Change for the Worse
Some local Obama supporters hit hard times after the election.
By Herman Wong
published: March 11, 2009
Noelle Lewis is a poster child for Barack Obama volunteers. Politically motivated for the first time in her life, the 28-year-old San Francisco resident paid her own way to Las Vegas during the campaign to knock on doors on his behalf. On Election Day, she took the day off work to join other volunteers at the Oakland Marriott Convention Center to call voters in other states to rally last-minute support.”I’ve never really been involved with anything that was part of history while it was happening,” Lewis says. “I felt lucky that I was.”
But the problem with making history is the hangover. About 1.5 million people actively volunteered to help elect Obama as the 44th U.S. president. But from November to January, the country lost more than 1.6 million jobs. For some Obama volunteers, the deteriorating job market has made the inevitable return to reality a steep fall. Read the rest of this entry »
