Iowans Ready for Change, Ready to Work for Obama

In Iowa, site of the first caucuses, presidential campaigning gets started early, sometime two years before the general election, says Cathy Glasson, RN, President of Local 199 in Iowa City, IA, representing 5,000 RNs and other healthcare professionals and public employees.

"Because we have the first caucuses," Cathy says, "our members are highly active. Originally, we enthusiastically endorsed John Edwards, and held lots of rallies, did door-knocking and phone-banking. We were very proud of the work we did for Edwards and we were disappointed when he lost. But we knew we had a great choice in Barack Obama. And frankly, we have a number of members who supported him all along.

"We know what we have to do now, and we have a lot of experience to guide us.  We will be calling all of our members to involve them. We're about to start signing up MPOs, reaching out to every member, holding worksite meetings, making labor-to-labor calls. And after we've done all we can do as Local 199, a lot of us will be volunteering directly in the Obama campaign, knocking on doors and pulling out the votes."

Rachel Barrow, an RN at University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics (UIHC), says that for her, "My biggest thing about this election is that we need a change at the White House and I think that Obama can win. People are losing hope and when he speaks about hope, they respond. They are ready for the change he talks about.

"I have a couple of small kids so I'm not able to go to other states to work, but I'll sure be working hard here-knocking on doors, phone banking, putting up posters at my institution, working in my community."

Another UIHC nurse, Pauline Taylor, has been supporting Obama since August 2006 when she went to the annual dinner convened by U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, at which Sen. Obama was the main speaker. "Even back then, there were 'Obama in '08' signs," says Taylor.



"Here in Iowa, we get to meet all the candidates up close and personal. Once you've gone to a caucus, politics is in your blood. And I can tell you that people here are excited about Obama.

"I went to an Earth Day event in spring of last year here in Iowa City. Senator Obama was the speaker and I've never seen anything like this before in this town, when 10,000 people came out to hear him. People who have never registered to vote, especially young people, are signing up to work for him. If he can energize the younger generation, you've got to be excited."

Taylor has been going to local and state Democratic Party conventions for years. This time, she hopes to get elected at the state convention to be an Obama delegate to the national convention in Denver, Colorado.