Women (and one young boy), many new to politics, poured into a downtown restaurant to take part in a newly charged campaign for Barack Obama.
Tuesday night’s event at BAR Restaurant was one a series of women-specific meet-ups and house parties around the state as the Obama campaign pours a new flood of attention on Connecticut and the female vote in the week leading up to the state’s Feb. 5 Democratic presidential primary.
Catherine Shannon, a mother of four young kids, found time to throw together the event in 48 hours for the statewide Connecticut Women for Obama group.
There’s a Connecticut Women for Obama group?
“There is now,” said Shannon, handing out newly minted business cards. Shannon said Tuesday was her first time organizing anything political. She recruited her friend Kiki Kennedy and prayed elected officials would come. (They did.)
The event drew about 50 women, young and old, black and white.
“This is what America looks like,” said New Haven State Rep. Toni Walker (pictured), who headlined a brief series of speeches from local women leaders as an audience munched on caramelized-walnut salad and hot BAR pizza.
Without mentioning Hillary Clinton, the obvious elephant in the room, Walker told the crowd why she was voting for Obama. “Experience has denied us health care,” she argued and experience has driven us into a quagmire in Iraq.
“We have to have a new day in Washington,” said Walker, urging women to “roll up our sleeves” and get to work in getting out votes.
Though Connecticut is typically considered Clinton country, the Obama campaign has made a recent push to organize in the Nutmeg State, as the front-runners wrangle over each last delegate in a hard-fought battle to the nomination.
Jennifer Just, who’s organizing Obama volunteers in the New Haven area, said some 30 to 50 migrant Obama campaigners, mostly volunteer college kids roving from state to state, have landed in Connecticut over the past few days. A couple of them, one from Georgia, are crashing at her house. At least six paid staff have quickly assembled in the past week, too.
“There’s been a decision made recently to pay more attention to Connecticut,” noted Lyn May (pictured at left), a political consultant who drove down from East Haddam Tuesday to help out with the event. The influx is pumping extra life into the existing grassroots campaign, she said, as it mobilizes for a last-minute push to primary day.
The thrust of Tuesday night’s coordinated efforts was to get women, who might be naturally inclined to vote for a woman candidate, organizing behind Obama. Obama won the female vote in Iowa and South Carolina, May noted. Making gains in Connecticut appears to be a key part of the campaign strategy.
“All female voters are certainly not alike,” said May.
Susie Voigt, New Haven’s Democratic Town Committee chairwoman, told the crowd how she ended up a huge Obama booster, even though “I might have been the perfect demographic for the other candidate.”
She said her interest stemmed from her children’s enthusiasm with Obama: “It’s my kids who helped bring me there. I’m very excited about a new generation taking on a new kind of leadership in America.”
Cheryln Poindexter, who works for the city and is chief shop steward of Local 3144, said she was on the fence, but watched Obama speak and was won over. “He’s diverse,” and having traveled the world, “he can see the world form all angles,” she said. “He’s ready; he’s what we need right now.”