November 13th, 2008 nick
“Hi, my name is Nick and I’m a volunteer with the Barack Obama campaign. Can the senator count on your support this election?” At least that was what I was supposed to say — although I don’t like asking people directly who they will vote/have voted for, so I would sometimes substitute that second sentence with “We’re in your neighborhood today making sure that everyone is getting out to vote.” I found that people often identify their support without you even asking and this approach makes it feel a little more like a genuine interaction and not as much of a solicitation. And while, sure, the Obama campaign doesn’t really want you to be turning out McCain voters to the polls I’d be happy if I gave anyone information that allowed them to vote and consider it an extra bonus if that person supports the good guys.
One man stands out in memory: a young dad feeding his baby a bottle, his back to me as he sat on the couch near the front window. He came to the door shirtless, displaying half a dozen big torso tattoos and cradling his baby in one arm. His hair was buzzed short and he had a little stubbly mustache. I’d guess he was 25 years old and if I’d seen him on the street I’d have pegged him as a Republican. He was sweetly and enthusiastically supportive of Obama, talked about how he was ready for some change. He was not registered at this address, but he knew where he needed to go to to cast his ballot. I don’t think I gave him any new or important information, but I could see in this young father’s eyes and feel in his firm handshake (baby still cradled) that he appreciated the attention from the campaign.
Other characters: BVH canvassed a woman whom he thinks wasn’t wearing pants (he tried his hardest not to look) and was barely wearing a shirt; Fetch spent over one hour talking to some nut job constitutionalist; Peri and I got an earful from Adam, a black sheriff who strongly supported Obama and felt compelled to tell us about his son who’s coming down to vote and his coworker who’s voting for McCain and the Mexicans who keep on sneaking into Florida.
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November 5th, 2008 nick
CNN was killing me slowly last night with its awful electoral graphics. But I’ve started using the NYTimes for my election results, and they have a few really interesting and customizable graphs. First check out this one that shows how on a county level the country is voting more Democratic when compared with 2004. This picture makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. (Click on either picture to see a larger version.) Progress!
Comparison of 2008 and 2004 voting patterns.
However, look at how Obama’s support in this election compares with the Clinton’s in 1996: there’s still a long way to go to get back to the kind widespread support for the first ‘black’ president.
Comparison of 2008 and 1996 voting patterns.
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November 5th, 2008 nick
Just ran across Bikely.com and posted my bike commute to and from school on it. Nice idea for a bike forum.
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November 5th, 2008 nick
Am just now back from Florida, where Sarasota County (where most of the Huck the Voters were working) went for Obama by just 237 votes. Some notes from the days on the campaign trail…
Precinct 82, turf 3.
We hit some fertile turf on Election Day morning, a poor and racially mixed neighborhood in Bradenton (just N of Sarasota). The one-story ramshackle duplexes were packed in so it was easy to knock on a lot of doors quickly. And because this turf wasn’t in Sarasota proper (more resources were spent to win Sarasota than Manatee County, which went to McCain by a few thousand votes), most folks hadn’t been contacted at all yet and were happy to have the information about where and when to vote. And, between 10 and 12 AM, there were a lot of folks home.
Not everyone was for Obama, but it was one of those neighborhoods where we’d just start knocking on every door instead of following the list in the walk packet. Bottom line: do what you can to get any of these people to the polls. Screw the collection of data on who supports whom, who actually lives at the address, who isn’t home, etc… We were supposed to be recording all this data, as per campaign protocol, but at this point, what did it matter? Are they really planning on updating their lists? Many people listed in our packets were no longer at the listed addresses and a lot of houses were boarded up or foreclosed or just plain empty. Over the three days of canvassing, I ran into at least five convicted felons who said that they couldn’t vote. Or, in one case, a woman who had “a felony in New York and I don’t want to push my luck.”
Precinct 82, turf 5.
After an energized morning of talking to folks, we moved to some new turf about a mile away, a sterile trailer park retiree community. No one was home (or they weren’t answering our knocks) and we had to walk a while between houses on the list. If they weren’t home, we dangled a little “Vote Obama TODAY” door-hanger and moved on. After the morning’s seeming success, this just felt too sleepy, not enough activity, not enough voter contacts. So we moved on to some more low-income, mixed-race residential turf.
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November 4th, 2008 Johanna
check out this ad that progressive future, the group that i’m working on behalf of, aired over the past few days on CNN and CSPAN.
i find it incredibly moving.
JN
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November 4th, 2008 Johanna
our campaign song is death or glory by the clash. we kick off every national conference call with it.
there are 11 hours left until the polls close in virginia…
here’s a snapshot of life so far this morning:
i started my round of wake-up calls to my directors at 5:30am. i got my wake up call from the national director at 6:00pm, while parking my car at walgreens to run in and grab some election day sharpies.
it’s pouring rain in norfolk. flood warnings this afternoon. one of my directors tried to vote this morning in hampton and there was a 4 hour wait at the polls. she decided her time was better spent making it her business to get others to stand in line rather than standing in line herself. so she and her boyfriend have 200 voters that they are reaching out to for the next 11 hours… the rain makes our work to get people to the polls even more important. (on a side-note, i encouraged kasie to phonebank through her precinct while she was standing in line to vote.)
the first crew headed out into the field at 7:30am with a goal of knocking on their first door at 7:45am. now i’m alone at the office waiting to receive volunteers and collect numbers from the field. coffee is in the coffee-pot, clipboards and walklists are prepped. and just as i was starting to feel a little down, and thinking about starting my wrap-up report, i called my colleague liz for a pick-me-up…
not only did she play a song- barack-steady - to me over the phone, but duh… hop on the phones, jojo, and call voters!
so, here i go. phone. ear. glue.
will check in later.
10 hrs 43 mins.
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November 2nd, 2008 Johanna
that’s how many hours remain until the polls close.
i’m running our get out the vote operation in norfolk as part of the last 96 hour push.
as state director, one of my jobs was crunching the numbers to set goals for our GOTV efforts for each of the four offices doing this outreach in the state. when i calculated the numbers for how many voters the directors and volunteers could reach in the final four days in norfolk, i used rate calculations and analyses that would have made even my biostatistical husband proud… and when it all came around the numbers was… 1320.
for those mayan calendar buffs out there, you’ll say, of course! that makes perfect sense!
for those non-mayan calendar experts, 1320 is the number of galactic synchronicity and harmony. it is the number of nature’s rhythms triumphing over militance. it is the number of barack obama winning over john mccain.
with that good omen out there, i can’t tell if it’s a bad omen that we’re behind on meeting our goal after today. any of you want to come to norfolk and help bring about galactic synchronicity? i mean, we all knew the stakes were high, but this takes the whole thing to a whole new level.
ok. daylight savings time just kicked in. bedtime.
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October 29th, 2008 Johanna
obama was in norfolk today. since we’re about to embark on a big volunteer-driven GOTV effort, what better place to recruit than an obama rally?
myself and three of our campaign managers packed up our clipboards and sign-up sheets and headed to the rally. we clipboarded for volunteers and members for about 3 hours, but then the doors to the stadium opened and people started rushing in. as the evening wore on obama’s campaing was out in force doing their own volunteer recruitment as well. since there’s no need to compete with our own team, we packed up our list of 64 new members and 40 volunteers and called it a day in terms of outreach.
so, then the question became, do you go back to the office to clean or database, or do you stay and listen to barack’s speech?
the right thing to do from a diligent campaign perspective would have been to go back to the office. the fun thing to do is to stay and watch barack’s speech. we opted for fun.
we hustled through security, and walked out onto the green of the minor league ballpark. there was an amazing high school marching band with a powerful brass section and terrific drum corps getting everybody dancing. we were dancing and grinning as we took in the scene, and then a very official-looking woman pulled us aside and asked if we wanted to sit in the bleachers behind barack obama while he gave his speech… we said sure.
next thing we knew we were getting wisked away to the rock-star seats right behind the podium. we sat there and bonded with the other members of the selected crowd - old, young, black, white, asian, kids in the front row… solid cross-section of society.
organizers handed “change we need” posters and little american flags up through the bleachers, and told us to bunch together closely. i have so often been on the other end of that interaction - felt a little funny to be organized by someone else rather than the other way around. in fact, i watched the event organizers as they walked with giant-cottonfield-steps in a determined and deliberate way that i know myself to be capable of. i was a little jealous, and yet worked to relish the moment of observing rather than acting.
a preacher opened the rally, a 12 year old kid sang a gospel star-spangled banner, an organizer with the obama campaign got thousands of cell phone number through a clever text message organizing trick from the podium. then the secret service guys came out, secured the podium, and there came our man.
he was shorter than i had expected. hair definitely graying. but fiery. and funny. and feisty. and… presidential. i was sitting right behind his right shoulder - when he moved to the left or the right, occasionally i saw myself on the jumbotron. it’s an event i won’t forget for a long time.
needless to say, three-hours of rally indulgence had a cost when it comes to the campaign. we’re behind on databasing, the GOTV plan is still not finalized. it’s 2:05 am as i finish this post. conference call with my canvass directors in 5.25 hours… and with that, 6 days and sweet dreams.
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October 27th, 2008 nick
A busy first day (=12 hours) here at the Sarasota Obama HQ:
- phone calling to recruit even more volunteers;
- an Early Voting march to a polling place in New Town, a predominantly black neighborhood in Sarasota, at which we had burgers and fries and ho’dogs and even more volunteer sign up sheets;
- back to HQ for more phone calling and unloading of pamphlets;
- organizing thousands of pamphlets by precinct;
- canvassing in south Sarasota — knocked on 55 doors in about 2.5 hours (I don’t think I’d be able to hold a job at Work for Progress with those numbers) and had one or two Obama supporters whom I think I successfully encouraged to vote early, which is currently the big push here.
Highlight of the day was running into Jit (fellow ultimate player, Stanford ‘02 grad, friend and teammate of Kroody, childhood friend of Kevin [who was at our wedding with Beth], and current Revolver player) at HQ and spending the last half of the day working with him. We’re planning on starting early (8am) tomorrow and then taking a midday break to toss around a bit and loosen up the ultimate muscles.
The campaign is running strong — while we were working for MoveOn in ‘04 and not the Kerry campaign, it still seems like night and day in terms of how well things are organized. Here’s hoping it makes a difference.
Off to enjoy one of Matt and Amber’s triple ginger whammy cookies on my drive home. Thanks for the care package!
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October 26th, 2008 nick
To top off the free wireless at the Tampa airport, I just scored a Prius rental. It was a $50 upgrade, most of which I’m hoping to get back in gas, as the other cars got dismal mileage.
Off to watch the Rays with some Obama campaign workers.
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