Helping Hillary in Houston

by Nancy Kivlen

My trip to Houston was fast, furious and fun.  But more importantly, it was successful.

I had no idea what to expect since I've never volunteered to travel for a campaign before.  But my first good "omen" was on the plane ride from San Diego to Houston where I sat with an older couple from Minnesota. They asked why I was heading to Houston and after I told them about my undying love for Hillary Clinton - they raised their eyebrows and told me "We love her too!". We talked for the whole 3 1/2 hours to Houston about Hillary, the Clintons, and the democratic party.  My first good "omen" that maybe, just maybe things will turn around for Hillary in Texas.

I met my roommate, Jessica, a 23 year old student from SDSU around 1am on Saturday morning, March 1st at our Marriott hotel. She flew in from San Diego, and like me, had the same level of enthusiasm and hope that our being here over the next few days might make a difference and turn things around for our candidate. After 11 straight losses, and polls showing Obama ahead by a couple points, was this even possible?

We talked about that - could Hillary really come back again? 

A few hours later, our alarm clock went off and the 2 of us headed downtown Houston for the annual Rodeo Parade. We found the area where all the Hillary supporters were - hard to miss with their large signs, hats, buttons and T-Shirts.  As we screamed out "Hil-A-Ree" every time the parade marched by in hopes of the cameras catching a glimpse of our signs and enthusiasm, our group seemed to be growing by the minute.

My 2nd good omen was when I took a walk down the parade route and did not see any Obama signs or supporters anywhere.....hmmmm.....

After the parade, we grabbed a bite to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe and there I met the "Traveling Betsy's" - a small group of women that grew up with Hillary, went to 1st grade with her and were her best friends in Illinois. They have remained close to Hillary all these years and they too were here in Houston lending their support and helping hands.  Another girl at our table, Nicole, was Chelsea's good friend who attended elementary school with her - she too was here to support the campaign.

Soon after our crowd gathered nearby.  The news media showed up along with Dolores Huerta and her daughter who  lead us on a "March from Texas to Washington" (it was really about a 2 mile walk from Texas St. to Washington St. in downtown Houston).  Dolores Huerta is an icon in the Latino community. She is the sister of Ceasar Chavez and the founder of the United Farm Workers Union of America. She is a passionate supporter of Hillary Clinton and spoke beautifully about Hillary to the press that day. It was about 78 degrees and very humid as we marched through the streets with our Hillary signs chanting "Hill-A-Ree" and "Madame  President".  During the walk, I ran into Ann - another Hillary supporter from San Diego who was in her rental car. She is someone that I spent Super Tuesday with running around San Diego looking for votes for Hillary. We spoke for awhile and arranged to meet later.

Back at Hillary's headquarters, which was in a 'dodgy' part of town - I met up with Ann and another woman, Chris from San Diego.  We went through the "How to hold a Caucus" training which was run by a spunky woman named Jackie Witherspoon. An African American woman who has been a Hillary supporter since she traveled with her in the 90's to Beijing and heard Hillary give her speech on Human Rights. Jackie was one of Hilary's campaign Managers who helped deliver New Hampshire for her. She talked a lot about the caucus process and how it was important for us to be pushy and demanding otherwise the Obama people will run all over us. I noticed a large number of African Americans volunteering at Hillary's headquarters.  This surprised me only because I thought that Obama had secured the vast majority of these voters. But it dawned on me that there were still plenty of African Americans who supported Hillary. I was also pleased to see every age group here as well. There were plenty of young students as well as older people working together for our common cause.

At the training, we were given piles of paper to go through and read, but rather than start on that, we learned that Chelsea Clinton was going to be at a nearby Mexican Restaurant speaking.  So we took off to go see her.

Driving in Houston is challenging, needless to say it was my 3rd time getting lost, but we eventually found the restaurant.  To our surprise, it was large and had great food. We also met up with Vicky, who arranged for all of us from San Diego to come to Houston. After hearing Gloria Molina and a few other prominent Latino politicians speak, Chelsea Clinton arrived with a few other famous people: Dolores Huerta, Melanie Griffith, and Gavin Newsom (Mayor of San Francisco). After Chelsea was finished speaking, I had my picture taken with her as well as Gavin Newsom.

         Take a look at my you tube video of the March and Chelsea Clinton right here

On Sunday, it was another busy day as well as hot and humid again. After stopping at the Hillary Headquarters to pick up signs, etc. Ann, Chris, Jessica and I took off to a nearby park to get ready for Bill Clinton's rally. After hanging a few signs, the crowds got larger and larger - I decided to get in the front row so I could get a good look at Bill while he spoke. Again, there were a lot of Latino politicians that spoke first, including Senator Menendez from New Jersey. The mariachi bands played on while we waited for Bill to show up. I met some nice women from Houston and they knew nothing about the "2-step caucus" process that I had spent an hour learning about the previous day. So I explained to them that after they voted for Hillary, they would have to go back to their precinct that evening at 7pm and VOTE AGAIN for her!! "Yes, I agree, it is nuts" I said, but "it's what you do in Texas". Nearly 1/3 of the delegates that will be awarded in Texas on Tuesday will be decided at that caucus.

Finally Bill arrived and he looked great. He's still treated like a "rock star", the crowd went wild. After his speech, he took off his jacket and came into the crowd to greet us. When he got to me, he was leaning over in the crowd, people hanging all over him, so I held his hand and since his tie was hanging down, I pulled it towards me, then rubbed his chest. He looked at me and I said my usual line (what I said to Hillary) "I Love You"...he smiled and said "Well, Thank You".....duh....what else could I say?

       Here's my you tube video of the Bill Clinton Rally

As soon as we finished at the Bill Clinton event, I headed across the city to the "Women's Rally for Hillary". (after getting lost AGAIN!) I met Ann and Chris there. I got a decent seat and met a nice African American woman who was by herself. I asked her why she was supporting Hillary over Barack and she told me "Experience". She said that she worked her way up to a management position at her current job and Obama reminded her of someone that might apply for a job in her company without any experience, but thought he could just come in and change the way the company worked. She said "he's just not ready to be President".

When the women's rally started, Ann Lewis, Hillary's Director of Women's outreach spoke. She introduced a woman minister, some local women politicians, then came Melanie Griffith, then actress Erica Anderson spoke, then Christine Lahti.  Christine Lahti's speech was especially inspiring, I love how she called Hillary her "Shero".

Once again Dolores Huerta was there. She told us that she came up with the original slogan "Si Se Puede" ("yes we can") for the migrant farmworkers in 1972. It was the motto of the migrant farmworkers who were beaten, jailed and even died for their cause. "Barack Obama has not earned the right to use this slogan - only Hillary Clinton has earned the right to 'Si Se Puede'". Dolores spoke of one of Hillary's first jobs which was going door-to-door in the early 70's for Presidential Candidate George McGovern registering displaced Latino people to vote. She also represented migrant farm workers when she worked at the Children's Defense Fund.

At the end of the women's rally, I met up with five very nice, very interesting African American women from Chicago. One of them, Alice Palmer, was the Illinois State Senator who held Barack Obama's position prior to Obama becoming a state senator. They were all supporting Hillary Clinton because they believed Barack Obama did not do anything to warrant being President of the U.S.

They spoke about Obama's involvement with well-known political hack, Tony Rezko, and they said once the trial began, if the media chose to cover it, the public would learn a lot about Obama including all his questionable business dealings with Rezko whom he has known for over twenty years.   They also mentioned that he voted "Present" 127 times when he was in the Illinois state legislature, more than any other person.

      Here is my you tube video of the Hillary Clinton Women's Rally

After grabbing a bite to eat, Ann, Chris and I headed over to a gay bar called "Chances" for another Hillary event. At this event, Robert Gant (from Queer as Folk) spoke along with other prominent Gay and Lesbians from the Houston community in support of Hillary. Robert's speech about Hillary was the most compelling yet. He had us in tears.

Then it was time to head back to the office and then the hotel. My roommate, Jessica, was working diligently at the headquarters and decided to pull an all nighter and keep working on the campaign. She was busy organizing and compiling precinct information for voters.

On Monday, March 3, it was another early day back at the headquarters for a follow up caucus training. I was assigned to Rob's group.  We spent the day contacting voters that supported Hillary and explaining the caucus process and asking them to be precinct captains at their caucus. This required some finesse considering most of these voters didn't even realize that they had to go back at 7pm to go to a caucus ("a what?") and vote again. Then, when we explained they would need to be very aggressive and come in for training on how to run a caucus.....well, let's just say, it wasn't an easy task.

That evening we headed down to the Home Plate Bar & Grill to watch Hillary's Town Hall meeting televised from Austin. The four of us in the car, stopped to nail down Hillary yard signs along the way.  The weather had changed drastically the evening before and today it was pouring rain and COLD, the temperature dropped to 47 degrees (from nearly 80 the day before!!).

Over and over we discussed and re-discussed the possibility that Hillary might not win tomorrow. But all of us believed she would fight on regardless because that's just who she is. But, could she survive? And, would the democratic party pressure her to step down? It was something none of us wanted to think about.

On Tuesday, March 4th - the BIG day had finally arrived. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect weather to vote and stand at a precinct all day. At the local Starbucks the gal behind the counter saw all my Hillary stickers and buttons and said she was a big supporter of Hillary's. I asked her if she knew that she had to go back to the caucus that night to vote again and she said "no". So I explained the "Texas 2-step" voting process and she gave me her name, phone and address so I could look up where she needed to go.  Then some of the other girls at Starbucks got involved and they wanted to know too.......hmmmm.... A Good Omen? I think so....

I nailed in some more Hillary yard signs on the way to the headquarters, picked up all my precinct information and headed off across town to a high school that I was assigned to.

When I got there, there were several Hillary supporters who said they had it covered and told me to go to another area of town where there was only one Hillary supporter and she was being overrun by Obama people. When I got there that was definitely the case, I counted 15 Obama supporters and just this one woman and her friend. One of the Obama guys was quite obnoxious and he got into it with the one Hillary supporter and before you know it, we had the cops there.  I could see this was going to be a challenge - so we all agreed to disagree.

As the day progressed, more and more voters came out. And the Obama supporters became friendlier. As voters tried to get by us on the side walk to head into the house to vote (we had to stay 100 yards back), we were able to "appeal" or hit them up with reasons to vote for our candidate. That was fun. My general line to all the women was "Put a woman in the white house"...or "don't forget it takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush".....I usually got a thumbs up to that. The Obama guys thought I was being "sexist" promoting the first woman President, after all they weren't saying "put a black guy in the white house"...I told them if I was in their shoes that's exactly what I'd say....

And I certainly got my share of "negative" responses, which were fun too. One guy yelled "I'd never trust that woman for President - God knows what she's got up her skirt". I corrected him "you mean pant suit". "What?" he said. I replied "God knows what she's got up her pant suit sir, she does not wear skirts." "Screw you" he yelled ....Okay well that was fun.

But for the most part, the people were quite friendly. That afternoon another Hillary supporter arrived. A 22 year old girl in a wheelchair. She had flown in from New York because she has been a supporter of the Clinton's since she was 9 years old and Hillary Clinton supported her school to elevate it to a different status for disabled children. Her story was compelling and she did an outstanding job as I sent all the 'undecided' voters over to her to hear her story. I know she closed the deal.

In the morning, I counted a lot of support for Obama, but by the afternoon, there seemed to be a lot more Hillary supporters. .... hmmmmm ... a good omen?

Finally around 7pm the yard started to get busy with people waiting for the polls to close and to go in and caucus.

There were 2 precincts at the house I was at. In the entire history of Houston, there had never been more than 10 people that showed up for the caucus. That evening there were at least 300 people that came to caucus.

After watching a bit of the smaller caucus, I went into the house to oversee the larger one. I noticed the Obama people took over, which had me worried. But I stood behind them to watch all the people sign in. I was perplexed when I noticed several young people show up and sign in without proof of their voter's registration or precinct card. All they had were their TX driver's license. I questioned this, but was told by the election judge that they were "not to be disenfranchised" and their driver's license was fine. I asked him how anyone would know if they actually voted at that precinct since that was the rule and he did not really give me an answer.

People were getting restless as the process (which they were told would take about 45 mins) ended up lasting 3 hours.  Once they signed in, they moved to the other side of the house where they would nominate delegates for the Texas state convention.

After everyone was finished voting, I grabbed the forms and did the counting. Of course no one had a calculator - so we used my cell phone.  At first none of us arrived at the same number, so that required all of us to recount everything which prolonged the event.  Finally we all agreed on the numbers and we pulled out the forms to figure out how the ratio of delegates was figured from the percentage and the delegates were awarded.

Now that I have actually witnessed the caucus process first hand I can honestly say that it is the most unfair, undemocratic way of choosing a nominee that I have ever seen. It makes voting machines and hanging chads look legitimate.

The fact that votes count twice, that 1/3 of the delegates are to be awarded from this unfair process and the fact that probably 80% of all voters didn't even know about it - well, disenfranchised is the only word I can think of. It is particularly unfair and undemocratic to those voters that cannot find 2 hours or more to spend in an evening for this process: The mothers, the shift workers, elderly or disabled people, etc.  In fact it seems as if the only group of people that the caucus process favors are young people that don't work and have nothing better to do.

I finished around 10pm and headed over to the Home Plate Bar & Grill downtown to wait for the results with all the other Hillary supporters.

When I got there the place was packed.  Everyone was in a giddy mood because the Ohio results had just come back and it was confirmed that Hillary won Ohio and Rhode Island.  Finally within the hour - they called it "HILLARY WON TEXAS!"

Wow!!! There was dancing on the tables, a line dance through the bar lead by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.  It was a HAPPY EXCITING NIGHT to say the least.

  Watch my youtube video of Hillary's Headquarters, my precinct/caucus, and the Celebration afterwards

In the wee hours of the next morning, as I was heading off to the hotel, I caught up with Jessica who was overwhelmed and fatigued after being up for 3 days straight.  Her caucus did not go as well, there were over 1,000 people that showed up and a riot broke out and the police were called.  When I finally talked to Ann the next day, she had a similar situation and her caucus went until the early hours of the morning.

After only 2 hours of sleep, my flight back to San Diego the next morning was uneventful.  As I sat looking out the window it dawned on me what just happened and I was overwhelmed.  I realized that morning that Hillary Clinton will not only be the Democratic nominee, she will be our next President and the first woman in history elected to this position.

WOW!!! There is now no more doubt in my mind. This woman can come back from anything!!! She is my "SHERO".

And, just like she said in her speech: "For everyone who's been counted out but refused to be knocked out - for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up - and, for everyone who works hard and never gives up - THIS ONE'S FOR YOU!!". (watch it here).

The Dream is coming true. It's gonna happen. I now know it.

And maybe, just maybe, me and the thousands of volunteers that descended upon Texas helped to make the difference.

YEE HA  -  and it's on to Pennsylvania!!!