WORKERS FOR OBAMA’s CAMPAIGN REMAIN WITH UNPAID WAGES

// November 6th, 2008 // Hott Notes

the race is over – now what!?!

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do now”, says one woman

By John Charles Reedburg

It’s hard times for everybody. Stop whining! Be happy that the man won.

Obama’s campaign exclaims that most of the payment issues that brought hundreds of upset campaign workers to the Indianapolis office Wednesday have been resolved. Campaign spokesman JONATHAN SWAIN says a few people showed up Thursday and made arrangements for payment by mail. A few hundred people stood in line for several hours Wednesday waiting to get paid for working in the final days of the campaign. Many of those people said they were underpaid for the number of hours they worked.”

Volunteers in other cities are experiencing the same problem. Some imply that they are experiencing a post-campaign letdown, whether they were winners or losers on Election Day.

“I’m really sad it’s ending,” said Obama volunteer Stephanie Chan, 21, a senior at University of California, Berkeley. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do now.”

Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, 24, of Mechanicsburg, Pa., already misses the campaign trail. He took a semester off from law school at William & Mary to work on the campaigns for President-elect Barack Obama, Mark Warner and Bill Day.

It’s so hard to know what I’ll do with myself now that the campaign is over,” he said.

After weeks, months or years with a single-minded mission, many dedicated campaign workers and volunteers are feeling lost. Some are left looking for jobs in a tumbling economy.

It’s unclear whether the young voters who favored Obama were mobilized for the long haul, said political scientist Michael Leo Owens. But mental health professionals say the best way for them to combat letdown is to make a commitment to get involved.

“I think both sides have a lot of opportunities to keep their momentums alive,” said Dr. Charles Raison, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine.