next to her husband of fourteen years, also employed in the field of education, Mrs. Bower was attending her motherly duties by going through the proofs of her eighteen year-old son’s senior pictures. He will graduate from high school in the spring and join the Coast Guard. Mrs. Bower, who voted for President Bush both in ’00 and in ’04, said she was swayed toward the Republican ticket only late in the game, when Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain’s running mate at the end of August. “I really want to see a woman in office,” Mrs. Bower argued, “and Sarah is a young, fresh face who shares my values.”

Beyond adhering to a socially conservative worldview, it was hard to gauge exactly where Mrs. Bower stood on policies. She completely disapproved of the way President Bush handled the war in Iraq: “He went in with a mission of finishing his father’s job, independent of the situation on the ground. It’s time for him to go.” While hoping for a quick, but orderly, withdrawal of US troops from the Gulf, rapid enough so that her son will not have to be deployed, Mrs. Bower trusts John McCain more than she does Barack Obama, whose plan of withdrawal “does not outweigh McCain’s experience.” Explaining her distrust of Senator Obama, Mrs. Bower also made vague references to unfounded rumors that have been circulating in recent months about Sen. Obama’s supposed desire to be sworn into office on the Koran instead of the Bible.

Finally, Mrs. Bower pointed to the economy as her most pressing concern: “I know so many people whose homes have gone into foreclosures,” she said, “and my own paycheck has been held back a couple of times already because parents are not enrolling their children in my school anymore and we are short of funds.” However, Mrs. Bower didn’t appear to have a clear idea of exactly what policies she would want the next President to implement.

During the debate, the patrons at L & B Pizzeria reacted more passionately to exchanges on fiscal policy; they cheered Sen. McCain the loudest when he attacked Sen. Obama on wealth redistribution and government spending. The pro-life crowd made itself heard when John McCain pushed his anti-abortion agenda.

By the end of the face-off, the republicans gathered here seemed pleased with Sen. McCain’s performance: “I think the debate went very well, much better than the previous ones. Obama was on the defensive for most of it” judged Mike Graumann.

The GOP Presidential hopeful also met the expectations of Anne Palmadesso, who thought he had been forceful and upfront throughout the discussion. Joe Mazzoccoli joked: “I think Joe the plumber won it.” He also added that he was glad Sen. McCain had brought up the issue of Sen. Obama’s relation to Bill Ayers (a former member of the 1960s radical movement Weather Underground who is now a Professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago. A few years ago, Mr. Ayers sat on the board of the same non-profit organization as Barack Obama and Republicans have been trying to highlight this connection as a way to draw suspicions on the character of the Illinois Senator).

“McCain offered a lot of substance,” argued David Hahn, “he did a good job defending allegations made by Obama and attacking Obama’s policies.” Mr. Hahn, a property manager and small business owner with two children in college, has seen the value of his home decline by $300,000 in the last couple of years and he says he is mostly concerned about the economy.

He also attributes the roots of the crisis to the Clinton Administration and the subprime mortgages disaster. Mr. Hahn is wary of Obama’s proposed fiscal policies and believes that a Democratic Administration would raise taxes on people like himself: “I already pay enough taxes,” he avowed.

Despite being a life-long Republican, Mr. Hahn conceded that Sen. Obama also did a good job during the debate: “He is an eloquent speaker who speaks from the heart.” However, and offering an argument that, at least on the surface, might seem contradictory, Mr. Hahn claimed that forty-six year-old Barack Obama is too focused on the past, while seventy-two year-old John McCain is the candidate of the future: “The wind-chill is bigger than the rear-view mirror for a reason; you have to look ahead,” Mr. Hahn concluded.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

St Louis, MO – As Democrat Joe Biden battled Republican Sarah Palin Thursday night at Washington University in the only Vice-Presidential debate, many St Louis residents watched the face-off from the comfort of their living rooms, at a variety of private parties, and at a public viewing organized by small liberal arts college Webster University in the nearby town of Webster Groves.

A crowd of about one hundred students, alumni, and staff congregated at Webster student center.

Former Missouri Governor Bob Holden, a Democrat who is now the director of the college’s public affairs forum, organized a free “watch party”  open to the public, with a giant flat screen TV, pizza and soda.

In the hours leading to the debate, most people expressed little faith in Governor Palin’s ability to engage in a serious discussion and expected a dreadful performance. At the same time, many were worried that Senator Biden would come across condescending and professorial.

Arthur Banks, a fifty-three year-old former restaurant worker now on disability, stated: “I know Palin will make a lot of mistakes tonight.” Mr. Banks, who will vote for Barack Obama because he is afraid that John McCain will cut entitlements, had watched Gov. Palin’s interview with CBS Katie Couric and was prepared for the worst.

A group of “neighborhood moms against Sarah Palin,” shared similar pessimistic views: “I think Palin will stay away from answering the questions, will relentlessly attack Biden, and will try to divert people’s attention from her lack of knowledge,” commented Sue Hyde. These women were also concerned that Sen. Biden could stumble, if he ever looked like he was patronizing Sarah Palin: “I’m really glad that the moderator is a woman – Gwen Ifill of PBS – because it will give Palin less ground to complain about being treated unfairly,” Jacquelin Bauder maintained.

After the debate was over however, most people agreed that none of what they had feared came true. Sarah Palin looked more confident than in her interviews with Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, and Joe Biden focused exclusively on attacking John McCain’s policies, never engaging the Governor of Alaska directly or taking on her personal positions.

At Webster University, the audience watched the debate intently and participated with laughter, applauses and booing. Almost exclusively Democrats, they often followed the hints from Joe Biden’s facial expressions in deciding when and how loud to laugh at comments made by Sarah Palin.

According to the majority, the debate turned out better than anticipated, both candidates performed above expectations and the discussion was more interesting and substantive than the first Presidential debate between Senators McCain and Obama.

While still disliking Governor Palin, many in the audience thought that she did a good job. “I think both Biden and Palin were able to put a few key points in,” said Colette Cummings, an employee at Webster, “Biden spoke well on the economy and Palin stressed energy.” Ms. Cummings is an Obama supporter and disagrees with Gov. Palin’s view on same-sex marriage.

Susan Napoleon was impressed by the smooth flow of the debate: “There really were no hiccups and pregnant pauses and they both appeared confident, well-spoken and knowledgeable.” Ms. Napoleon, who is the coordinator of the Dean’s Office at the School of Communication, will vote for Obama although she says she doesn’t trust him.

Thursday night’s debate helped her learning more about Obama’s running mate Joe Biden: “I thought he was a hot head and instead he was very confident with his viewpoint and just genuinely himself.” As for Sarah Palin, Ms. Napoleon agreed with the assessment that she performed above expectations: “She was very consistent with the image she was trying to portray as the Governor of Alaska,” Ms. Napoleon commented.

Although in her opinion Gov. Palin did not fully succeed, this was her way of trying to respond to the criticism that she is not qualified for the vice-presidency.

“I’m glad I watched the debated,” stated Kara Beckman, “it confirmed that I’m making the right choice.” A senior at Webster, Ms. Beckman will vote for Obama because he “understands the average American.” Ms. Beckman was pleased with Sen. Biden’s performance because he used facts and numbers to back his statements, whereas Gov. Palin “was just talk.” Ms. Beckman’s fellow student and friend Andrea Hale complained that Sarah Palin “dodged the questions,” and kept repeating the same campaign lines over and over again.

Ismaeel Snipes, also a student at Webster, will vote for Barack Obama because he thinks Obama’s economic plan is better than John McCain’s, because Obama is “truly in touch with 21^st Century foreign policy,” and because Sen. McCain supports President Bush’s policies. Nevertheless, Mr. Snipes is a fan of Sarah Palin: “I like her energy and her personal values,” he claimed. In Mr. Snipes’ opinion, Gov. Palin held her own throughout the debate and performed much better than he thought. Mr. Snipes was also extremely pleased with Joe Biden’s act: “He was never condescending, he was respectful, and yet he always held his ground and was Presidential. And he even became emotional,” he says referring to the moment when Joe Biden shed a few sincere tears talking about the car accident that, in 1972, killed his first wife and his thirteen month-old baby girl and gravely injured his two sons.

Almost unanimously people who watched the debate at Webster agreed that their positive assessment of Gov. Palin’s performance was partially due to the fact that expectations had been set very low, particularly by last week’s interview with Katie Couric. Not surprisingly, the only person who thought Gov. Palin had done a worse job was senior Kara Beckman and she had not seen the Governor on CBS.

As a conclusion, most viewers shared a positive evaluation of the whole of the debate, thought that Gov. Palin did a better job than anticipated but, in the end, declared Joe Biden the winner. A poll conducted among CNN viewers appears to confirm these reactions: 84% of viewers felt Gov. Palin outperformed herself, while still feeling that Sen. Biden did a better job overall.  51% to 36% thought he won the debate.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Paducah, Kentucky – Bill Rayburn came to this small town at the juncture between the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers when he was 19 year-old and had $19 in his pockets. $5 went to renting a room for the night: “I was one of 11 children and my dad was the town drunk,” he recalls. Fifty-three years later, Mr. Rayburn owns a pawnshop on Broadway Street, at the heart of Paducah’s historic downtown, and he says he is worth millions: “I made my money with the stock market,” Mr. Rayburn explains, adding that his investments are still safe despite the crash of Wall Street.

He put his money over a long period of time into the stocks of a regional bank with conservative lending policies, and this strategy has kept him shielded by the recent fall in the market.

Beside stocks, Mr. Rayburn enjoys collecting Democratic memorabilia from local and national political campaigns and he has a large collection of buttons, stickers and posters scattered around his store. “I was a Hillary fan,” Mr. Rayburn maintains, “but I will vote for Obama although I’ll have to close my eyes.” He believes that Senator Obama does not have enough experience in the foreign policy arena to be President. Mr. Rayburn also adds that he would like the Democratic ticket more if it was reversed, with Joe Biden, whom he deeply appreciates, at the top.

Mr. Rayburn is getting ready to watch the Vice-Presidential debate Thursday night, although he has very low expectations, especially of Republican candidate Sarah Palin. In Mr. Rayburn’s opinion, the choice of Gov. Palin will end up hurting Senator McCain in the long run: “Before everything is over, McCain will regret not having picked somebody else,” Mr. Rayburn argues. He also claims that Gov. Palin knows very little about foreign policy and that she looked “like an eight grader” during her interview with Katie Couric on CBS.

In Paducah, a conservative-leaning town, not many share the views of Bill Rayburn. Wayne Roberts is a waiter at a local restaurant, right by the riverfront. He will vote for John McCain although he is a registered Democrat (though the last Democratic Presidential candidate Mr. Roberts voted for was Jimmy Carter back in 1976).

This year, Mr. Roberts was swayed by Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin’s pro-life stance: “I don’t believe in abortion at all,” he states. Mr. Roberts especially likes Sarah Palin, particularly her straightforward attitude: “If she can do for the country what she did for Alaska, that would be wonderful,” he says explaining that he is not worried by Gov. Palin’s relatively short political career.

“She is my kind of a woman,” echoes Marcia C., a retired banker who requested that she be identified by her first name. “Sarah Palin is conservative, has a nice family with many children and she likes outdoorsy activities, she is just like me,” continues Marcia C. On Wednesday afternoon, she was part of a group of local retirees celebrating the ninetieth birthday of a fellow citizen of Paducah in a park near the rivers.

Marcia is also a registered Democrat, but identifies herself as a social conservative and is very often attracted to Republican candidates. Marcia does not worry about Gov. Palin’s inexperience because she believes that, at the end of the day, Congress has more power than the White House. Marcia’s opinion of the legislative branch is very negative: “If I take you, a good person, and I put you in Congress, within six months you’ll be rotten,” she claims forcefully.

A few days earlier, in Nashville, Tennessee, another swing voter named Marcia had expressed a similarly positive opinion of Gov. Palin. “I like Sarah’s raw energy, it represents the real strength of America,” Marcia Garner had said. A retired teacher, Ms. Garner has registered with both parties in the past and has often changed her voting patterns.

This year she will cast her ballot for John McCain, although she confessed to be worried about Sen. McCain’s age. However, Ms. Garner added: “I’m relieved that someone young can be there to take his place were anything to happen to him.” A fiscal conservative, Ms. Garner is not socially conservative and does not share Gov. Palin’s strictly pro-life views: “I don’t think abortion is a good thing, but I can’t really say that I’m completely opposed to it,” Ms. Garner explained.

Interestingly, Gov. Palin’s scant experience in national politics seems easily brushed aside. Conservative pundits might have started questioning her credibility, but conservative voters in general do not seem to care about it. And occasionally one also sees Democrats insisting that Gov. Palin’s lack of experience doesn’t seem to matter.

Cleopatra Lewis is an Obama supporter and says she doesn’t “know if Gov. Palin has enough experience to become vice-president, but I don’t think anybody knows if she is capable until she is put in that position.” “I’m hoping that my vote will count and that Barack wins,” says the 30 year-old African American hotel worker from Nashville. Divorced and the mother of two young children, Ms. Lewis believes that the media blew Gov. Palin’s family and personal life out of proportion: “Those are personal issues and should not matter.”

Voters in states like Tennessee and Kentucky are normally moderate to conservative. It definitely seems that, at least in the so-called Bible belt, only active, engaged Democrats worry about Sarah Palin’s credentials, while many other people either do not care or hold a positive opinion of the Governor of Alaska.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Birmingham, Alabama – It is a hot southern Sunday morning in Birmingham, Alabama, and the downtown is deserted. At the foothill of the city’s high-rises, small groups of people stroll slowly on the empty streets and quietly into the side door of 16th Street Baptist Church. A brown-brick building, from the sixties, marked by a blue neon sign, the church stands at the center of a neighborhood of car dealerships, gas stations and auto-parts shops. Plastic bags fly along the jagged sidewalks swept up by a warm breeze. All businesses are closed in a sign of respect for the Day of the Lord, which around here is exclusively dedicated to prayer. Only the Civil Rights Institute next door–a museum commemorating the struggles that stormed through Birmingham in the 1960s and finally led to the abolition of segregation– is open for visits.

Contrary to the sleepy neighborhood, the basement of 16th Street Church is bustling with activity. Congregants are wrapping up Sunday school and preparing for service. Young girls wearing summery old-fashioned taffeta dresses stream out of their classes side by side their brothers in suits and ties. Elegant women stand on the laminated floor and compliment each other’s outfits. Two older men sit chatting on a fake 70s-style leather couch, while local notables in framed photos hang from the walls watching over them.

16th Street Baptist Church is a cultural landmark and a symbol of African-American Alabama. On September 15 1963, in the midst of Birmingham’s racial turmoil, a bomb exploded here killing four young girls. Reverend Martin Luther King spoke to a crowd of 8,000 at the funeral that followed. Joan Baez recorded the song “Birmingham Sunday” chronicling the aftermath of the bombing. And in 1997, film director Spike Lee shot a feature-length documentary, “4 Little Girls,” about the racially motivated attack on that fateful Sunday.

It is no surprise then that this congregation takes particular pride in the history of its church. “I’ve been a member here for many years,” says 43 year-old Marvin Hicks, a Birmingham-native who relocated to the town of Jamison, about an hour south, three years ago. Mr. Hicks still drives the forty-something miles to Birmingham at least twice a month to attend service at 16th Street Church: “This place has a good history, and good singing,” he adds with a smile.

Mass certainly rises to meet expectations.

Four women open the service singing a bluesy Christian hymn. The congregation rises from the red velvety benches and sings along; the more fervent worshippers dance. One of the four singers, a young large woman begins shaking uncontrollably as if possessed by unnatural and unseen forces. Her hypnotic quivering continues until she almost faints on the first-row bench. A man tries to reanimate her with a fan. The whole scene is repeated only minutes later, when the young lady resumes singing with the choir.

Pastor Arthur Price Jr. takes to the pulpit and asks his parishioners to pray for those who are sick, to pray for the country, the city, and the Presidential election. “Make sure you are registered to vote,” Reverend Price says, “You can’t be a member of 16th Street and not be registered; too many people have paid an awful price so that we could enjoy this privilege.” On a Sunday when thirty-three pastors across the country decided to officially endorse either John McCain or Barack Obama–in violation of churches’ tax free status–this is the only reference to politics and the presidential campaign in Reverend Price’s sermon, otherwise focused on the reality of “pain” which he asks his congregation to accept as just another part of life.

“I have Republicans, Democrats and Independents in my congregation. I certainly can’t tell people who to vote for,” explains Reverend Price, a native of Philadelphia who moved to Birmingham six years ago from a church in Buffalo, New York. He is convinced that this campaign will be historic no matter who wins: “As a congregation that is predominantly African American, we are undoubtedly proud of the Democratic nomination of the first African American candidate for President. Having said that, it is also exciting to think that the next Vice-President could be a woman.”

Rev. Price points out that there are only a few non-African American members of 16th Street Church, between five and ten out of a total of over three hundred. None are here today. His parishioners range, from the homeless to the cardiologist.

Despite the fact that 16th Street Church maintains a strictly non-partisan approach, Reverend Price says that he talks to his congregation about issues that are important. “We talk predominantly about economic issues, such as homelessness and equal housing for the poor. We also talk about the war in Iraq,” Reverend Price adds. The ongoing economic crisis has begun to take a toll on the community and Reverend Price recently started noticing that people are coming out to church less frequently, for example, cutting down on the Wednesday night bible study, and are giving less in donations.

Marvin Hicks is one of the members of the congregation who is feeling the downturn. He is particularly hit by the rising gas prices. “I work as a truck-driver all across Alabama and my gas bill is now about $600 a month,” says Hicks. His company pays him by the hour, gives him health care benefits, but does not pay for the gas he uses. As a result, the $600 a month must come out of his pocket. Married to an accountant, and a father of three, Mr. Hicks is an Obama supporter: “I’m going to go for change and stick with Obama,” he avows.

“I find the economic situation troubling, but I haven’t yet felt any direct impact,” says Valisa Brown, a medical researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Mrs. Brown has been a member of the church for ten years and she is here today, like every Sunday, with her husband, an assistant principle at a local high school, and their two boys aged two and five. “I found this church like many others do; I came here as a tourist and liked the Pastor and the things that were going on here,” Mrs. Brown explains.

She confesses to be very excited about the Presidential campaign and says that, had there been no kids, she would have splurged and gone with her husband to Denver for the Democratic National Convention: “If Barack wins, my children will only know a country where a person that looks like them is the President.”

Mrs. Brown grew up in a town in rural Alabama that relied on the logging industry and on a clothing factory that closed down while she was in high school. Her grandparents raised her. Her grandfather worked in a company that made paper products while her grandmother cleaned houses.

After graduating high school in 1988, Mrs. Brown put herself through college thanks to scholarships and earned a B.A. from the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa and a Master in Public Health from UAB. “I hope that my children will be able to see that there is life beyond Alabama, that their opportunities are limitless, that they can do whatever they want to do and be whatever they want to be,” Mrs. Brown declares.

Obama’s story, she think, will only help illustrate the possibilities.

Growing up in a community plagued by poverty, for both African Americans and Caucasians, she says she didn’t feel as many tensions in rural Alabama. However she remembers the day her grandfather received a Klux Klux Klan pamphlet in the mail supporting a candidate for a local election. “Racism is always there,” says Mrs. Brown recalling the times when she has walked into a shoe store for shopping and other costumers have automatically assumed that she is an employee. “I have a $200 purse on my arm, how do you think that I work here?” she says with laughter.

More than on the streets, at the workplace, or in school, it is in the churches that Mrs. Brown sees the strongest racial separation: “They’ve always said that the most segregated time of the week is Sunday,” she concludes before heading out for lunch with her family.

“This is a militant church, and it will be triumphant.”

Valisa Brown might very well be right. The Presbyterian mega-church Briarwood lies only a few miles outside Birmingham and it offers an insight into a very different reality. Briarwood, started in 1960, is considered the flagship establishment of the Presbyterian Church of America, an organization founded in 1973 by a group of 250 churches that thought that mainstream Presbyterianism was too liberal.

The congregation counts approximately 4200 members. The church includes a Christian school, serving 1900 students from kindergarten through 12th grade, and a seminary. In 1988, Briarwood moved to a huge $32 million campus on the hills overlooking I-459, and in 1998 a $5.5 million expansion was added.

This October construction on another $28.8 million expansion will begin. “We need more room because we don’t fit anymore,” says Stan Goebel. “We need new parking lots, more offices for the staff, and we are going to build a new 32000 square feet youth center,” adds Goebel, who is a missionary of Briarwood, and walks the projects in Birmingham to talk to people about Jesus.

As the sun slowly sets on the hilly suburbs of Birmingham, big SUVs drive into the wide tree-lined parking lot outside the church. Older couples, families with young children, and teenagers stream into the redbrick building. The 6pm Sunday service is only the last of a long series–Briarwood offers regular mass at 8am and 11am, and then so-called ethnic masses in Spanish, Korean and Japanese throughout the day. “At some point I remember learning that Briarwood has about 1000 weekly activities,” says Glenda Wood, a homemaker who volunteers at the church about 15 hours a week, and is shuffling a big cart filled with binders around the spacious lobby.

The inside of the church is adorned with a shiny-white plaster octagon, encompassing a large stage which holds the pulpit. Two huge flat-screen televisions hang on each side of the stage and during mass display the lyrics of the poppy Christian songs played by a young man with a guitar and a woman with a violin.

The TVs also display a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the points made by Pastor Harry Reeder as he gives his sermon. There is no mention of politics or current events in Reverend Reeder’s homily and the Pastor exclusively concentrates on complicated theological issues that are occasionally hard to follow.

The church teaches strict bible-based theology and focuses on missionary activity and outreach: “This is a militant church,” says Pastor Reeder in his sermon, “And it will be triumphant.” Briarwood is even known for something called Embers to Flame, re-energizing teams that this congregation sends out across the United States and the world to revitalize churches in crisis.

“We believe that the gospel of Jesus saves people. We try to reach out to others and see who responds,” says Reverend Harry Reeder who took over as Senior Pastor at Briarwood nine years ago.

Like Reverend Price of 16th Street Church, he has decided not to endorse a candidate from the pulpit today: “I believe I have a right to do it if I so choose, but I don’t think it’s fair to my congregation. We don’t tell people how to vote,” says Rev. Reeder.

But just like the 16th St. church, he also talks to his parishioners about issues that he deems important. “We believe that the sanctity of life should be protected, and so should the sanctity of marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Finally we focus on mercy, in addressing problems such as the AIDS epidemic,” Rev. Reeder states.

Briarwood has a set of ethnic congregations, created for those members who would rather worship in their native language. Nevertheless, this church has only a few African American members: “We are getting more diverse but we are not as diverse as I would like. African Americans are probably about 10% of our congregation,” Rev. Reeder maintains.

Tonight, only the pianist is African American. In any case, Pastor Reeder explains that he is not a proponent of the concept of race: “The bible says we are one race, people made in the image of God.”

While it is not easy to speak with regular churchgoers, one is immediately approached by many who are directly engaged in the activities of the church and who are more than happy to volunteer information.

Biker and missionary Stan Goebel, who came to mass in his leather pants and carrying his helmet, says he likes Briarwood because it is an encouraging, nurturing church. A 55 year-old son of a minister, never married, Mr. Goebel started his outreach activities in 1979. He sees the economic crisis hitting the poor neighborhood he walks and even the bikers he hangs out with who “are not riding anymore as they used to because of rising gas prices.”

Mr. Goebel admits to not having followed much of the Presidential campaign: “In general I’m more of a McCain man, because of his stance on abortion and homosexuality,” he maintains, adding that he also likes Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin because she is a sharp woman with good values.

Sitting with her three children on the next bench, 35 year-old Jacklynn Gothard is also a Sarah Palin fan. A graduate of Mississippi State University and a nurse at Brookwood Medical Center, Mrs. Gothard is married to a preacher who recently moved to Briarwood from Chicago, IL. “I will vote and I will vote Republican,” Mrs. Gothard states. She says her vote will be more of a vote against Barack Obama, whom she doesn’t trust for the “nebulous platform of change he advances,” than a vote for John McCain.

Mrs. Gothard doesn’t have a specific viewpoint on the war in Iraq, but she is worried about the economy. Like many others in this spread-out town where people need cars to go about their daily schedules, the Gothards have been feeling the impact of rising gas prices and have started clustering different activities together so as to reduce the number of trips they take. As a result, Mrs. Gothards will vote on the basis of issues such as energy independence.

As a Christian conservative, she also looks for a candidate that shares her pro-life view and her understanding of marriage—a union between a man and a woman. Asked about what she hopes for the future, Mrs. Gothards says: “I want clear-cut values; not a future where there are no absolutes anymore and our kids grow up without foundations.”

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Marion, AK –

Big John’s Shake Shack, offering twenty-four different flavors of soft serve, is a local hangout in Marion, a town of 11,000 in southeast Arkansas. This family-owned restaurant right off of I-55 is also a microcosm of mid-America stuck in the heart of Elvis Presley country.

Memphis is only a few miles away across the Mississippi River and Marion is, essentially, a suburb of what was once home to the King. “I opened this place in 1977, the year Elvis died,” says owner Loretta Tacker pointing to a wall poster that advertises a concert in Hartford, Connecticut, for August 21^st 1977. “Elvis never performed the concert because he was found dead on the 16^th,” Ms. Tacker recalls.

She and her husband John started their business fresh out of college. They had met at Harding, a Christian university in Searcy, AK, and Ms. Tacker, who is originally from Illinois, followed her spouse to his hometown after graduation. Big John — to whom the restaurant and the recently launched ¼ pounder are dedicated — died three years ago. A framed photo collage hanging opposite from the Elvis’ poster celebrates his memory.

Lunch is a busy time of the day at Big John’s. Patrons stream in and out incessantly while Ms. Tacker, her daughter Lisa and two other employees are busy serving their signature fried-fish. Sitting on the yellow plastic bench of one of the restaurant’s boots, Timothy Taylor has finished his lunch and is reading the local paper intently. “I’m completely depressed and disgusted about this election,” Mr. Taylor sighs, “Neither Obama nor McCain are the right choice for the country.” A man in his late thirties, Mr. Taylor works for the IT department at the Marion school district and is a disgruntled Hillary supporter. “I was born in 1971 and Bill Clinton entered Arkansas politics in 1974,” Mr. Taylor recalls as a way to illustrate the influence of the Clintons on his political upbringing. “This state is home to a near-cult of Bill, people love him for what he did here and for how he touched our lives,” Mr. Taylor asserts.

The son of a railroad worker and of a nurse, Timothy Taylor sees Bill Clinton’s popularity extending by default to his wife Hillary: “If Hillary were running for President, Arkansas would be color blue.” Which is certainly not the case today; according to the latest state polls Republican candidate John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama fifty-one percent to forty-two percent.

While he doesn’t believe Sen. Obama is qualified to be president, Mr. Taylor is not impressed with Sen. McCain’s credentials either. “McCain would be a better choice as far as his experience, but I can’t stand his social policy, his stance on gay rights and abortion,” Mr. Taylor avows.

He holds completely opposing views of the two Vice-Presidential candidates, but just as negative: “Strategically, I think Sarah Palin was a brilliant choice for the Republicans, because it helps them reaching out to the Hillary supporters and to energize the evangelicals who were going to sit out this elections.” However, Mr. Taylor doesn’t like Gov. Palin, he’s worried by her lack of experience and wishes that there had been more vetting on the affiliation of Gov. Palin’s husband Todd with the Alaska Independence Party.

As for the Democrats, Mr. Taylor thinks that “it was absolutely stupid not to choose Hillary.” According to him, Joe Biden is qualified but boring and does not bring anything to the ticket. As a result, Mr. Taylor will vote for Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, but he is keen on making it clear that “this is not so much a vote for Barr but more a vote against Obama.”

A single man and a homeowner, Mr. Taylor is worried about the economy and dismayed by the collapse of Wall Street and by the government bailout. “I’ve always believed in government and the need for taxes to support the system,” Mr. Taylor says, “but this mess is going to make me into an anti-tax person.”

Mr. Taylor is especially upset at the thought that somebody might have profited from the financial crash and that nobody in Washington, Republican or Democrat, seems to want to go after them. “I want to see some action against people who made money out of the subprime mortgage crisis,” Mr. Taylor states.

Although, as a government employee he hasn’t felt the effects of the economic downturn, Mr. Taylor is nervous that the worst is yet to come. He says this year many parents in his school district cannot afford to buy school supplies for their children. He also notes that premiums for health coverage are skyrocketing. In his case, for example, while the employer puts $131 a month towards benefits, his personal share of the burden will rise from $68 to $98 a month starting in October. “And I only have single coverage, if I had family coverage the cost could be much higher, up to $1000 a month,” Mr. Taylor maintains.

But he also believes that there is more to be anxious about than just the economy. Mr. Taylor says he is “scared to death about the situation in the Middle East,” and describes Iran as “ticking-time bomb.” Finally he hopes that the next president will be able to repair America’s suffering image abroad.

Bail bondsman Mike Morgan, who is sitting with a few friends by a wall painted in a life-size effigy of Elvis, is also concerned about the Middle East, although he frames the issue in different terms: “I’m worried about terrorism and these Arab/Muslim extremists,” Mr. Morgan utters. He is convinced that the Iranians “are soon to be a nuclear threat,” and that “they detest America.” Mr. Morgan partially explains the dwindling relations of the United States with much of the rest of the world with America’s inclination to policing the globe. However, he is also persuaded that having a presence abroad is crucial in defending this country’s national security.

A self-proclaimed independent who professes little allegiance to either party, Mike Morgan will vote for Sen. McCain, ultimately swayed by the choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate: “I think she is plain spoken; she relates well to little people,” Mr. Morgan says while adding that he shares her views on social issues. He is not troubled by Gov. Palin’s inexperience and cites the fact that Presidents Carter, Reagan and Bush were also governors prior to being elected to the White House.

Although Mr. Morgan deems Sen. Obama to be an extremely bright individual, he doesn’t trust him: “I don’t think he says what he really feels.” Moreover Mr. Morgan accuses Sen. Obama of racism, quoting the Senator’s controversial affiliation with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama ended up denouncing, and Michelle Obama’s contentious statement, several months ago, that she was, this year, for the first time, proud of her country.

A soft-spoken sixty-something father of three with an abrasive sense of humor (he approached me while I was taking photos of the restaurant and inquired whether I was a terrorist gathering information to blow the place up), Mike Morgan is also apprehensive about the economy. “Nobody has any money anymore,” he says complaining that, for example, he sometimes can’t afford to pay the 10% cash-requirement that courts have instituted on bail bonds. He agrees that at this point the bailout is a must-do but he scorns at the attitudes of politicians in the White House and Congress: “This is such a typical Washington thing to do; they should have done something years ago.”

The only one that is not overly concerned about the economy, at least on a personal level, is owner Loretta Tacker. Today, Ms. Tacker is wearing a light blue pajama-like blouse dotted with pink hearts and Elvis’s face. “Business is going great,” Ms. Tacker asserts, “People are always going to eat, independent of the economy.” Her 1950’s style restaurant filled with Elvis’ paraphernalia attracts regulars such as Messrs. Morgan and Taylor as well as a steady stream of passers-by traveling between Arkansas and Tennessee on I-55, which essentially runs above Big John’s.

Ms. Tacker is a life-long Republican who seems pleased with John McCain. “He is a down-to-earth, honest man,” she contends. Ms. Tacker also likes President George W. Bush and argues that he has done good things for the country, such as the stimulus package, which was passed this past spring and which resulted in a check between $300 and $600 for each American tax-payer: “It’s not much money individually, but if you think that everybody got it, I think it was a good way of taking care of the country, a good gesture,” Ms. Tacker maintains.

A socially conservative Christian, Loretta Tacker adores Sarah Palin: “She is pretty,” Ms. Tacker says smiling. Her biggest concern is homeland security and she is apprehensive about “terrorists constantly coming up with ways to attack America.” Ms. Tacker also acknowledges that the economic crisis could, after all, impact the lives of everybody: “It’s hard to believe,” she comments, “but we could have the Great Depression again.”

However, Ms. Tacker confesses that she doesn’t follow politics all that much. Big John’s Shake Shack is open from 8 A.M. to 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays and until late on Fridays. On Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on Wednesday nights, Ms. Tacker attends a non-denominational Christian church in Marion: “As you see I don’t have much time left for politics,” she remarks before returning to the kitchen to fry more fish.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism