Industry Figure Tom Chappell

Despite my insane shyness with strangers, I made six calls for Obama this evening, via his phone-bank-from-home web site. The web site just kept feeding me names, phone numbers, and polling places. I could tell people where their polling places were, and if they needed a ride to their polling place, I could arrange that for them, too.

Four people weren’t home, one person wouldn’t talk with me, and one person had already voted.

So you might think that that was not very effective.

But apparently, if you multiply me times The Internets, you get: President Barack Obama.

Oh, and there was the $500 or so that I gave directly, and the $1,000 or so dollars that I raised from friends.

In the end, I think Obama raised $500 million dollars, for an average of $86 per person.

We may have witnessed, tonight, a sea change in American political fundraising.

McCain (just now) conceded, and Bush has even called Obama to congratulate him, so apparently our long national nightmare is over. Cue the sunrise-over-America graphic!

-Tom