Locals add to election push

November 4, 2008 | The Post-Star

By Drew Kerr

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Ray Clauser has been politically inactive since the 1960s, when John F. Kennedy first inspired him to join the Peace Corps.

That changed this year.

The Wilton resident has spent five days a week for the last month making phone calls and logging voter information for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama from the party’s local headquarters on Broadway.

“I’ve been waiting for somebody like this to come along since Kennedy,” Clauser said last week, pointing to a Kennedy pin on his jacket that he has held onto since that campaign. “I finally found someone who inspires me like he did.”

Clauser — one of about 300 volunteers with the local Obama-Saratoga effort — is among several area residents who have taken an active role in the presidential campaign, a political race that has evoked waves of new interest nationally.

Because New York appears solidly in favor of Obama — a Siena College Poll released last week gave him a 2-to-1 advantage over Sen. John McCain in the state — the efforts of the local volunteers have focused on convincing voters in more fiercely fought parts of the country.

Local Obama supporters have made thousands of phone calls and have written letters to voters in Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado.

Some have been dispatched to New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, where they will help get out the vote through today.

They have also raised about $117,000 for the national campaign, said Elliot Masie, who has led the Obama efforts locally.

The donations have averaged about $90 apiece, an amount Masie said speaks to the grassroots nature of Obama’s organization.

“I really think this campaign echoes what Barack has said, and that is that Americans are ready to be involved,” he said. “There’s a whole other level of engagement here.”

Some local supporters of the GOP have also involved themselves in the run-up to today’s election.

Republican Kelly Eustis, of Argyle, spent weeks traveling in Michigan, Nevada, Missouri and Illinois on the “Stop Obama Tour,” organizing rallies in places where McCain has largely ceased campaigning.

The 21-year-old said the idea behind the effort is to “give Republicans in these states some hope.”

“It’s unbelievable how scared people are by Obama,” said Eustis, now back in New York.

Waterford resident Chris Callaghan, the regional McCain campaign coordinator, also took to the road in support of the Arizona senator and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

After spending time during the primaries in Vermont, New Hampshire and South Carolina, he is now in Cleveland, monitoring the polls in areas that are overwhelmingly Democratic.

Callaghan said he became involved because he believes “McCain is a special candidate” and said he had no qualms about leaving the state to assist in the effort.

“He’s going to be president of the 49 other states, too,” he said.

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