Waiting for Obama to Touch the Heartland

Photo by Mark T. Osler

• Watch: Democratic National Convention Profile: Terry Carson

Terry Carson epitomizes the delegates Barack Obama must inspire at this week’s Democratic convention.

After all, Carson is a party worker bee with about 35 years’ worth of experience organizing for candidates, from local commissioners to presidential wannabes. Obama will count on people like Carson to turn out the vote, and Carson lives in Ohio, a swing state that could determine who’s elected president.

But it isn’t that simple. Carson arrives in Denver disappointed that his party isn’t nominating Hillary Clinton, and he’s not at all convinced that Obama can win without Clinton on the ticket. Carson, 57, lives in the heartland—a county outside Cleveland that is part farmland, part Amish enclave and part exurbs. Even the Democrats there tend to be conservative, he says, and though Clinton “spoke to them,” Obama did not.

In his overwhelmingly white county, Carson says, Obama’s color, unusual name and life story as someone who has lived outside the country make him different, and that “creates a barrier.”

What’s more, hard feelings over the long and ugly nomination battle between Obama and Clinton linger among some Democrats he talks with. Carson agrees with the party’s decision to let Clinton’s name be placed in nomination before the formal vote on Wednesday. “There should be options when you’re a Democrat,” he says. “It’s the party of the people.”

That may not be enough for the many Democrats he runs into who are thinking about voting for Republican John McCain.

Carson himself, despite his earlier support for Clinton, has come around to Obama. He plans to go “all out” for the Democratic presidential nominee because he thinks McCain is a bad alternative. Carson would be “extremely proud if this country elected a black president,” he says.

In fact, neither Hillary Clinton’s speech Tuesday nor the Wednesday nomination roll call will be the convention highlight for him. He’s waiting for Obama’s speech Thursday night.

Part of that anticipation is because Obama is “really saying something different than we’ve heard in the past,” Carson says. “It’s far more positive than most politicians. He speaks to my heart when he says, ‘We can do better.’ ”

But Carson also believes the speech is Obama’s best shot at winning over disaffected Democrats. To do that, Carson says, it’s important that Obama give voters a chance to get to know him.

Carson and his wife, Janet, who own an insurance agency, are both first-time delegates. He’s looking forward to meeting with other delegates, whether at receptions or on the convention floor. He hopes he can have an impact on the party’s platform and direction simply by participating in those discussions. Part of what draws him to politics is his belief in policies such as those that provide homeless people with alternatives to living on the streets and give health care to everyone.

“We’re out here in the real world, and a lot of the things in the party platform don’t relate to the average person,” he says. “I want to have an influence on the party so it adopts reasonable, sensible things the Democratic Party can do to help society.”

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

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