Primary day

Primary Election Day was exciting... Though I caught the sickness that was going around my class so unfortunately I had to duck out early. 

It was an interesting day though! There were so many volunteers that came out that day to help canvas (which by the way, it was FREEZING outside!). I helped with data entry and sorted through canvas packets to prioritize voters so that people who we hadn't talked to yet, or had said they were maybe voting, would be talked to first. 

Then, after a lunch that consisted of major snacking, I started feeling really sick! I got picked up around 4 pm unfortunately because I felt like I just needed to go to bed. 

Thankfully, Bernie won!!!! Everyone on my campaign was so happy and excited. This experience was really incredible and I feel that I've connected with so many amazing people through it. I was originally very concerned about coming on this trip because I didn't know anyone else in the class and I'm a pretty shy person overall. But I absolutely love the people who I worked with and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to get to know them. I already miss them! 

Bern baby Bern!!

I'm skipping my entry for day 7 because I had some unfortunate personal news that caused me to stay at the hotel that day. 

However, day 8 was INCREDIBLE! We woke up early as usual and headed to the office. The Bernie group had been a little bummed out that we weren't able to attend a Bernie rally even though all the other kids had been able to see their candidates. 

In the car on the way there, one of my friends discovered there was going to be a rally super close to our office at 1 pm and that the doors opened at 11 (it was about 10 am when we found this out). We asked our professor and field organizer for permission and they gave it to us-- FINALLY we would see Bernie!! 

The rally was at a nice theater in downtown Manchester (and it had seats which was arguably my favorite part). We were one of the first groups of people in line so when the doors opened at 11 we bolted to the front of the venue and got seats in the front row.... I was freaking out we were SO close! 

We had to wait 2 hours for him to come out but he had a great playlist going during the wait. Also, he only had 1 person introduce him which was nice because at other rallies I've been to candidates have had several people introduce them. He jumped right into his speech and the crowd was going nuts. I couldn't believe how close I was to him! 

He spoke about everything from climate change to corrupt politics to college debt. Since I was so close I was able to see his notes for his speech which were handwritten on looseleaf paper (which seems like a small detail but I felt like it added to his overall persona of being a man of the people). 

His speech was incredible- I was clapping so much my hands started to hurt. I'm so glad we were able to get to see him in a small rally setting and especially to see him so close!! 

After leaving we grabbed some quick lunch and headed to the office. We made phone calls for the rest of the day (it ended up being a shorter day due to a huge snow storm that came in that afternoon). 

It was a great experience to have and I'm sooo thankful we got to do it. It was also fun to see all that snow! (It was also freezing so I'm glad I didn't have to be outside too much). 

Day 6

Today we all spent the day at our internship offices. The Bernie people stayed in Manchester all day and made a lot of phone calls!! It was a good day but I was extremely tired.

The C-SPAN bus came to our office and the USF volunteers were interviewed (which was really exciting). After that we were invited onto their bus and they talked to us about internship opportunities. 

At about 2 pm, I got a personal phone call from Chris Matthews (yes, the host of Hardball on MSNBC!). I'm actually extremely lucky because a friend of my family, Tom Wentzel, served in the Peace Corps with Chris Matthews and asked Chris if he would be willing to meet with me (thank you so much, Tom!!). 

Getting the phone call was shocking to say the least. He told me where he was staying and that he was going to be filming that night in the hotel restaurant. So I told my classmates and it turned out only 3 of us could go (which really made getting there a lot easier!). When we got there we discovered it was PACKED! We weren't sure how much of a chance we would have to meet him. As we were coming to terms with that, Madeleine Albright walked past us and said hi!! At that point we decided we couldn't leave because it was just too exciting! I even ended up in the background on tv!

(I have more pictures but they're all quite blurry)

We ended up asking the person guarding the VIP area (where Chris Matthews was filming) if he could help us out. We were worried our story wouldn't sound believable but evidently it was and he helped us out a ton (thank you Kevin!). We decided to wait until Chris Matthews was done filming because it would be too hard to try to meet him on a commercial break. 

Once he was done, he went around taking pictures with people and asking "where are my peace corps people?". We actually escorted him out of the restaurant and he led us to a table to sit down and talk (our area was guarded by security so no one else could come in... Except his nephew who we met!). He sat down and started talking about his time in the Peace Corps with Tom which was very interesting! Then he said "so what can I do for ya?" And I had no idea what to say!!! I was starstruck, honestly. He talked to us about the primaries and what he thought of all the different campaigns which was very entertaining (haha). 

We chatted for about 15 minutes before he said he had to go to watch the debate so he could talk about it on his show afterwards. We asked if we could take some pictures with him and he said yes but that we should do one-on-one pictures because doing standing group photos looks like you met randomly in a hallway... I agree. 

It was really an incredible experience!!! After he left all three of us were freaking out and we decided to sit down and call our parents to tell them what just happened! 

Eventually we went to a quick dinner before heading home. It was an amazing day!!! 

S N O W ! ! !

Today it snowed!!! I'm not originally from Florida (I'm from Chicago!) but I was so excited to see/play in the snow because I haven't seen any in years!! 

It snowed pretty consistently all day and I did NOT wear the shoes (or pants... considering I only wore tights) for it. That was okay though because today was my favorite day of the whole trip so far! 

The Bernie people decided to work with the NHDP (New Hampshire Democrat Party) setting up for the 100 club dinner all day. We got to the Verizon Center (where it was being held) at about 8:30 and we went in and started helping set up the tables and section off chairs for different organizations. We got through th set up ahead of schedule and soon enough we were calling an uber to go get lunch at a pizza place (that had vegan cheese!!). It was SO good-- Portland Pie co is what it was called. We hung out there for a few hours because the Secret Service was doing a sweep of the Verizon center. We came back around 3 and it took quite a while for the Secret Service to let us in. However once we got in, that's when it got really fun!! Our job was to help the VIP guests find their seats. We got to meet so many people!!! Congressmen, members of senate, Ben and Jerry even walked in through VIP (they had a light-up Bernie sign, too!). It was so cool to be meeting all of these important people even if it was only for a minute or two. A lot of people I helped were aware of the group of USF students im NH which was cool. 

We worked until 7, when we were given great news- that we would be able to sit at one of the fancy tables on the floor of the arena!! It was awesome!!!! There were so many interesting speakers, the governor, Jeanne Shaheen, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Raymond Buckley, the list goes on!! And of course, when Bernie came out our table was screaming!!! I'm so glad we were able to see Bernie in person! I can't wait for him to come to Florida so I can (hopefully) have another opportunity. 

I also met Alex Sink tonight, too!!! I had never met her before and she was super nice (her accent is amazing). 

Here are some more moments from this amazing day/night- this is me up on stage when we were setting up! Bernie and Hillary stood there later on :) 

And this is the group of Bernie people before we knew they would let us take individual pictures onstage. 

Day 4... With The Donald

Yesterday was insane! We didn't end up working on our campaigns but we did a lot of other things! We headed to the State House in Concord to meet with the Secretary of State (of NH) which was really cool!! He talked to us about how the primaries were formed and how they've evolved throughout the years. After that we went and listened to a bit of the NH senate session. One of the senators even went to USF in college! I even met President Obama! (haha) 

After touring the rest of the State House we grabbed some lunch downtown. Then we hurried back to hear the State of the State address in the NH congress. It was cool because it was the Governor's last one (she's running for US senate next year). 

After hearing the State of the State, we headed to Portsmouth for a Trump rally...

I was a bit nervous to attend this, honestly. It was definitely an experience. We were in a VIP section right in front. He was very charismatic and the crowd was basically in love with him. I tried very hard to be polite throughout the whole thing (but I had a few eye rolls that I really couldn't stop). The rally wasn't quite as... problematic as I had expected (maybe he has been advised to shy away from some topics...) which was definitely nice. Plus it's cool to say that I was able to see him in person!

After that memorable event we went to Smuttynose for dinner!!! It was SO good! And also exciting for me because they had vegan options!!! It was nice for us to all be able to get together to have dinner again since our campaigns have been splitting us up since Monday. Hopefully we will be able to do something like this again!!

And here are some more Portsmouth pictures- at the state house they had a huge wall full of candidate material (a lot of it was signed!!)

I loved downtown Portsmouth. I would definitely move here!!

Day 3

Today was another big day! It started extremely early when my alarm went off at 5:30 (which honestly is about as late as I go to bed sometimes) which was painful to wake up to. After getting ready we all piled into cars and headed to Bow to see a Marco Rubio town hall.

 

The great thing about this town hall was that we had SEATS (which was truly exciting after having to stand a lot of the day yesterday waiting for Hillary Clinton). Rubio was good- even though we don't really see eye to eye. It was neat because the whole class got to meet him and he seemed happy to see some fellow Floridians!! 

We were really close! 

After we left the town hall (around 9:30 or 10 am) we all headed to the gas station/dunkin donuts which was great because I was starving! 

Once I ate a great lunch of fries and a deli noodle salad, I was headed off with the other Bernie people to the campaign office. We actually ended up at the Manchester field office today and it was amazing!!! There were tons of people there and everyone was super nice and in a great mood- it was infectious! It was a rainy day so I ended up making phone calls all day but I didn't even mind because of the great conversations I was having with other volunteers. Everyone was so friendly and I had such a good time talking to them. I (and another USF Bernie volunteer) even ended up training someone on how to make phone calls!! 

Plus, there were TONS of people from the media in the office today. I was interviewed by someone and I know that other USF students were even interviewed on camera! It was a crazy day and I loved all of it. 

They have so many great posters and artwork I need to get pictures of at this office but there was one I needed to get a picture with today: 

Vermin Supreme 2016

Today was a BUSY day! It started at 7:30 am with breakfast at the hotel. After eating a nutritious PB&J (and orange juice!!) I (as well as the rest of the class) was headed to Nashua for a Hillary Clinton rally. Even though I'm campaigning for Bernie, I like Hillary and was so stoked to be able to go to a rally of hers. The rally was being held at a local community college and there were SO many people there! The line to get in was insane and it was clear that everyone was pumped up and ready to hear Hillary speak. 

Waiting in line involved taking many pictures (and selfies). 

After waiting in line for a little less than an hour (which was expected considering everyone had to go through a security checkpoint) we finally got in! Everyone inside was decked out in Hillary gear and there was great, energetic music playing. 

It wasn't until about 11:30 when the community college president came out to introduce the New Hampshire governor (which was a really fun surprise!) who got the crowd hyped up for Hillary and Bill (or Billary, as some say). 

At noon Bill Clinton came out and everyone was chanting and clapping- it was so exciting! I had the fortune of seeing the former president before at a Charlie Crist rally I worked in 2014, but I was much closer to the action today!! 

Seeing President Clinton speak was really incredible. I think he's a brilliant speaker and it was great to see his enthusiasm for Hillary. Hillary ended up coming out around 12:15 and the crowd truly went wild (me included). I've never had the opportunity to see her before so this was a real treat!! 

After about 45 minutes (full of cheering and clapping) Hillary finished up and we headed out of the building. Immediately after getting outside I saw a familiar and interesting character- Vermin Supreme. If you're not familiar with him, he's a presidential candidate (on the democratic side) who promises ponies to everyone if he wins. So of course, I had to ask him for a selfie: 

Honestly, he was super nice! 

After letting Vermin get back to his pony-related duties, we were off to the New Hampshire Democratic Party headquarters in Concord. I thought the office was so cool and the chairman spoke to us for a bit about how he got involved with the party. 

After that, we all went off to our internship placements. I got to the Bernie campaign office around 4:30 and just made phone calls until about 8. 

Today was a super fun day, but tomorrow starts even earlier at 6 am so it's time for me to get to bed!! 

Day 1

Today was my first day working on Bernie's campaign in Salem! It was really exciting and I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. The Bernie group of interns was dropped off at around 10:30 am and for the first hour or so the field organizers introduced us to the campaign material that we would be working with. After that, we broke into groups and went out to canvas. 

Unfortunately not a lot of people were home when we were canvassing (between 11:30 am and 3 pm) but we did speak to a few Bernie supporters. We also spoke to a couple older GOP men who had good (and long) conversations with us about politics in general. No one was mean or slammed the door in our faces which was definitely nice. The weather was beautiful too (though there was some snow on the side of the road!) which made walking around much easier.

After canvassing (and eating a late lunch), we went back to the office and started phone banking. The campaign used an online service to conduct the phone calls which was really neat and easy because all I had to do was stay on the line and wait to be connected to another person. 

We were picked up at 8:30 pm and we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner (and the Iowa caucus results)! The results are still coming in, but so far Hillary is beating Bernie by less than a percentage point!! I'm really hoping he can win both Iowa and New Hampshire because not only will that be wildly exciting to experience here in New Hampshire, but it will also be a real game changer!! 

Goodbye, Florida!

I'm finally on the plane and officially headed to New Hampshire! Most of the class was able to get on the same flight, so we all met at the gate around 11:30 this morning. We went over the itinerary which made this trip actually start to feel real for me... I still can't really believe it, honestly.

It's crazy that starting tomorrow I'll being working for Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire (which has the first in the nation primary)! Tomorrow is a big day not only because I'll be meeting all of the people I'll work with on the campaign, but also because it's the Iowa caucus! The results of this caucus are going to have a big impact not only on the primaries in New Hampshire but on the entire election, too!

I'm really excited to have the opportunity to experience working on this campaign. Plus, it will be exciting to go to other candidate events and (hopefully!) meet some of the candidates as well.

I'm pretty nervous, but I can't wait to start working tomorrow!

Introduction

In a little more than two weeks, I will be in New Hampshire getting ready to work for Bernie Sanders' campaign. I could not be more excited! I love working on campaigns - it's such an exhilarating experience. I chose to work for Bernie Sanders because I feel that his policies most closely align with my views and opinions. I love how passionate and vocal he is about climate change, equal rights, and universal healthcare.
I can't wait to learn all about all the candidates and attend events and rallies!