the world is watching...
from theage.com in australia
Anne Davies, Washington
February 13, 2008
THERE'S a reason Democratic candidate Barack Obama is looking like he might just become president of the United States.
It's people like N. Minh Le, mother of two schoolchildren and a resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland, a suburb that looks like the set of Desperate Housewives.
She is one of the foot soldiers of the Obama campaign machine, which has over the past two months repeatedly outmanoeuvred and out-organised one-time favourite Hillary Clinton.
"I was very displeased when Bush won the election in 2000. When he won in 2004 we were ready to move to another country because we couldn't believe the way that America was going," Ms Le said.
For Ms Le, who was born in Saigon of parents who fled to the US in 1975, and who is married to an Englishman and has a degree in development studies, moving was a real option.
Instead she decided she was going to get politically active for the first time in her life.
"So when 2008 came around, I thought from the very beginning that Obama was a different politician — not just the way he talks, but I followed what he did in Illinois state," she said.
She contacted the campaign, which at first sent her out to raise money. That was last March.
"After that, I started knocking on doors to convince neighbours, or rather introducing them to Obama. Then I started Maryland Asian Americans for Obama group, then (on Super Tuesday) I went to Delaware to help with getting out the vote, phone banking and the rally," she said.
This week is crunch time for Ms Le and her team. They have taken out newspaper ads for Senator Obama in several Asian languages, contacted local Asian TV networks to cover events such as the opening of his campaign office, and marched in the Chinatown parade in Washington last weekend. "We have been phone-banking Asians in the area and also in Minnesota before that," she said.
The group also went to Asian grocery stores and restaurants throughout Maryland asking them to put Obama signs in their windows.
At first the Democrats Ms Le spoke to were more keen on Senator Clinton because she was a known brand. Women liked the idea of a female president, she said, but Senator Obama has given them reason to think again.
"You know, I think that since he has proven he is electable in states that are predominantly Republican, like Kansas and Colorado, he is no longer regarded as just a fluke," she said. read more
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