Our Greatest Strength is Ourselves

I’m a part of a bunch of different networks.

As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, when I run into another RPCV there’s a certain impactful life experience I know we share that others don’t. And it makes for nice banter at dinner parties.

I’m also a UCLA grad. When two Bruins meet, you ask which part of LA they lived in, talk about the crazy traffic, and that’s about it.

I still have some good friends from my 18 months on the 2000 Gore Campaign, and every January 24th an Iowa Caucus anniversary reminder goes out from some lonely Yahoo group set up 15 years ago.

The Obama network is different. I remember well the first time that was made clear to me.

I joined the campaign in February of 2007, and sensing a level of energy like I’d never seen before, we launched something called Camp Obama. The offer was that if you were willing to get yourself to Chicago, find your own place to stay, and go through a 5-day training, we’d give you the privilege of working for free for months in one of the early states. 500 people signed up the first day, 10,000 by the end of the summer. Every Monday for week after week, our training room was filled to capacity with people who took the leap, and every Friday I would spend hours doing one on one interviews with them. These interviews left me blown away, these were not just the typical political types we had on the Gore Campaign. You could see the diversity just by walking in the room, but the diversity of life experiences went so much deeper than that. A high school music teacher, a Chicago Public Defender, and a Wall Street trader all who quit their jobs and came to the training ready to move where ever we asked. Architects, lawyers, urban planners, computer scientists, PhDs who left their programs, and community organizers who’d never joined a campaign before. As these new recruits headed out on the road each Friday to their new assignments I marveled at the diversity, the raw talent, the passion, and potential of the group coming together through this campaign. From the start it was clear, this was different.

Moments like 2007 bring people together from all walks of life, but it is shared experiences that form life-time bonds. And experiences we’ve had in spades these last 10 years. We’ll be telling the stories over and over again for the next 50 years so I won’t recount them here. But going through that many victories and defeats together forms an understanding and level of trust that last a lifetime. Just like I know something about what a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer has gone through, when you meet someone from the Obama world, and hear about their time on the campaign trail, in an advocacy fight, or working in the Administration, there’s a shared experience you know they’ve been through.

The Obama family grew along the way. As staff packed up from each primary state in 2008, an ever-increasing number of locals would quit their jobs or school and hop in the back of those cars to travel to the next state. One young Texan even finished High School early to join the caravan. Thousands of Fellows in that first class in spring 2008 began careers in organizing now 8 years along. Two Administrations, two rough mid-terms, and another re-elect brought together thousands more, with the incredible diversity of backgrounds a common theme through the end. Whether you were a super-volunteer leading a Chapter in St. Louis or a Special Assistant at the Interior Department, it’s a network with only a degree or two of separation from end to end.

As this group is now heading off each to their next adventure, it’s fascinating to watch the diversity of where people came from be matched by the diversity of where they are going. Media, business, non-profit, government at all levels, elected officials themselves, there’s not a corner of the country you won’t find someone from the Obama family still fighting for change, and relying on each other to make it happen.

What are the shared values of this family? I don’t think they’ve changed much since they were first painted on the wall of that office in Des Moines in 2007: Respect, Empower, Include. Again, if you were part of this world I know that you know what that means.

Now I’ll pause a moment for the obligatory restating of the obvious: not everyone who came in and out of the Obama world the last 10 years was awesome. Confidence and hubris, creativity and ridiculousness, the lines between them are blurry and you can spend a lot of time reinventing wheels if you think you are the first people to ever do something. As campaigns and two Administrations we accomplished things never done before but bungled a bunch as well.

However, the scorecard of a network is a different question from the strength of it. And a network of individuals with such deep diversity of backgrounds and an even deeper connection through shared experiences is a very powerful thing. In my opinion, few such networks have been created with such potential in recent history. When the final scorecard of the Obama Presidency is tallied 100 years from now, the collective accomplishments of this family of people who were inspired to fight for their communities and country will add much to the list of good that came directly from the Oval Office over an 8-year window. From elected officials to non-profit leaders to entrepreneurs I’m inspired on a regular basis by what I’m already seeing.

So where do we go from here, now that the Presidency that brought this family together is coming to an end? My simple advice is this: help each other.

What we do with our time is the most important question we each decide. All things taken into consideration, investing your time in supporting this group of people, and relying on them to support your own bold endeavors is likely the most effective thing you can do with the precious time we all have to give.

Take 30 minutes to have coffee with the staffer wondering where to go next, give $50 to the alumni with the guts to run themselves, and check in to see how you can help the project started by your buddy who slept under your desk when you were living out of your cars on the campaign trail. Bottom line: stay connected. We don’t know what these next 4 years or beyond that will bring, but we do know there’s never been a better team to be in the foxhole with.

See you on the field.

Jon Carson was the National Field Director on the 2008 Campaign, Chief of Staff at the Council on Environmental Quality and Director of the Office of Public Engagement in the first Obama Administration, and the founding Executive Director of Organizing for Action. He currently lives in the Chicago area and works in the solar energy industry.