Obama Campaign Workers Celebrate in Ybor City

Friday night, November 7, Obama for America and Florida Campaign for Change staff and officers from all over Florida came together at Gaspar's Grotto in Ybor City to celebrate the Obama's successes in winning the state of Florida and the 2008 Presidential election. This was the last get together of the 2008 campaign season for campaign staff who not only lived in various parts of Florida but who also came from different parts of the country in paid or volunteer roles to build Get-Out-the-Vote efforts in a bottom up, grass roots manner. Many of them were to return to their homes on the weekend.

Due to the leading Democratic Presidential candidates pledging not to campaign in Florida this year during the Democratic primaries, Obama didn't have any active staff in Florida until after he had clinched the nomination in June. Following that, he moved quickly to get staff in Florida under the umbrella of the DNC's Campaign for Change. I remember at the time that a number of political pundits were talking about how Obama had made a huge mistake in not having a presence in Florida to that point and how his Florida efforts would suffer from having a late start in the nation's fifth largest state which went Republican in the last two elections. Needless to say, as he has all throughout this campaign, after winning the DNC nomination for President Obama continued to defy expectations by quickly moving staff into Florida, sending two of his top national officers Paul Tewes & Steve Hildebrand toTampa and Miami, signing up thousands of attorneys and law students in voter protection efforts, running a record number of TV ads, and fielding over 300 paid staffers managing over 200,000 volunteers from 60 offices in the largest get-out-the-vote effort in Florida's history.

It was an awesome time getting to meet different people whom I didn't already know, folks from Miami, Tampa, Hialeah, Tallahassee, Los Angeles, Chicago, and more. Field organizers and officers from all over Florida (from Tally to Miami) were in attendance and there were about 300 of us hanging out. There was a welcome open bar from 8-10pm for which you only had to have an armband, and hors d'ouvres all night. Quite a fun time and photographers were there to capture the evening. I will share those pictures later this week once they are posted online. Meanwhile, I've included a couple of my camera phone pictures as I couldn't find my Digital Elph before the event.