Jonah Canner and Eyal Dimant, the coordinators of Bike 4 Obama, are so dedicated to making Barack Obama the next president of the United States that they are going to ride their bikes more than 1100 miles to campaign for their candidate. I talked to Jonah and Eyal on the phone about their project’s goals and their advice for other sport-for-good activists.    

Me: You guys are doing a project called Bike 4 Obama. Can you describe what exactly that is?

Bike 4 Obama: It’s a bicycle ride from Jacksonville, FL to Washington, D.C. It’ll take place starting October 9. and go for approximately 16 days through Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia and end up in D.C. We plan on arriving in D. C. on the 24th. From the 9th to the 24th, we’ll be riding.

Me: How many miles per day will you be riding?

B4O: About 80, between 70 and 80 average. A couple days are longer than that, some less.

Me: That’s pretty intense. Have you guys been training for this for awhile?

B4O: Yes, we started training in July and have been pretty much training since then.

Me: What inspired you guys to do this bike ride?

B4O (Jonah): Well…the state of this country. We’ve been talking, us and several of our other friends, throughout this spring that we wanted to do something for campaigning. We weren’t really sure what. As it became clearer that Obama was going to get the nomination, we got really excited and wanting to do something. I think one day I called up Eyal and said, “Hey, why don’t we just ride from Florida up the coast and campaign during that?”

Me: That’s really awesome. What are you trying to accomplish in each of these cities? What are you trying to do on this trip?


B4O: We’re trying to do a few things. The first is obviously just get out, and we’re going through small towns, and meet people in small areas who do or don’t have preconceptions about Obama and his campaign and the leadership he’s hoping to bring to the White House. And just talk to them… see where they stand, get beyond what we see on the news. If we can find a common denominator and understand where they’re coming from and see if they can understand where we’re coming from and hopefully get them to vote for Obama.

We’re also trying to raise money on our website (www.bike4obama.com), which goes directly to the campaign. We’re hoping to reach a goal of $20,000. We just put it up a few days ago, and we’re already at $1,000. We’re also going to be filming the ride—we’re going to have video cameras as well as still cameras—and on our website, there’s going to be a blog that we’re going to update daily with stories of people that we come across and film from each day. As we upload, we hope to get some conversations going over the Internet. We’re going to be in dialogue with at least one high school from New York City called the Community School for Social Justice and we’re going to be working with their history department and some students are going to be viewing our blog daily and writing to us with questions they might want to ask people we meet.

Me: What makes you guys so passionate about electing Barack Obama? It’s pretty ambitious to ride so many miles for a candidate.

B4O (Jonah): For me, I’ve been really passionate and political during my life in an action-oriented sense, through education, through teaching, through the nonprofit I founded. I’ve not really been motivated by politics and the political realm. And recently in the last few years, since Obama has become a national figure, I read both of his books, I started watching some of his speeches on the Internet and his thoughtfulness, the way he goes about understanding the problems of our country, the way he goes about including other people in his campaign, in the ideas that he has for addressing some of the issues our country is facing—that was something I didn’t ever expect to see from a political figure. It got me thinking, “Oh, this is something I could actually participate in and be a part of.”

(Eyal): For me, very much the same in the sense of being inspired by his policies and politics and speeches and ideas. I, however, am very much a news junkie and a politics junkie. I hold a dual citizenship—I’m Israeli and American—and I have a lot of family in Israel who actually have served in the Israeli army. And I’ve seen what the policies of the government here have done to both America and the rest of the world and I think it’s very dangerous for the entire world the direction everything is going- almost all of the policies that have been implemented by the Bush administration, which I think will be continued by the McCain campaign. But beyond that, this is not something I’m doing against McCain, it’s something I’m doing for Obama because he’s very refreshing as a politician. It’s been very rare for to be inspired by a politician, and he did it.

Me: How can people help out with your project?

B4O: The donation button on our website goes directly to Barack Obama’s website—and it goes directly to him. Every donation will be doubled by another donor. But to help us, if you go on our website, the route and the cities we’ll be stopping in are listed, as well as the dates we’re arriving and our email if you want to contact us. We would love to meet anybody that’s on the route for support and conversation and Gatorade or a beer. Anyone who wants to ride, from 100 feet to 100 miles, and ride into the town or out of the town with us, I think that would be very cool. I’m not expecting for this to be a Forrest Gump thing, but it would be cool to have four or five fresh faces in each city to show support because we’ll be in very Republican territory. We’re hoping to meet friendly faces. But also if people are reading your article and don’t agree with us and would like to talk to us about it, that would be very welcome as well. That’s the whole purpose.

For people who aren’t going to be in the southeast in October, we have a Facebook page, Bike for Obama. Join the group, send it to all your friends—we would love to break 1,000 and get as much exposure as possible. At the end of the day, we’re just hoping to get people interested in Obama and getting involved. We’re going to also have our daily blogs on the trip and people should read them and comment on them.

Me: We’re working with a bunch of activists who are starting sport-for-good projects. Do you have any advice for people just starting out?

B4O: Just do it. I think people get bogged down by the bigness of things when they try to do them and try to think about them too much. One day, I just called Eyal and said, “OK, instead of this one thing we’re talking about doing, let’s just do this bike ride.” And we kind of got ourselves to decide to do it. And some other people we know decided they wanted to join us. There’s going to be two other people joining us on the trip for the whole thing. Things just grow when you get out there and do them and tell people about them and aren’t afraid of doing it and putting it out there. It’s also nice to be healthy while doing it. It’s a pretty good workout, get in pretty good shape.

The whole idea going down to Florida is that we both have family who are the elderly, Jewish grandparents who live in the closed off compounds in Ft. Lauderdale and Delray Beach and all the good people that punched the wrong hole in the 2000 election. There are a lot of misconceptions about Barack Obama, and I don’t know if you can call it prejudice or just misunderstanding. The original idea was to go talk to the older folks down there. That is going to be a very big swing vote and state. The point I’m making to anyone younger is before you go out and talk to anyone else, talk to your parents and talk to your grandparents because they’ll listen to you. They trust you and they know you. And that is a big barrier with the older generations.

Me: I really appreciate you guys taking the time to talk to me. I’m looking forward to reading your blog posts as you go along. Thank you!

Get involved with Bike 4 Obama: 

• Check out the Bike 4 Obama website and blog. 
• Join the Bike 4 Obama Facebook group.
• Contact Jonah and Eyal. 

The kids and teachers in Granville, NC have taken up running to promote voting. They say that democracy thrives upon participation, and a vote is such a simple way to engage in the political process. Yet almost one half of Americans (is that half full or half empty? Stephen Colbert seems to think that the last third is backwash, anyway) don’t bother to vote. The Run to Vote program is a nonpartisan voting drive that travels to all of the lower 48 states, registering voters. For every new voter or person who pledges to vote, someone on the team will run the equivalent of one lap.

Well, what about literally running to vote? I’m talking about going all out—squeezing into your sweetest neon athletic outfit, tying up your sneaks, and physically running to your poll location. 

In Berks County, PA, some folks posted a blog about walking/running/biking to vote. What a great way to promote healthy, clean transportation while engaging in politics! And since the nature of our transportation infrastructure is inherently linked to politics, the two activities seem to go hand in hand.

In Oregon, the organization Bike, Walk, Vote seeks to elect public officials that support alternative transportation in the state of Oregon. I betcha most of these cool cats biked or walked to the polls to cast their votes in favor of biking and walking.

So on Election Day, I challenge you to get outside, get some exercise, and run, walk, or bike to the polls. If you’re not yet old enough to vote, you can still get outside and run, walk, or bike to the polls in support the fabulous convergence of sports and political participation! Yay!

After writing the first spotlight on Run to Vote, I started digging in to find other examples of athletic-based election-time activism. It's a great and simple matchup-- sports are good for you, and so is participating in democratic processes. I ended up finding something that struck my interest a little more, not because it's a better idea, but because it raises interesting issues concerning both athleticism and activism as they transform to fit into the twenty-first century.

Microsoft is setting up a system that will allow users of their X-box live online video game service to register as voters in between games of Halo. The effort is being organized by the folks behind Rock the Vote, an organization that has been trying to mobilize young voters for over a decade. In a BBC News story on the project, Rock the Vote Executive Director Heather Smith said "To realise our goal of registering two million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are. There's no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live." Rock the Vote has a good track record-in 1992, they registered 35,000 new voters, most likely helping to create the 20% increase in young voter turnout for the presidential election that year. But aside from mobilizing voters, what effects will such a campaign have? In my eyes, it encourages users to live even more of their lives in front of television screens, limiting their own contact with the material, real-life world.

In his article about the rise of professional video gaming, Dan Treadway writes "Studies have shown that video games can help enhance players' analytical skills and make them more perceptive.", which I believe. The puzzle-solving and twitch-reaction elements of many games definitely provide some brain-exercise, but the brain is just one of the few hundred organs and muscles in your body that need regular exercise to ensure that they work properly. Playing some video games can be good for you. Voting is good for all of us. But Rock the Vote would do a great public service if they added a message to be displayed after users register to vote. It could say something to the effect of "Remember to stop playing video games and go outside once in while!"

Yesterday, James wrote an interesting post about Run to Vote, a really cool project that combines athletics with voter registration. A group of students and teachers from Stem, North Carolina spent the summer traveling through the 48 contiguous United States campaigning, not for any political party or candidate, but for simply voting. Every time Run to Vote got a citizen to register as a voter or pledge to vote in the next election, someone from the group would run a quarter-mile.

I love this idea. It's simple, it's effective and it shows that a small group of people can really be a force for change. If someone is willing to run a lap to get me to vote, I can certainly consider getting off my lazy butt to get to the polls.

I know there are still a lot of people in my age group who don't vote, but I have hope that this is changing. In the 2004 election, 47 percent of voters ages 18-24 voted, compared to 66 percent of voters ages 25 and up, an 11 percent increase from 2000. If this trend continues, twenty-something voters could wield a lot of political clout. We've got a few months until the November election-- there is still time to register to vote! Here are just a few reasons you should take a cue from the folks at Run to Vote:

1. It's our right to vote (not everyone in the world can say that).
It may sound cheesy, but we are lucky to live in a democracy where we're allowed to vote for our government officials. Everyone 18 and up, regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, is entitled to a vote, and it's insane not to take advantage of that right. 

2. You can't complain if you don't vote.
Well, technically you can, but I will taunt you mercilessly. It's one thing to whine about the president or the the Senate or even the city council if you voted. It's quite another to complain about the government if you couldn't even bother to throw in your two cents at the polls. It's a simple equation-- when you vote, you earn the right to gripe.

3. Young voters have to represent.
Honestly, I'm sick and tired of hearing that our generation is apathetic and too self-involved to care about politics. It's just not true, and we need to change that mentality. Fine, we spend too much time on Facebook, but it's all for the greater good.

4. We should choose who makes decisions for our country.
From No Child Left Behind to Roe v. Wade, the elected officials in our country have a big say in how we live our day-to-day lives. We all have issues that are near and dear to us, and it's important to elect people who will uphold our beliefs and values. I mean, I know the presidential candidate I'm pulling for in November.

5. It doesn't take that much effort to make a difference.
If you're not registered, do it now. It only takes a couple minutes, and you won't feel left out on November 4 when everyone else is wearing those little "I Voted" stickers.

Register to vote today.
Check out Run to Vote for inspiration.