Barrack Reads this Blog

As I watch the election results and the commentators, the same thing strikes me repeatedly: Barrack Obama should not have won this race.  But he did, and he did it by thinking small. By speaking to individuals. He raised record amounts of money, not by attracting a few insanely rich CEOs (although Oprah probably kicked in her share), but by reaching out for $5 here and $100 there. He used the wash-rinse-and-repeat of: "Get one more vote. Get one more dollar. Repeat."  And he got so many single votes — and single dollars — that he drew record crowds at the polls and record funds at the bank.  One of the wisest people I've ever met is a professional dresser at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, Texas. When I did Miss Saigon there a number of years ago, she was assigned the unenviable task of taking care of a dressing room of four ensemble men. Primarily, the white guys play GIs, but we have a surprising number of costumes, all of which she took care of.  The four tallest GIs were also chosen to be four Uncles-Sam in “The American Dream” sequence. I was the fourth tallest. This gave me an additional very quick costume change that put me in an utter panic at dress rehearsal.  Our dresser smiled and said, in a thick Texas drawl, “Baby, the only way to do somethin’ fast is to do it slow.” That inspired me then and continues to now. And I imagine that, if he doesn’t read this blog, President-Elect Obama heard something similar along the way... only he paraphrased: The only way to do something big is to do something small.