Gearing Up for the Real Work

Photo by Mark T. Osler

If she’s spending hundreds of dollars a day to be at the Democratic convention, Florida delegate Joyce Cusack figures, it shouldn’t be just one long party. So, on day 2 of the event, she’s passing long hours sitting in caucus meetings.

And the convention veteran feels revved up.

“This gives me strength and courage to knock on doors,” she says.

At one caucus, Cusack listened to a double amputee injured in Iraq stress the importance of electing a president who will get it right on war and foreign policy. Cusack, a state legislator from central Florida, plucks inspiration from such speeches and panel discussions to use in her own community speaking, when she’s working the phones for Barack Obama and working her home district to turn out Democratic votes.

At a caucus of people with disabilities, Cusack, a registered nurse, sat among dozens of activists in wheelchairs, reminding her of the importance of improving access for the disabled. Later, disembarking a shuttle at the Pepsi Center for the evening program, the 66-year-old Cusack is again reminded of access—it’s a long walk from the drop-off point to the hall.

Cusack had hoped to attend the faith caucus—she’s a deaconess in her Baptist church—but runs out of time. She’s fired up from the caucus on women’s issues, though, where Cecile Richards spoke. The daughter of late Texas Gov. Ann Richards brought to mind her mother’s famous 1988 convention quip, the one about the first President Bush: “Poor George. He can’t help it—he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

The women’s caucus wrapped up just hours before Sen. Hillary Clinton’s much-anticipated speech. Cusack, who has supported Obama from the start, is hoping Clinton will convince her delegates that Obama rather than John McCain would best serve women’s issues.

By 4:15 Cusack has settled in for the evening in her primo floor seat with the Florida delegation. She stashes peanut butter crackers in her purse to sustain her through another dinnerless evening.

It’s already been a long day, beginning at 5 a.m. when she got an alarming phone call that her diabetic husband, Chuck, was having health problems back in Florida. By the time paramedics arrived at their home, her husband was OK, or Cusack would have left the convention.

When she does arrive back home, Cusack plans to use all of this week’s information to convince apathetic citizens to vote in such an important and close election. Despite the excitement generated by Obama as the first African American major party nominee, Cusack still hears from people who don’t think their votes will matter. “If I hear it once, it’s too many.”

Tamara Lytle was the chief Washington correspondent for the Orlando Sentinel from 1997 to 2008.