Annabel Park on “Real Virginians,” the Korean-American Community, etc.
The following interview was conducted by Lowell Feld on April 26, 2007, with Annabel Park, Eric Byler, Josh Chernila. These excerpts focus on the role of Webb volunteer and political activist Annabel Park, truly one of the most extraordinary of Jim Webb’s “rag tag army.”
Feld: What brought you out to Virginia to volunteer for Jim Webb. How did you find out about Webb?
Park: I’m single, I heard the men in Virginia were really hot. (ha) Actally, I found out because of the Macaca incident on TV news, not through the blogs. Then, I started Googling it trying to find out more, came across Raising Kaine. I didn’t know that there was a Progressive community in Virginia, came across your articles, they were really well written, I was very impressed with Raising Kaine. I didn’t consider coming to work on campaign until Eric said he was coming out for 2 weeks during the film festival.
…I didn’t think we were going to win either [and] had never volunteered on other campaigns before.
Feld: Did you feel like Webb campaign was more grassroots than others?
Park: I found it really shocking how much it was driven by volunteers, didn’t expect that at all. Had thought about helping with research. Realized that the volunteers were doing the phone banking and canvassing. It was shocking…in a good way, but also a little worried that if they’re just volunteering do they have the adequate experience and skills.
Feld: A lot of the professionals didn’t have much experience either.
Park: Yeah, I was surprised how young the staff was. But I really liked the energy, and I felt really at home, volunteers like Mary and Barbara were so friendly and really welcomed me.
Feld: What were your best experiences, the things you accomplished?
Park: Creating a vision for how we could all work together, coming up with a message for “Real Virginians for Webb.” Before the vision and the message, there were just various people working, doing outreach. Eric, Joe Montano, Esther Cho, me….Josh, Jan.
Feld: Did you eventually go to the [field director] Larry Byrne level?
Park: When I told Josh about the Real Virginians idea, Josh was like his head was going to explode. Real Virginians was my idea, just came to me one day. I had been working on better talking points…spending a lot of time trying to summarize Webb’s positions. I was thinking, what would be a meaningful slogan to deal with the diversity issue. It just came to me…from Allen’s “welcome to the real world of Virginia.” I didn’t know that Josh was going to have a blackout. It was the end of September, about a week after I had gotten there. I had been planning to stay 10 days. Within a week, I had pretty much decided I was going to stay through the election. I got Real Virginians moving. Larry liked it, wanted Josh to talk to [communications director] Kristian [Denny Todd] to make sure it wasn’t too negative. I never got a negative reaction to “Real Virginians.”
The question was whether to absorb this into the campaign or keep it as grassroots. Jan Lars [Mueller] came up with idea that “real Virginia” should be defined by values. I had come up with three values - respect, opportunity, fairness. The campaign decided it wouldn’t be under the campaign directly, had to do with compliance. We wanted to raise money directly. We did a lot of e-mailing our network of people. Eric [Byler] is good at raising money through his Asian American friends…not all Asian Amerian…from California. There were also people who wanted to contribute to the anti-war cause.
Feld: Were people more interested in giving to the grassroots movement or to the Webb campaign?
Park: Some of it was people wanted to support us, some of it was people supported the cause. I loved that one night, putting together the Hong Le Webb video at Silver Diner, we called you early in the morning and asked if we could come by and take a shower.
Feld: That was interesting…your initiative to interview Hong Le, she had not been out there much. You came to me and asked me to ask Hong Le if she’d agree to be interviewed by you guys. Next thing I knew, she had been down there for 2 hours.
Park: In a week, about 10,000 people saw the video. That video had an effect. My cousin talked to people who had seen it.
Feld: This was mainly a grassroots thing. Also, there were other excellent videos like Generation Webb…
Park: I loved the one with Wasim [Entabi] and Tuy [Le].
[...]
Park: [Volunteer coordinator] Josh [Chernila] and I had a good relationship. I didn’t feel like Josh was one of the scary campaign people…
Feld: If Josh had not been there, what would have happened with all of these efforts, would you have even stuck around?
Park: No, I don’t think I would have extended my stay.
[...]
Park: George Allen was hugely popular in the Korean-American community because he was considered a friend, had supported “Korean American Day.” In the end, something like 50,000 Asians voted. Around 65% for Webb, maybe as high as 75%.
Feld: What changed them from Republican to Webb?
Park: There was a Korean-American Thansgiving festival in late September. I didn’t know going in what people were feeling about Webb vs. Allen. I talked to one man, 70 years old, handed him a flyer in Korean…he pointed at the Allen/Davis table and said those people are all liars and thieves, we’ve got to stop them, he was so enraged that he was shaking. I remember at that moment thinking this election is so important. They were so sick to death of Republicans lying to them.
Eric Byler: What we were looking at was an absolute shutout…George Allen would have taken the entire Korean American community if this woman [hadn't] come to town. It’s 10-0 for Allen without Annabel. The fair was plastered with Allen/Davis signs, not a single Jim Webb sign…They had balloons, a booth, elephant-shaped fans, volunteers. Before Annabel came to town, that’s what the fair was like. At that fair, instead of it being 10-0, we win 7-3, because 10 people showed up for Webb. We grabbed a corner table that would have cost $2,000 but somebody didn’t show up. We stayed all day. I was supposed to fly to New York, my hands were bleeding from putting 100 signs in the ground. We had all these flyers, in English and Korean. We made the flyers, photocopied the in the office.
Feld: If you hadn’t come to town what would have happened in Asian community?
Park: The Korean community would have been totally ignored, so people would either have voted for Allen or not voted at all. We made it matter, in the Korean community, the fact that I was even campaigning was news. Getting in Korean newspapers, radio, etc. Reporters very interested. People came up to me and said I’ve read about you…spread like wildfire, reporters so excited that anyone was doing outreach.
Byler: People secretly felt that they had been lied to, but they had been mowed down for so long that they felt, well the whole community’s just going to vote Republican and there’s nothing I can do about it. It was Annabel marching in there and saying there IS a fight here…there IS a contest. People stood up and said we can do something.
Park: Nudging them a little bit, telling them that the election matters, people were so affected by that. They all read the same newspapers, listen to same news on radio stations and TV, it’s very consolidated. So once you get their support…when we did a debate on the radio, a proxy for George allen and a proxy for Jim Webb –Michael Kwan, another volunteer…he was fantastic, killed the other guy in debate. It was in Korean. That debate alone got thousands of people interested in election, got people talking. Before that, they didn’t get Jim Webb.