It’s not often that a State House candidate can get a full feature in Time, but if you’re HD-79 Democratic nominee Anton Gunn, you get to become the exception to the rule. Gunn, beyond playing football for USC and being a community organizer, put together Sen. Barack Obama’s big primary win here.

At a time when half the Democratic world seemed to be trying to get onto Obama’s not-yet-official campaign, Gunn found that his calls to the Senator’s offices went unreturned. Finally, he placed one more call to Chicago and laid it on the line. “I may not know a whole lot about politics, but I know a lot about South Carolina,” he remembers saying in his message. “If you want to run for President and South Carolina’s going to be an early-primary state, you need to have me involved.”

The next day, a voice-mail message from Obama himself was waiting on his phone. The two met in Washington a few weeks later, and Gunn became his state’s political director. Using his organizing skills and contacts, Gunn set about building a grass-roots movement that empowered volunteers. When they learned that many black voters didn’t realize Obama was African American, the campaign developed a seven-minute dvd about Obama’s life that supporters could play in their living rooms for friends and neighbors. “We told them it belonged to them,” Gunn says, “that Barack’s success would depend on how much ownership they took.”

‘You Need Me Involved’ [Time.com]