Oregon Public Broadcasting

This year's presidential election has inspired an unprecedented number of people in the Northwest to volunteer for campaign grunt work. Many are taking an active roll in politics for the first time in their lives.

The work is not always fun and requires a certain amount of faith that your contribution will pay off.

We have three profiles of new activists and -- win or lose -- what campaigning means to them. The first is from Chris Lehman in Salem, Oregon.

Barbara Fuller never had enough time to volunteer for a political campaign before.  That changed when she retired from her state job a few years ago.  Sheís now a regular at her local Barack Obama campaign office.

Barbara Fuller:  "Yes, my name is Barbara and I'm a volunteer with the Barack Obama campaign for change in Salem, Oregon."

She admits to being nervous the first time she did this.

Barbara Fuller:  "I thought what if they ask me questions I can't answer.  And what if they get really upset and angry?  And none of those things happened."

Fuller cites the usual campaign issues as a reason for getting involved:  health care, the economy, education. But what really keeps her going is the simple satisfaction of being engaged. And she's found an unexpected benefit:  knocking on doors in her neighborhood has built bridges.

Barbara Fuller:  "I don't know all of my neighbors that well, and where they might have turned away, as soon as I identified myself as being from that neighborhood, and that I lived on this street and that I named the street, they were much more willing to talk to me and listen to me and it felt like a real connection."

And she's hoping that connection will last long after the ballots are counted.  I'm Chris Lehman in Salem.

I'm Austin Jenkins in Puyallup, Washington outside a Republican phone bank.

Barb Swenson: "Hi, this call is for Eli. My name is Barb and I'm a volunteer calling from Puyallup and I'm calling to ask you to mark your ballot for John McCain for President."

Barb Swenson is a retired high-tech executive, grandmother and substitute teacher. She's never volunteered for a political campaign, but this year all it took was an email from a friend.

Since then Swenson has been working the phones for McCain. For her the race is not so much about electing McCain as about making sure Obama doesn't occupy the Oval Office.

Barb Swenson: "Obama really scares me and I'm not easily frightened. I'm a pretty rational person."

But Swenson feels Obama represents a deep threat to the fundamentals of what it means to be an American. She fears he and Democratic leaders in Congress would turn the country into nothing short of a socialist nation. One issue Swenson brings up unprompted: she says race is not a factor.

Barb Swenson: "I would love for a person of color, I really would. It would be a privilege. But this is about politics, this isn't about color for me. I just think he is so far off and so many unanswered questions about this man. I'm sorry but I think he's weak and he's too risky for America."

Swenson doesn't love to phone bank. But it makes her feel like she's having an effect in an election she sees as the most important of her lifetime.

I'm Doug Nadvornick in Deer Park, Washington.

Karen Rawlins is a homeschool teacher to her 13-year-old daughter Kelly.

Karen Rawlins: "I'll read to you Washington state history, as usual...."

Rawlins has three older children too. So family, church and social obligations don't leave her much room for politics. But late this election season at the Spokane Interstate Fair Rawlins stopped by a booth for one of the political parties.

Karen Rawlins: "I gathered up a bunch of information and came home and started reading about it. I got very excited and I thought why hadn't I heard about it before."

Rawlins has been a Republican all her life, but she chose a party that has no chance of winning the presidency. It was the very conservative Constitution Party.

Karen Rawlins: "As I've gotten older and I've watched, the political parties are looking more and more alike. There's so much division, but we have to stand on the truth."

Rawlins has a small pile of Constitution Party literature and DVDs on her coffee table. And got her own personal e-mail bank. She views this not in terms of one election, but as a political and cultural change, one that will take years.