Had an email from my cousin Jeff Haley in Colorado last night. Jeff has recently setup a campaign office for the Obama campaign in his home town of Lakewood. Things have taken off there in a matter of a couple of weeks Jeff has a couple of hundred people working from the office. Amazingly on September 16th, the big man him self paid them a visit at the office and what more can I say. A picture really does paint a thousand words. For those of you who don’t know Jeff or Gale, I have circled them in a cropped version of the photo. I have also included the text from Jeff’s email as it tells the story way better than I can.

Jeffs email reads as follows

Hi Kieran and many of my other Irish and American cousins,
I’ve said to Gale several times lately that I feel badly that I’ve been so out of touch with my cousins over there.  To say the least, I’ve been out of sorts as well – what’s with you Eamonn?  Thanks for your message and reminding me of my duties as Clan Healy genealogist.  With me it’s the very subject about which you write – this election.  Here’ what I’ve been doing about it:

The Democrat’s national convention was held in Denver in August, but I started working on the staff  weeks before.  I worked my way up the pecking order to the plum job of handling the VIP entry to the big complex where it was held.  That got me working with our Secret Service to greet each “VIP” that was entitled to enter that way and get them through security, etc.  That included past Presidents, many US senators and such, as well as some notables from the celebrity and news world (too many names to mention).

Then, I went to work on the Obama campaign, which started out rather slow for me, but just kept building.  I was going over to their office, which is about 5 miles from my house, a couple of times a week, but it was beginning to get crowded and crazy.  So, I went and found a vacant office near my home on the main thoroughfare through the town of Lakewood and set up a new campaign office.  That was early September.  From working there a few hours a day with a couple of people the campaign sent over, I now have a team of over 200 people and I’m going 12-15 hours a day, even though I’ve got 6 directors to whom I delegate most of the coordination and voter contact actions.

Some of them are shown in the accompanying photo, which was taken with Senator Obama on September 16 when he was in the area.  Look to the left of the man in the center for a couple of familiar faces.  I asked him then if he would be back as I had a large team that would love to see him and he whispered that he would.  He did.  He had to go to Hawaii to visit his ill grandmother last week and made a quick stop in Denver, where many of our team were among the 100,000+ people at the rally.  He’s coming back tomorrow already, but I’ll be unable to get to that rally.

We’ve had our Congressman, Governor and other notables (actor Kevin Costner a couple of nights ago) come to the office to pump up the team, so it’s been a worthwhile investment in time and money.  I’ve had to deal with the press on several occasions, not my forte, especially the TV parts, but here’s the latest:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/28/the_volunteers_gear_up_for_one.html

Tracy will recognize that as the Washington Post and the reporter is often seen on our network news programs.   Two of the women in the article, Vanessa and Penny, are on our team here in Lakewood.  It’s been fun to watch them develop from shy, first time into politics people, to see Penny get to introduce Obama at a major economic policy speech here in Colorado in September when the financial meltdown was beginning.  Most of that article is blogs, so don’t bother to read past the end of the actual news clip unless you need to put yourself to sleep.

So, with that it’s back to the office to see if I can catch them working over there.

All my best to all of you and I’ll be back amongst the clan in another week or so after I get the office shut down and cleaned up and we hold our victory party.

Yes we can!
Slán
Jeff