today
8:30 a.m. Audubon Society Field Trip See Event Description
read >8:30 a.m. Alzheimer’s Resource Center Volunteer Training See Event Description
read >9 a.m. Arcata Farmers' Market Arcata Plaza
read >9 a.m. Speakers' Symposium College of the Redwoods
read >9 a.m. Humboldt Botanical Gardens Foundation Speakers’ Symposium College of the Redwoods
read >9 a.m. Humboldt Botanical Gardens' Speakers' Symposium College of the Redwoods
read >9 a.m. Fall Rummage Sale Arcata United Methodist Church
read >9:30 a.m. AAUW Meeting See Event Description
read >9:30 a.m. Little River State Beach Restoration See Event Description
read >9:30 a.m. Sierra Club Headwaters Hike See Event Description
read >10 a.m. Lanphere Dunes Guided Walk See Event Description
read >10 a.m. 5th Annual Synergy Fair Arcata Community Center
read >10 a.m. Go Green and Boost Your Bottom Line Wharfinger Building
read >11 a.m. Sustaining Excellence and Enthusiasm in Health, Relationships and Work Carlo Theater (Dell'Arte)
read >noon KEET's Kids Club Morris Graves Museum of Art
read >1:30 p.m. Humboldt County Historical Society Humboldt County Library
read >2 p.m. Arcata Marsh Field Trip Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary Interpretive Center
read >4 p.m. Woodside Preschool’s 36th Wine and Ale Tasting Gala Adorni Recreation Center
read >4:30 p.m. Harvest Dinner and Bazaar Humboldt Grange
read >5 p.m. A Toast to Music Christ Episcopal Church
read >5:30 p.m. Elvis and the Hound Dogs + Stolen Taxi Trinidad Town Hall
read >6 p.m. The Tumbleweeds Chapala Cafe
read >6 p.m. Arts Alive! Various Locations
read >6 p.m. Day of the Dead Exhibition Ink People Center for the Arts
read >6 p.m. Bar None 10th Anniversary Eureka Labor Temple
read >6 p.m. Randy Spicer Piante Gallery
read >6 p.m. Gallery Open for Arts Alive! Four Paths Gallery and Studio
read >6:30 p.m. ShinBone (Blues R&B) Eureka Theater
read >7 p.m. Mike Craighead and Sari Baker Old Town Coffee & Chocolates
read >7 p.m. Harvest Concert Arcata Presbyterian Church
read >7 p.m. 2 Left Feet Dance Project Redwood Raks World Dance Studio
read >7:30 p.m. Joe & Me Cafe Mokka
read >7:30 p.m. Cyrano de Begerac Eureka High School Auditorium
read >7:30 p.m. Torch Song Summit Eureka Women's Club
read >7:30 p.m. Jeff DeMark and the LaPatinas Westhaven Center for the Arts
read >8 p.m. Stones in His Pockets Arcata Playhouse
read >8 p.m. Humboldt Bay Brass Band Fulkerson Recital Hall at HSU
read >9 p.m. Synergy Six Rivers Brewery
read >9 p.m. Arts Alive! with Akaboom Sound Pearl Lounge
read >9 p.m. Tempest WAVE @ blue lake casino
read >9 p.m. Back In The Daze Dance Party Central Station Cocktail Lounge
read >9 p.m. Swingin' Country Band (country) Bear River Casino
read >9 p.m. The Zygoats + Alder Camp (rock) The Lil' Red Lion
read >9 p.m. DJ Knutz (funk) Muddy's Hot Cup
read >10 p.m. Music by DJ Sidelines
read >10 p.m. DJ Icy Hot Aunty Mo's Lounge
read >10 p.m. These United States (indie folk) Humboldt Brews
read >11 p.m. Hellbound Glory The Alibi Lounge and Restaurant
read >previous columns
Aug. 14, 2008
An Inconvenient Stereotype?
Not many Humboldt County residents have seen Humboldt County. Most ...
read >Aug. 7, 2008
Escape From Arcata
One counterculture artist has had enough; seeks EKA salvation
read >July 31, 2008
Stop the Press
Durham puts McKinleyville's hometown paper on the block
read >Photos
Obama's Go-To Woman in Humboldt
By Bob Doran
When Mary Ann Lyons called the national Barack Obama for President campaign last November to see who she could contact locally to help out, there wasn't anyone to contact. No one in Humboldt County working toward his election, not officially anyway. They wondered, did she want to become the local point person?
Lyons had never worked on a presidential campaign before, but she volunteered to lead the effort.
"I wasn't even a Democrat," said Lyons with a laugh last week. "I was a decline-to-state voter. I only became a Democrat after he got the nomination."
Up until then Lyons' background had not been in mainstream politics; she was more a radical community activist, a protester. She'd served as one of the organizers of the Eureka march against the war in Iraq in 2003 and had worked on the local anti-GMO initiative. "In the political arena I've always been pretty far to the left," she conceded.
When the 2008 election started approaching she began research on who the candidates were. Obama won her over.
"A big thing for me is that he was against the Iraq war from the beginning, and he was a community organizer, an activist like I was," she said. "That was the first thing that made me delve deeper into his story. I read his book and I was really struck by his story. He seems to embody something about America that was different from anything I'd seen before in politics. I thought how wonderful it would be to have someone who walked the streets in a poor neighborhood."
The bottom line for Lyons: "It feels like we're walking in the shadow of history right now. It's just awesome ... He has a way of bringing both sides to the table. At this time, when our country is so polarized that it's like we're in the middle of a divorce, that's important."
As more people came on board, she organized gatherings and raised some funds, first to buy a sign to put on a billboard along Hwy. 101 that Allpoints Signs had offered gratis. It wasn't something they could just ask for from headquarters. "It's a grassroots campaign," said Lyons. "It's not like campaigns of the past where lobbyists and PACS paid for all the gear."
As the primary campaign heated up, the locals swung into action. "We got groups together during the primaries for call parties. We called them 'Cell Phone Saturdays,' because you can usually use your phones for free Saturdays. We called all over the country, wherever they were targeting."
Once Obama had the nomination clinched, the Humboldt Democratic Central Committee stepped forward. "All across the country, including here, it took quite a process to bring the Obama campaign and the Democratic Central Committees together," said Lyons. "In the end they were awesome. Milt Boyd, the head of the local Central Committee, was really helpful with advice. I had never worked with a group that was so close to the center."
Then there was "Camp Obama," a day-long event held at a Eureka union hall. "That was a grassroots training to train others to become grassroots activists. It's all about finding your passion, finding your story -- why are you looking for this change? And figuring out what you can do. Now we have little cells, so to speak, down in southern Humboldt, up in McKinleyville, in Del Norte, Arcata, Eureka. It might be one person, like I was -- just me and my sign -- or a group of people who get together."
Since they're assuming that Humboldt County is firmly Obama country (he took the primary here) and there's no worry that California might go Republican, the local campaign hasn't put a lot of money and effort into what Lyons describes as "visibility items" -- billboards, lawn signs, bumper stickers and the like.
"The local focus at this point is voter registration," said Lyons. "Every vote counts, because not only do we want to have a progressive agenda in the White House, we want a progressive agenda locally. Linda Atkins, who was working with me on the local Obama campaign, decided to run for Eureka City Council. That falls in line with the Obama agenda, to move toward progressive change across the country."



















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