By Liz Burlingame and Laura Mansfield

SAN ANTONIO-Around the corner from Sen. Barack Obama’s late-night rally in San Antonio, is “Alamobama” headquarters. And for the first time, the headquarters were nearly empty.

Volunteers turned their attention to the caucuses, which occur at 7:15 p.m. tonight. However, two stayed behind to man the phones.

Volunteer Caroline James welcomed us at the door and offered us sodas. “Young people like sodas, right?”

James describes herself as the mothering type; she’s currently housing three student volunteers from Arizona at her house. She even wakes up each morning to cook them breakfast. None of this campaign momentum, James said, would be possible without the youth.

An early voting comparison form she handed us revealed that on the first day, voting had increased by 611% for both Republicans and Democrats.

“It’s because of young people. Folks here are so excited to turn this world over to the next generation.”

Along the wall was a time line of their operation, one that James boasts is entirely grassroots. Judie Hall, a professor at the University of Carne Verde helped them mobilize their efforts by helping them with visibility. After working on six other campaigns, Hall knew they first had to find as many vacant offices as possible. Within a three block radius, there are two Obama offices in downtown San Antonio.

Additional support for their cause is coming from unusual places, she said. Their office wouldn’t even exist if a Republican hadn’t donated it to them. James said Obama is crossing lines between age, gender, race and party. Volunteers could include both young voters and retired military officers.

She showed me a poster which featured the disproportional amount of red states compared to blue states (favoring the red). The caption read, “What if they were purple?”

In a few hours time, Obama will address the nation (and these five Seattle Politicore reporters). We’ll have results in the next few hours…