In my first blog, I mentioned the array of activities that we do in my Studies in Electoral Politics class. A couple weeks ago, our assigned activity was to give a five minute stump speech. In other words, we had to speak in public. Eek!
It did not exactly come as a surprise that my professor would ask us to practice our public speaking abilities in a class focused on training us to work in politics. After all, image is everything in American politics. Knowing the utility of the exercise, however, did not make the execution any easier.
A stump speech is meant to be a candidate's brief presentation of their main goals for the future and a display of their personal character. There is a formula for this getting-to-know-you speech. Start off with a joke, a friendly jab at your competition. Use howdahells, which from what I can tell means speak in the lingo of your audience. Discuss the successes of the community as well as what needs to be improved, and fit your past experience into how you will solve problems in the future. Inspire hope and encourage people to work together. In other words, be Barack Obama. It's a little easier said than done, especially when you don't have a staff of speechwriters to take care of the content for you.
I wrote my stump speech as a candidate for the Detroit Board of Education. Ever since I made the switch from public to private school in high school because I was simply bored in the classroom, I have been interested in education policy. Within the Detroit city limits in particular, the school system is so bad that students annually rank at the very bottom nationally on reading, writing and math assessments. Because of my affection for my hometown and my passion for learning about what makes kids learn best, I chose to write my speech on the changes needed in the Detroit public school system. As I wrote the speech one Saturday afternoon in my beloved study carrel in mudd, the words flowed so naturally out of my excitement that the entire speech preparation process was practically painless. Even practicing my speech in the mirror and in front of friends seemed so natural to me because I cared so much.
When it came time to give my stump speech in front of the class the next week, I felt confident - a rarity for me when it comes to being the center of attention. Of course my presentation was not perfect, but the experience of speaking on a subject that I so dearly believe in gave me a wonderful taste of what I could do in politics.
Although my interest in politics has grown over the past few years, I have often wondered where exactly I fit in amongst all the hard-headed, no-nonsense politicos who live for political games. My attraction to politics has always been connecting with the community and having the ability to change communities for the better. It's as simple as that. Working on a stump speech that (unintentionally) was more about policy than a politician reminded me why I'm in this program and why the study of politics is important to me. As usual, it's great to be a Cole Scholar.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Cole Scholars: serving the [political] community
This summer, I will be knocking on hundreds of people's doors, calling thousands of people I have never met, eating too much junk food and living out of my car. That's right, I will be working on a political campaign this summer. Although this may sound like a less-than-appealing experience, life on the campaign trail is incredibly rewarding. Knocking on the doors of strangers and making phone calls to ask citizens about their voting habits is uncomfortable at first, but it is one of the best ways to get in touch with the community that you live and work in.
After the 2008 election cycle, my first time ever volunteering on a political campaign, I noticed a big change in my community at home in Royal Oak, Michigan. The expanse of my community broadened before my eyes. For the first time that I can recall, my parents volunteered to knock on doors and participate in phone banks for local candidates. All of my friends, some of whom were politically apathetic, some only accustomed to their family's voting habits made it a priority to educate themselves on the issues and on the candidates. I met high school students, new parents, young couples and senior citizens that I had never seen around my city before all inside my local county's democratic party headquarters.
When there is not an environment for political dialogue, it is easy to get sucked in to the belief that your personal views are right, and reflect those of all citizens. So. Wrong. Speaking with every resident on a city block, you will get a different set of priorities and a different need to be addressed.
This past fall, I went canvassing for a local ballot issue in Cleveland concerning legal protections for transgender people in the area. When we first set out on the canvass, I was nervous about the response to the topic of transgender rights in the middle-class, typical midwestern neighborhood that we would be walking in. Although each family I visited had a different home life and background, almost every person I talked to had the same basic reasoning for supporting the proposal: why not? To these residents, the issue was not a question of partisan politics, but merely a way of ensuring that all citizens were equal under the law. After that, how they lived their lives was up to them. Thus reaching out to members of your community highlights the differences from one family to a next but also brings to light the commonalities that bring us together.
This summer, I will be moving beyond the community I am most at home in to another community just a couple hours away in the middle portion of Michigan. Despite my current lack of familiarity with this region, I am looking forward to two months of knocking on doors all over the district and saying "Hi, I'm Robin. I want to know what matters to you and how my candidate can help."
After the 2008 election cycle, my first time ever volunteering on a political campaign, I noticed a big change in my community at home in Royal Oak, Michigan. The expanse of my community broadened before my eyes. For the first time that I can recall, my parents volunteered to knock on doors and participate in phone banks for local candidates. All of my friends, some of whom were politically apathetic, some only accustomed to their family's voting habits made it a priority to educate themselves on the issues and on the candidates. I met high school students, new parents, young couples and senior citizens that I had never seen around my city before all inside my local county's democratic party headquarters.
When there is not an environment for political dialogue, it is easy to get sucked in to the belief that your personal views are right, and reflect those of all citizens. So. Wrong. Speaking with every resident on a city block, you will get a different set of priorities and a different need to be addressed.
This past fall, I went canvassing for a local ballot issue in Cleveland concerning legal protections for transgender people in the area. When we first set out on the canvass, I was nervous about the response to the topic of transgender rights in the middle-class, typical midwestern neighborhood that we would be walking in. Although each family I visited had a different home life and background, almost every person I talked to had the same basic reasoning for supporting the proposal: why not? To these residents, the issue was not a question of partisan politics, but merely a way of ensuring that all citizens were equal under the law. After that, how they lived their lives was up to them. Thus reaching out to members of your community highlights the differences from one family to a next but also brings to light the commonalities that bring us together.
This summer, I will be moving beyond the community I am most at home in to another community just a couple hours away in the middle portion of Michigan. Despite my current lack of familiarity with this region, I am looking forward to two months of knocking on doors all over the district and saying "Hi, I'm Robin. I want to know what matters to you and how my candidate can help."
Oberlin Initiative in Electoral Politics: Cole Scholars
Hello Bonner community! My name is Robin and I'm writing to you as an office assistant in the Bonner Center for Service and Learning. Amongst my other activities on campus, I am also a 2010 Cole Scholar as part of the Oberlin Initiative in Electoral Politics. Through this program, I along with 12 other Scholars take a class this spring entitled Studies in Electoral Politics which helps train us for a summer internship of our choosing on the campaign trail. In class, we have discussed campaign ethics, field and polling operations, public speaking, what makes a good candidate, new media, and how citizens vote. Just to name a few topics. After much deliberation, I have finally chosen and luckily been accepted to work on Congressman Mark Schauer's (MI-7) reelection campaign in central Michigan.
As a Michigan native, I am excited to be working in a region in which I understand the concerns of voters well and have a deep understanding of the regional culture. At the same time, it is a fairly rural area two hours away from the suburban Detroit neighborhood I am from, allowing me to test out a new political environment within the same general issue areas I am familiar with. The great thing about this internship is that I come in to work on day one with an enormous amount of background knowledge on campaign strategy and theory thanks to the class, and am able to put this in practice in my daily work. We are promised to work for two months, 24/7 so that we are able to gain the greatest experience possible as well as to prove ourselves as valuable workers. The reward for all this hard work is the experience of organizing events, managing volunteers and (hopefully) helping a candidate that we truly believe in win a tough election. In the fall, we write a research paper about our experience so that we are fully able to digest the lessons learned over the summer.
Regardless of one's political ambitions, the Cole Scholar program is an amazing opportunity to learn about politics and gain experience in community organizing, research and communications. With the financial burden of an unpaid internship lifted by the program's summer stipend and coverage of housing, travel and food expenses, this program allows students without any political connections or other resources to gain access to the political world to break through into an area where they can truly make a difference.
If you couldn't tell, I'm really excited about being a Cole Scholar. I see it as an opportunity to see what I can do, to see what I enjoy working on and to see what I'm good at. I plan to work harder than I ever have in my life so that I can have the greatest work experience of my life and use this experience to guide my future career choices into politics, community organizing or policy research. Who knows; with this internship, the world is my oyster. And that's not even being (too) dramatic.
As a Michigan native, I am excited to be working in a region in which I understand the concerns of voters well and have a deep understanding of the regional culture. At the same time, it is a fairly rural area two hours away from the suburban Detroit neighborhood I am from, allowing me to test out a new political environment within the same general issue areas I am familiar with. The great thing about this internship is that I come in to work on day one with an enormous amount of background knowledge on campaign strategy and theory thanks to the class, and am able to put this in practice in my daily work. We are promised to work for two months, 24/7 so that we are able to gain the greatest experience possible as well as to prove ourselves as valuable workers. The reward for all this hard work is the experience of organizing events, managing volunteers and (hopefully) helping a candidate that we truly believe in win a tough election. In the fall, we write a research paper about our experience so that we are fully able to digest the lessons learned over the summer.
Regardless of one's political ambitions, the Cole Scholar program is an amazing opportunity to learn about politics and gain experience in community organizing, research and communications. With the financial burden of an unpaid internship lifted by the program's summer stipend and coverage of housing, travel and food expenses, this program allows students without any political connections or other resources to gain access to the political world to break through into an area where they can truly make a difference.
If you couldn't tell, I'm really excited about being a Cole Scholar. I see it as an opportunity to see what I can do, to see what I enjoy working on and to see what I'm good at. I plan to work harder than I ever have in my life so that I can have the greatest work experience of my life and use this experience to guide my future career choices into politics, community organizing or policy research. Who knows; with this internship, the world is my oyster. And that's not even being (too) dramatic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
