Delegates, Too, Have Traveled a Long Road to Reach Denver

By Krissah Williams Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 25, 2008

When Sen. Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination Thursday night, he will stand before thousands of delegates who fought hard to get him to his triumphant moment, and many who opposed him. They will make up the most diverse party delegation in history -- half are women, and more than 40 percent are minorities. A generation ago, the majority were white men.

Among the group of 4,440 are a middle-age woman who quit her job to volunteer for Obama, a Muslim eager to represent his community's interests and a young woman who campaigned for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in three states.

Kristin Szakos, Charlottesville

Charlottesville mom Kristin Szakos was so overwhelmed last winter when she was working full-time at a nonprofit group, raising a 9-year-old foster daughter and volunteering for Obama's campaign that she knew something had to give.

"In the days leading up to the primary, sleep was losing out," she said. "And I couldn't continue living like that."

Szakos, 49, quit her job at the nonprofit so she could volunteer for Obama full time, becoming one of many who worked on their own without guidance from the national campaign, which at the time was focused on the early primaries.

Szakos had first gotten involved months earlier through the campaign's online social networking site, which she used to invite neighbors to an Obama house party. Eight people showed up for the low-key event hosted by Szakos's mother, who had worked in the civil rights movement in Mississippi and was the first in the family to be attracted to Obama's candidacy. They watched a DVD of Obama, talked about his autobiography and plotted how they could support his campaign in Charlottesville.

Encouraged, they papered the town with signs announcing a meeting of Obama supporters at the local library. This time, 100 people came, many signing up to volunteer on big sheets of paper Szakos and the others had taped to the wall.

"The campaign wasn't focused on Virginia, so we couldn't get literature from them," said Szakos, who had never been involved in a political campaign before. "We made our own. We weren't rogue, just independent."

By the time the campaign's paid staff members got to town, there was only a week before the primary, so they leaned on volunteers such as Szakos. She had helped raise money for a rudimentary campaign office in a building on Main Street that was being remodeled and had no working plumbing. Obama's staff quickly moved in.

The primary came and went, but Szakos still works out of the office all day, every day, coordinating 3,000 volunteers and working closely with the campaign's regional field director. She's excited about the trip to Denver, but a part of her wishes she were still in Charlottesville working to get Obama elected, she said.

"I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do everything I could to get Obama elected," Szakos said. "The last time Virginians voted for a Democrat for president was 1964, before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. I think it's shameful that's what turned it, and I think its a beautiful thing that an African American candidate is going to turn it back. The American experience has engendered this really festering wound over race. It's the elephant in the room. I don't think this is going to solve it, but it will go a long way."

James Yee, Olympia, Wash.

James Yee makes it clear that he is a one-issue voter. When he stood to give his one-minute speech at his local caucus in Olympia, Wash., where Obama delegates for the national convention were selected, he said: "The America I believe in doesn't torture people. The America I believe in would not run a secret prison. The America I believe in would close Guantanamo Bay."

Yee also mentioned to the group that he was a West Point graduate and former chaplain at the military prison who had complained about conditions on the island and had been investigated by the Bush administration. He was later cleared on charges that included mishandling classified information and lying to investigators.

"I received a tremendous amount of support from the other delegates," said Yee, 40, who won a spot in the state delegation.

Yee, who is Muslim, decided early in the primary race to support Obama because he heard the candidate's stump speech, which included a line about closing Guantanamo.

Then he watched right-wing pundits mock Obama's middle name, Hussein, and claim that the candidate -- who is a Christian -- is Muslim.

"It shows the tremendous amount of Islamo-phobia that exists in our country today, and it shows a tremendous amount of ignorance," Yee said. "We are trying to educate people about who we are as a community, about the Islamic faith."

Yee will speak on a panel sponsored by the American Muslim Taskforce in Denver and attend gatherings of veterans and a gala sponsored by a group of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

"I want to be an example for more Asian Americans and Muslim Americans to get involved," he said.

Paula Villescaz, Sacramento

When it is time to call out the name of the candidate whom she is voting for on the first roll call at the Democratic National Convention, delegate Paula Villescaz will shout "Senator Hillary Clinton!"

Clinton was the candidate for whom 19-year-old Villescaz waved signs in below-zero weather on a snowy New Hampshire corner. It was for Clinton that Villescaz organized other young people to get out the vote in Texas, all while e-mailing her statistics homework to her professors at the University of California at Berkley, where she will begin her sophomore year this fall.

"I had never been so happy and completely exhausted at the same time," Villescaz said, recalling Clinton's wins in those two crucial states.

"As a young woman who has never seen a lot of strong women, I felt like she would represent me best," said Villescaz, who is the first in her family to attend college and is majoring in political science. "I still really believe in everything she was preaching and saying."

She even persuaded her mom, who once worked as a seamstress and raised Villescaz alone, to vote for the first time in the California primary.

"My family is apolitical," Villescaz said. "The only thing you hear them say about the government is, 'Why are they taking so much money out of my check?' "

It will feel good to cast her vote for Clinton in the first round, she said, but in the second round she will vote for Obama.

"I fully support him," Villescaz said. "I think there are some [Clinton supporters] who will not go quietly, but I will not be a part of that crowd. We need to come out as unified as possible. I hope they won't be too loud. We just have too much at stake."