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»Liza Hays: Exploring America
The life of a political activist can be a nomadic one at times, and Liza's Buick can certainly testify to that. Liza grew up in the Rocky Mountains, in the town of Littleton, CO, and went off to college accross the country at Bucknell in central Pennsylvania. That was the first big move, and the only one not brought about by Liza's passion for politics. "I have always been political," she admits. "One of my first memories is of getting into a fight over Michael Dukakis. I was in second grade - and I was really mad when he lost." What gets Liza more mad than anything else is injustice, inequality, and the unconstitutional oppression of minorities. "I just can't stand it when people ignore the Constitution and this nation's tradition of equal opportunity and tolerance." So when she graduated college in 2004, there was little doubt what she'd do next. She packed all her belongings into her Buick, and drove to her new job with Grassroots Campaigns in Northern New Jersey. There she ran a fundraising canvass on behalf of the DNC until late September. "I loved the canvass. The very first person I hired was a 60-year old man with an advanced degree who just wanted to do what he could to help win the campaign. He ended up being one of our best canvassers, raising a ton of money and working straight through the summer." She didn't quite have time to empty all her stuff out of the car, and just as she was getting close, it was time to pack it all up again. Liza moved from the DNC campaign to Grassroots' fall GOTV campaign on behalf of MoveOn PAC. She also moved to Bryn Mawr, PA, where she led the MoveOn efforts for Delaware County and the Main Line. "It was so exciting - five weeks of non-stop action. And the intensity litterally just kept building to the end: on election day, we were swamped with over 250 out-of-state volunteers who came to our little office in Bryn Mawr to get out the Democratic vote in the area. Getting them all out the door was nerve-racking, but we got it done." They got more than that done: MoveOn turned out more voters in Pennsylvania than anywhere else, and Delaware county was one of only three counties in the state where Democrats increased their margin of victory. But that hardly afforded Liza time to settle down, and her Buick stayed full of stuff. After the election, she drove it around the country: back to New Jersey, down to Maryland, all the way back out to Colorado. It was out in Colorado that she met up with her former supervisor from Grassroots, and decide to make another move. In mid-January she drove her Buick, still full of belongings, down to Florida, where she took over Grassroots Campaigns' field operations in that state. It's another new locale, but this time she knows the campaign will last for at least two years, which has its advantages: "Finally, for the first time since I started with Grassroots Campaigns, my car is empty." Liza's Favorite Movie: Chicago |
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