As head of President Barack Obama’s Carson City Rally Center, Nelson C. Williams isn’t afraid to be honest. 

“I’m going to be candid with you,” he said. “I’m not voting for the president because he’s African-American, I’m voting for him because he told me the truth.”

That honesty is what drove Williams, 53, to get heavily involved in the “four more years” campaign to re-elect Obama. He and his team just opened one of the many offices that are gearing up for the next six weeks leading up to Election Day. 

Born and raised in the Bronx, N.Y., Williams studied political science in college so he is more than familiar with the rhetoric that politicians use. However, it was Obama’s 2008 speech during his presidential candidacy that inspired Williams to become more involved with the campaign itself.

“One of the things that was really quite compelling for me was he made it clear to me that I’m responsible for Washington,” Williams said. “He said we are the people. The government belongs to us.”  

It is clear that Williams takes that responsibility very seriously as he talked about his own personal failure in 2010. 

“I was very active in 2008,” he said. “I was out there getting people to vote and getting them registered and calling people on the phone, but I fell asleep in 2010 and got too complacent and because of my complacency, the [House of Representatives] is divided. I take that as a personal responsibility.” 

Williams has been passionate about volunteering since his father died when Williams was just 12 years old, leaving his mother to raise four children on her own. It was his father’s early death that brought out the community activist in him and Williams volunteered his time whenever he could.

Running the new rally center has been a challenge for Williams, who is also the executive director of Cruces Community Collaborative Group, Inc. Due to budget cuts, he uses some of his own resources to keep the place running smoothly. 

He is not the only one to commit more than just his time, as veteran volunteer Merian Lindsey, 61, uses her own phone at the call center to reach out to voters.

“We don’t have phones here,” Lindsey said. “I’m using, and a majority of us are using, our own cell phones. You can run out of minutes real easy. I’ve called at least 60 to 70 people.”

However, Lindsey just sees it as part of a general donation of time, in the same way that anyone would donate money. Instead, she would rather focus on the bigger picture of what Obama is trying to accomplish for the people. 

Lindsey has been a resident of Carson City for almost 40 years and was laid off from her job as a teacher in the Lynwood Unified School District in 2004. She was then forced to retire and apply for unemployment.

“I did unemployment and, of course, with unemployment it’s a little different than what they say,” she said.  “[After] six months, even though I made a pretty decent salary, you’re cut and you have to reapply. I lost my insurance.”

It’s that experience that made the former teacher a fierce advocate for Obama in hopes that her children and grandchildren wouldn't have to go through what she went through. 

A similar personal experience also brought the rally center leader Patricia Thomas, 59, into the trenches of the re-election campaign. Thomas had a gastrointestinal stromal tumor many years ago and the cost for treatment was astronomical.

“A Swedish pharmaceutical came out with this medicine but the medicine cost $50,000 a year," Thomas said.

Luckily, Thomas was employed and had insurance. She couldn’t imagine what someone without insurance would do, which is the main reason for her advocacy of Obama’s health care plan. 

Thomas was not always an avid supporter of the current president. A retiree from the Northrop Grumman Corporation, Thomas defaulted into the Obama campaign in 2008 when her candidate lost the nomination.  

“Actually, I was a [Hillary Clinton] supporter in 2008...and when Hillary didn’t win the nomination, I said, ‘Well OK, we’ll go with Barack Obama.’ I thought the sharks in Washington would eat him alive.”

But Thomas said she has been pleasantly surprised by Obama’s intelligence, courage and for the first time became deeply involved in politics. 

“I am one of 10 [children] and we grew up kind of poor in the South,” said Thomas, who was born in Louisiana. “So I have a compassion for the downtrodden and that’s what I see in this president. He is for the underdog.”

However, Obama is certainly not an underdog in California. The state has traditionally voted in favor of the Democratic Party and will likely do the same this year.

On the other hand, that hasn’t kept Gov. Mitt Romney from raising millions in the Bay Area. While Romney has no campaign offices in California, he can’t dismiss California's large population of political donors. 

Despite the fact that Romney will most likely concede the Golden State, Williams and company are still sending out the message in Carson to fight hard against complacency. They’re looking for every ounce of help for a landslide victory and it starts at the Carson City Rally Center. 

 

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage on the 2012 election here.

Reach Staff Reporter Judy L. Wang here or follow her on Twitter.