Still rolling on Barack's bandwagon

Misty Fowler can remember when people couldn't pronounce his name to save them. When they tried, they usually made it rhyme with barracks.

Now, that man, "Ba-rock" Obama, is president.

What a difference 18 months and at least 5 million blog posts and maybe 10 times that many e-mails and 50 times that many text messages makes.

"Online networking tools is how we won this election," says Misty, who jumped on the Obama bandwagon almost before there was a wagon.

Ever since Barack Obama's win on Nov. 4, I've wanted to talk again to Misty Fowler.

I first met and interviewed her in June 2007, shortly after she'd organized "Utah For Obama," a grass-roots group dedicated to putting "President" in front of Barack's hard-to-pronounce surname.

At the time, Hillary Clinton was the odds-on favorite to win the Democrat Party's presidential nomination, but Misty, a 29-year-old single mom and software developer, typified the people who were beginning to feel the Barack beat.

I remember her telling me that Obama's call to change was so compelling it compelled her to not just volunteer as a campaigner, but to resolve to vote in a presidential election for the first time in her life.

Over the months, as Obama's campaign continued to gain momentum, culminating with the presidency, I pictured millions of Misty Fowlers making it happen.

When she agreed to take a break from work this past week to talk, I got a chance to ask her how it felt to be such an integral part of the winning campaign.

"I got lucky," she said. "I picked the person I thought was the right candidate, and it turned out everybody else did, too."

Or at least a substantial enough majority.

Fowler explained that she never did sign on to the Obama campaign in any official capacity. She and her Utah For Obama compadres staged walks, rode in parades, knocked on doors, manned booths and handed out fliers all on their own.

And when they weren't doing that, they were e-mailing, texting and blogging like crazy.

They weren't just grass-roots campaigners, but also mouse-roots campaigners.

On top of talking about securing the technological advantage in the race, Misty reminisced about a very personal campaign.

In her case that was especially so.

When she made a donation to Obama's campaign shortly after he entered the race in February 2007, she received a phone call thanking her for the money.

The caller was Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, Misty didn't answer the call. "My cell phone rang and I looked at the screen and saw 'private,'" she remembers. "I didn't know who it was, so I didn't answer."