The happy party atmosphere at the Irish American Democrats event in Denver Tuesday night speaks volumes, according to Carol Wheeler, who earlier this summer was appointed as Barack Obama’s liaison with the Irish community.
“I’ve been truly encouraged by the excitement in the Irish-American community for Obama,” she said.
When people are asked if they want to help the campaign, she reports, they volunteer before the questioner even finishes their sentence.
Some of them, particularly those in the battleground states, want to express enthusiasm for the 2008 Democratic ticket via their Irish-American identity
“That’s not to say we don’t have a lot of work to do,” Wheeler added.
“A lot of people are taking a look at Barack Obama and trying to figure who this guy is,” she said. Some in that category will likely be “more comfortable” with Joe Biden. “They can relate intuitively to him,” she said. But with Obama/Biden as a package, some of that can rub off on the younger man. And then, she added, voters will see that their stories and their values are in fact remarkably similar.
“Personally I’m thrilled,” Wheeler said about the Biden choice. And from everything she’s heard on the ground in Denver, that’s the general feeling.
[PHOTO BY KA CHAN: From left, Irish Labor Party leader Eamon Gilmore T.D., the Irish Echo's Peter McDermott, and Antoine Faisal, the publisher of Aramica, a New York-based paper, pictured at the Irish American Democrats event in Denver.]
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