Barack Obama
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
In a church basement, in a bar, in a VFW hall, whatever.
And what I always tell people was wonderful about this rudimentary app was –
They'd show up when they actually met in person.
And maybe they were assuming that they all fought the same way and had the same positions and everything.
And they'd show up at some Obama volunteer meeting, and you'd have what looked like an ex-army sergeant with a crew cut.
And you'd have a young black woman with a nose ring.
And you'd have a suburban mom with some kids.
And it turned out that by virtue of meeting in person, you kind of realize that people are a little more complicated.
Maybe they don't agree with me on everything.
And that's a good thing, right?
So it creates this friction and this interest.
And it forced people to kind of say, all right, well, it turns out that I don't have to agree with everything to work with somebody.
And then out of those meetings, they'd have to go out and start knocking on doors.
And that's the ultimate meetup because now you're forcing yourself to talk to strangers who definitely don't agree with you on stuff.
But there was that sense of human interaction that gave people a sense of how somebody could be a good guy, but also have blind spots.
Somebody could be, you know, seem like a real jerk.
And yet there's this redeeming quality.
It's the same sense that you get living in a neighborhood, right?