Dear Departing Doppelgänger
President Obama,
Firstly, thank you. For letting me serve as your staffer and a dedicated heads down, let’s-get-sh*t-done cheerleader on the ’07 primary, both ’08 and ’12 generals, and in the early days of OFA at the DNC, the latter punctuated by memories of living out of the ‘healthcare reform bus’ as we went state to state championing your principles of healthcare reform. All were absurdly wild times — primarily alongside Jon Carson and Jeremy Bird — that definitively shaped the course of my few, precious years I have on this incredible planet.
We all know that although President of the United States is on your resume now, so is professor, first and foremost. And most professors I’ve had love a strong take-away summary. So, here’s mine, from what I’ve learned working for and watching you these past almost 10 years of my life:
- It’s okay to be decent. Oftentimes decency wins. Especially in the context that (and you’ve been sure not to let us forget this) the arch of the moral universe is long — VERY long.
- Being intentional and measured about building relationships can be an effective way to get a whole bunch of people — oftentimes with seemingly disparate interests — to row in the same direction towards a more equitable and sustainable future.
- It’s true! You proved it! You can be a little brown boy or girl who likes to read and not be ‘acting white’, but instead be making a meaningful difference for oneself, and eventually the world.
That last one, from your 2004 DNC speech I watched for the first time the week you announced you’d run for President, was what sealed the deal for me; I can recall several instances of some knuckleheaded middle school classmate telling me — the son of a white school teacher from Seattle and a black social worker from Texas — that I was acting too white because I cared so much about school.
Your vision for our country and world, your desire to see antiquated social notions go by the wayside, and the possibility that a guy who kind of looked like me could be President had captured this then-campaign intern for good. At that point I was more than happy to ditch my senior year functions happening just up Lake Shore Drive at Northwestern to pound through phone calls and then staple together walk packets sprawled out all over the 11th floor of 233 North Michigan.
Organizing on your campaigns defined and helped me refine the lens through which I still see the world: a place where everyone has the potential to inspire and lead others into action, despite the uncertainty that defines life. Organizing some of the first Camp Obama trainings in Atlanta and New York, alongside organizing giants like Marshall Ganz, Joy Cushman and Paul Scully, gave me tools and a grounding ideology for how best to get others to pull together, and believe in one another, so that even those of us with relatively little power can do things we never thought possible.
The most fulfilling part of my time on your campaigns, by far, was having the privilege of building and leading a team of nearly 200 staffers and thousands of volunteers in the heart of the Deep South at the ripe old age of 23. Before then, never did I ever think that, in my lifetime, I’d witness — let alone organize and direct — serious national campaign efforts for the first African-American President in a state like Georgia. Thinking back on the nearly quarter-million people our team registered to vote in that state still leaves me with a lasting sense that all those incredibly long hours, poor sleep, terrible eating habits, and ignored phone calls from mom and dad were done for the right reasons.
At the inaugural ball for campaign staff in 2009, you uttered some of the most personally consequential lines to date. You told us that, although you needed some help there in Washington, you wanted most of us to take the incredible energy, passion, and skills we developed during the campaign to every corner of our society, for as long as we live. I want you to know I took and still take those words very seriously; they’re a big part of why, today, I run a company I co-founded called Landed (landed.com) that is helping teachers buy homes in expensive places by partnering them with local community investors.
I’m doing this because working on your campaigns and you being our 44th President taught me the importance of believing in the seemingly impossible, and that different people, with different needs and lives, can come together in a way that is mutually beneficial, to create a more prosperous future for all of us.
So, on behalf of my new team, our first-time homebuyers, the kids in the classrooms of these teachers who are going to be able to stay in the communities they teach due to our help: thank you for inspiring me to act.
Looking forward to doing so much more with you in the years to come!
— Alex Lofton, your doppelgänger organizer
