The Iowa City office of Obama for America 2012 opened yesterday.  According to IDP Chair Sue Dvorsky, there were 100 volunteers on hand and 1000 calls were made.

Sue gave a rousing speech to the crowd and spoke first about the must win race in Iowa Senate District 18.  Everyone should volunteer some time to the Liz Mathes campaign.  They had a great first day of canvassing yesterday.  All hands will be needed on deck right up until November 8, the date of the special election.  (click here to volunteer)

Here’s an excerpt of Chairwoman Dvorsky’s remarks:

“This is the test and we’ll pass it. So please volunteer a couple of hours. Johnson County has always been the place that other counties can rely on. We’ve always come through and in doing so we have changed history.

I don’t think any of us could’ve anticipated the outpouring of hatred, smallness, meanness that Barack Obama’s presidency kicked off on the other side. We felt it in 2010 and we cannot allow it to take over this country, this state, this county.

We sometimes think to ourselves, President Obama needs to get out there and give me a reason. Or Mike Gronstal needs to give me a reason.  No that’s not how it works.  They don’t have to buck us up.  We buck them up. We stand behind the President of the United States and we say we’ve got your back buddy, we stand behind Mike Gronstal and we say, we’ve got your back.

This is shoulder to the wheel, nose to the grindstone, dig down. It’s like exercising and flossing — it’s a good thing to do for yourselves and for this country and for this state.  I know we will do this.

Yes we can.

Yes we will.

Yes we did.

And we’re going to do it again.”