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"  Congratulate me: As of Sunday, October 5th, at 3 p.m., I became an official graduate of Camp Obama, New York session 6, where I and a bunch of other volunteers were trained in the skills necessary to become DFOs (Deputy Field Organizers) in one of the key battleground states of the electoral campaign. After two days of training, you are expected to know how to run phone banks, canvass door to door, recruit other volunteers and manage their efforts, and most important, communicate your &amp;quot;story of self&amp;quot; to explain how you came to this point of your life and the driving force that got you here. In short: how to talk to the hundreds of thousands of undecided voters in the month remaining before the election.  The two-day training was an intense mix of PowerPoint presentations (expertly and passionately delivered by Obama staffers), videos, workshops, breakout sessions, role-playing, and testimonials. It was all very comprehensive, never negative, and perfectly reflective of the kind of campaign that Senator Obama has conducted for all these months.    Samantha (second from right) and her posse at Camp Obama  On a personal note, I found that Camp Obama provided the formal management training I had never had, combined with the kind of deep self-study I tend to avoid. I made instant friends and laughed constantly at the razor-sharp wit and goofy gaffes of the Obama staffers and a few wacky volunteers.  The first opportunity to hobnob with the 150+ &amp;quot;campers&amp;quot; came within the first 30 minutes. We broke up into groups of 5 or 6, introduced ourselves, shared our personal goals, and revealed individually why we were passionate about Barack Obama&amp;#039;s campaign. It&amp;#039;s amazing the bonding effect a little self-exposure has. After I shared personal stories about my family that I probably had never really articulated before, the group I formed randomly in that moment became my posse for the next two days. We sat together, ate together, and became a clique within minutes:  \u2014Yi, from San Francisco, who moved back to the East Coast after leaving her hedge-fund position, as she explained, because she was tired of making &amp;quot;rich people richer.&amp;quot; (Honey, you&amp;#039;re wearing Louboutins to camp, but we understand!)  \u2014Martin, a Norwegian professor from Wharton who couldn&amp;#039;t even vote but decided to set two weeks of his life aside to canvass and phone-bank for Obama because he saw it as a global effort of volunteerism: the presidential outcome of the election affecting every nation on the planet.  \u2014Dave, the Yale med student, who came over to Obama&amp;#039;s side only after Dennis Kucinich dropped out of the primary race.  \u2014And Dan, the 23-year-old student, who was especially passionate about health care and education.    (From left) Samantha and Dave, DFOs-in-training, with Obama staffers  As clich\u00E9 as it may sound, every walk of life could be found at Camp Obama, and the only thing that connected us all was our willingness to leave home and work 24/7 in a place we&amp;#039;ve never been in an effort to commit fully to this campaign in these final critical weeks.  The Boston Globe recently reported that the Obama campaign has organized the largest field operation in history, and as this is the final Camp Obama and there is need for DFOs most urgently in Ohio, I will most likely be deployed there. It is a critical battleground state. I have never been to Ohio. I don&amp;#039;t know a single person who lives in Ohio. My Midwest experience is limited to going to school in Ann Arbor, Michigan (the Big Ten rivalry may help me or hurt me here\u2014who knows?), and visiting my grandpa every year in Chicago. I am fussy: I don&amp;#039;t eat meat, I&amp;#039;m allergic to all furry animals, and I barely know how to drive\u2014but off to the heartland I go! It could be a little Beverly Hillbillies meets The Simple Life. No matter\u2014I am a highly adaptable person!  The campaign will set me up with &amp;quot;supporter housing,&amp;quot; meaning a room in the house of an Obama supporter who is down for the cause. It&amp;#039;s kind of like being an exchange student and learning a different culture. There are surprise perks that arise, we were told. Dave Pollak, the Obama campaign&amp;#039;s New York State director, shared with us the story of a recent Camp Obama grad who called him from the stage of a Bruce Springsteen benefit concert in Pennsylvania...with the Boss himself standing right next to him.  Another one of the perks of working in battleground states is that the candidate will spend most of the next month shuttling between them, so the odds are pretty good that as a DFO you will find yourself smack in the middle of the action, and potentially working side-by-side with Senator Obama himself, or one of his high level surrogates.  So I am going to start packing my bags (sans Louboutins), fill my suitcase with Cliff Bars and vegan treats, and relish the fact that while I will be out of my element, I will be working for the greater good with the most passionate and committed people I have ever known.  For more information on how you can get involved, go to www.barackobama.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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