Local company used for Obama Early Vote campaign

Gilda Bailey started her Cincinnati charter bus service in August 2007 never expecting less than a year later she’d be shuttling early voters for the Barack Obama campaign. But that’s exactly what she’s doing.

Remember those buses outside Obama’s rally Monday at the University of Cincinnati? Those were hers. The company is called Cincinnati Specialty Tours.

Bailey said the Obama campaign called her and said it was interested in contracting with her company to get voters to the polls early. Bailey agreed. Her five buses and several vans have picked up folk from just about every neighborhood in the city to get them down to the Hamilton County Board of Elections downtown to vote early. The Obama campaign pays the gas. She donates her time. The cost to the voter: nothing.

And she’s keeping busy. The company’s shuttled hundreds more voters since the rally. “There’s been a steady stream of them,” Bailey said. She’d have more if she worked in Kentucky. She said many Kentucky residents at the Obama rally complained there wasn’t a similar shuttle for them.

The Early Voter service is called “OBAMA ’08 Rides.” She takes groups, or individuals. (And no, Bailey won’t follow you into the Elections Board office to make sure you did, indeed vote for Obama.)