UBC student helps Obama

PAT JOHNSON

If, as polls suggest, Barack Obama narrowly wins the toss-up state of Nevada in next month's American presidential election, a University of British Columbia student can take a slice of the credit.

David Katz, a UBC graduate student, organized a three-person team that travelled to Las Vegas this month to register voters for the Democratic party in the days leading up to the registration deadline for the general election.

"The idea actually came when I became involved with Democrats Abroad," said Katz. "There was a visitor, a campaigner, from out of B.C., coming through, and he was talking about how he was heading down to Colorado to work on the campaign there for a few months. I became pretty jealous, having wanted to work on the Obama campaign for quite a while. He told me that Nevada really needed volunteers and that there was going to be a really close race there."

When Katz put out the word that he was recruiting students to head south, he had a strong response.

"I had about 40 students wanting to go," said Katz. Unfortunately, the timing was poor – it was midterm week. In the end, three Vancouverites spent almost six days in the gambling mecca, from Oct. 2 to 7.

"While we were there, we registered 173 people to vote between the three of us," he said. "To give you an idea ... on the day we had the big push, on the last day of voter registration, between the three of us, we registered more than 100 people. There were about 150 volunteers working out of the youth office that day and, from that, they registered a total of 1,000 people.

"The Obama campaign in Nevada had the target goal of registering 40,000 voters and, in reality, got closer to 50,000, which is almost five per cent of the state's electorate, which, considering that, in the last election, it was lost by [Democrat John Kerry by] under two per cent, really gives a huge advantage to the campaign," he said.

If a few days in Vegas seems like a vacation, Katz had a different experience.

"We were in Vegas, but we weren't on the Vegas Strip," he said. "We were working 13-, 14-hour days; on one occasion, 16 hours. We got to be part of something bigger than us. There was this energy that was just palpable. This is what it must have felt like to be on the Kennedy campaign. This is what it must have felt like to be part of something where there's so much hope to bring the country to its true potential."

Katz was born in Vancouver, but has dual American-Canadian citizenship because his father is from New York. He did his undergraduate work at Reed College in Oregon, where he gained insight into American attitudes.

"I've always been struggling with this additional dual identity as an American and Canadian. Many Jews can probably identify to the idea of not knowing where you fit in as a Jew and a Canadian, especially with Israel issues. I've had that going on my entire life, but I've also had this American-Canadian dichotomy," he said.

"My involvement with Barack Obama actually started when he gave his convention speech in 2004," Katz continued. "A friend of mine who is from Chicago, when I was doing a research internship in Ohio – I wasn't too interested in politics then – said, 'David, you really have to come listen to this guy speak on TV. I'm not going to make you listen to anything else, but you really have to hear this guy talk.' The moment he started talking about how there are no red states, there are no blue states, there are only the United States and it is one country.... It sort of lit something up inside me that I never knew was there. It sort of fell apart with the defeat of John Kerry and the continued running of the country, if I can put it like that, by the Bush administration. But then, when [Obama] decided to run for president, I really got excited about this campaign. I felt that this is something that I can really make a contribution to."

Katz admitted that he once shared the concerns that some in the Jewish community have expressed about Obama's reliability as a friend of Israel.

"I was concerned, until I looked at his record on Israel," he said. "Since his first visit to Israel, he really has seen what is going on in the Middle East. Israel is America's closest ally, as well as the one true democracy in the region. I would say that [Republican presidential nominee John] McCain's views toward Israel are closer to a fanatical devotion that is not based on an understanding of the subtleties of the region and more based on pandering to the Jewish vote, as well as the evangelical community that believes that Israel is the land where the Second Coming and Armageddon and all that stuff will happen. Meanwhile, Barack Obama's views are really based on trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflicts in the Middle East."

Katz, who serves in student government on campus, is also involved in Hillel.

"My involvement in Vancouver Hillel really began when I saw the what could really be described as the outrageous anti-Semitism that was blossoming on campus," he said. "At an anti-Israel panel, a woman came as close as one can get to Holocaust denial without actually saying it. From that moment on, I saw that there has to be somewhere where we can rally against this – and Hillel fills that void. It's a tough struggle, but we really do have the infrastructure here to stop the seeds of anti-Semitism, although we can always use more help."

Pat Johnson is, among other things, managing director, programs and communications, for the Vancouver Hillel Foundation.

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