September 27th, 2008 Johanna
A few days ago we started a new project on the voter registration campaign.
It’s called the Community Voters Project. Rather than registering young people (one under-represented group in the electorate), we have shifted our focus to registering minority voters (the other big under-represented group in the electorate). The project’s goal is to register 300,000 African Americans to vote before October 6th.
When I think about this project in historical terms, I get goose bumps. 50 years ago, freedom fighters were getting beaten by police in Alabama. 50 years ago, the US still hadn’t passed comprehensive civil rights legislation. It’s a potent reminder that the civil rights movement is very recent history and that the legacy lives on today in the low registration numbers and lack of political involvement by these citizens.
Virginia was one of the last states to free its slaves. Virginia hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1964 when the Dixie-crat blockade of civil rights legislation splintered under the crafty handling of the ever-ambitious Lyndon Johnson. Virginia, where Obama and McCain take turns leading the polls by 2-3 percentage points on a daily basis. Virginia, where African American voters support Obama by 95 percent.
Could we be doing anything more strategic to elect Obama? Pray, do tell.
Today I was outside a Food Lion grocery store and Dollar Store from 11am – 4pm. I shared the front entrance with a Christian Aid group seeking solicitations to help teenagers down on their luck. They stood at their table, collecting a dollar here and there, while I ran across the parking lot with my trusty clipboard, approaching every black person I could see and asking them if they were registered to vote at their current address.
I registered 8 voters in 3.5 hours… not a great rate, but not shabby either.
One thirty-something woman, with incredible fingernails and hair extensions had just moved to Richmond from Tennessee and hadn’t registered yet. Another man, born in 1957 had never registered. His hand shook as he filled out the form on the clipboard. He thanked me. Another woman, who was already registered, told me that she had vowed to her parents that everyone in her family would register to vote because her parents had fought for that right. She told me how on every child’s 18th birthday the whole family goes with them to the registrar’s office to be with them as they register.
Clearly some people treasure and value the right to vote. Which is powerful to witness. Others have not left behind the oppression that held them back for hundreds of years, even though the chains have been unlocked. “I don’t vote” the young man with the gold tooth said, as he avoided eye contact. I say “Here’s your chance to change that. Let’s get you registered…” and hesays, “Nah” and saunters off. One of my directors, Ja’net, who stems from a black political Alabama family is so furious with that mentality. “Who is this ‘Man’ that you’re talking about?” she asks…
Another major challenge is the fact that Virginia has some of the toughest voting rights restoration procedures after a felony. Any convicted felon has to petition the governor in order to restore his/her voting rights. I’d say on any given day, 20 percent of the folks I talk with can’t vote because of this.
Despite the obstacles, it’s good work and we’re making progress. Today our directors and staff registered 341 African American voters in Virginia alone.
Ok.
Numbers are 95% done for the night.
JoJo Neumann signing off.
1:46am Sept. 27, 2008. 38 days to E-day.
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September 25th, 2008 Johanna
one of the big things that breaks apart the day on a campaign is numbers reporting deadlines. three times a day the 50+ offices we are running around the country report a set of key numbers up the chain.The idea is that this is a drill. After morning crews go out, you report. After afternoon crews go out you report. At the end of the night, you report. Not only does it keep the directors on top of their office performance (kind of like keeping track of your turnovers and assists in ultimate) but it also sends critical data to the campaign leadership, who needs to be able to get near real-time data so they can make adjustments to the campaign.
ideally, the drill is at 11:00AM I get 6 reports. I consolidate them into a statewide report and send it up the chain. at 5pm they do another small report. by 5:30pm i’ve passed it up the chain. at 9:30pm there’s a larger set of numbers and daily budget-tracking information that gets sent in to campaign HQ.
that’s usually where things get gobbed up. some night’s i’m up at 2pm with crying directors, helping them navigate the tough reality that because they didn’t save their file, they have to start all over. and no, they can’t do it in the morning. tonight it’s midnight and all the numbers are in (which is the earliest yet). my deadline for getting them in is 10pm. not sure how exactly i’m gonna get there, but if i’ve ratcheted it down 2 hours from 2am – 12midnight, i imagine there’s room for at least another hour’s worth improvement.
in other news, we had an influx of fresh blood into the campaign this week. a set of 6 field staffers is hitting the ground this week. they’re bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to work their ass off for the next 41 days. we’re psyched to have them. this must be what it feels like when you’re working on a front and fresh reinforcements arrive to help you hold the line and even advance a little.
the polls show obama ahead. even in va. exciting.
we’re having an office-bonding evening on friday night to watch the debates, to recharge, refocus and get pumped about the candidate we are working to elect. mohammed, a very nice syrian shopkeeper here in the shockoe bottom neighborhood of richmond who makes a mean felafel sandwich, has agreed to let us use the hookah lounge portion of his restaurant, complete with flat-screen TV. it’ll be a good time. complete with hookah.
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September 22nd, 2008 nick
A nice and short (6.5 minute) segment from On the Media that captures what Wallace was all about pretty succinctly. Note also the set of links to journalistic pieces that he’s written.
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September 21st, 2008 Johanna
on my way south from conducting interviews in DC to sleeping tonight in Richmond and working to set up a pattern there.
i pulled into a Holiday Inn somewhere north of Fredericksburg, am pretending to be a guest, while poaching wireless to collect mid-day #s from my offices.
the average number of voter registrations per canvasser shift is going up. we’re getting better and becoming more efficient. but not fast enough. it’s going to be a stretch to make our goals at this rate.
looking forward to being ‘based’ in richmond. will be staying at the home of Joe Rupp’s parents’ house. Joe is a veteran canvass director and his mom registers voters for the Obama campaign on weekends. the bed that i sleep in has a beautiful handmade quilt on it, and even though it’s near the heart of richmond the house feels like a rural country home. i can hear crickets and frogs at night.
ok… one more set of numbers to collect, and then back on I-95. Richmond or bust.
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September 19th, 2008 Johanna
… curling up next to a warm body.
while i’d prefer it if that warm body were my husband, fritz-the-dog is as suitable a surrogate as any. (even as i write this post i periodically leave the guest room and follow fritz outside, slobber-covered squeaky toy in hand and launch the bauble into the dark firefly night for fritz to hunt down).
it’s good to be home at high flowing. first time back since nick&jojo4eva. i’ve crashed here the past two nights and this is my last night before heading north on I-81 to do site visits with our organizers at James Madison University and UVA before conducting interviews in DC on Sunday. I’m hoping to stay with Anna and Chase in Charlottesville tomorrow night.
Commuting from Floyd to Roanoke has been a trip. Can’t say I’d want to do it if I lived here. Last night i processed the nightly numbers from the roanoke office and started driving home around 1:20am. Sleepiness loomed but Ween’s 20 Country Hits album came to the rescue. Tonight I decided to drive home mid-evening and take care of the numbers drill from the High Flowing field office.
I got here 1 hour before my 9:30pm conference call and it was really nice to have an hour to sit down with starroot and rick over dinner, the inevitable delicious bottle of wine, and good conversation. inevitably we talked politics. starroot explained why she thinks sarah palin is the beast. rick and i talked about how we feel let-down whenever we finish a big push of work. if i know myself i’ll be depressed after election day, even if obama blows mccain out of the water simply because the task is gone, there’s nothing more to do towards that, and it will feel overwhelming to start something new or revive something old.
there’ll be plenty to work after the election regardless of who wins. what the winner decides is whether i get to play offense or defense for the next 4+ years.
ok. no more sqeezy toy throwing. bedtime for the jojo.
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September 17th, 2008 Johanna
1) coalition partners:
on monday i was in richmond meeting with our allies who are also doing organizing around the election. it became clear to me just how much we are doing, and how much product we are generating compared to other groups doing do-goody social change work. feels good to get stuff done.
2) “suck it up”:
our ability to generate product compared to other groups has so much to do with the scrappiness of our approach, the ambitious nature of the campaign goals and the willingness to push past obstacles. reminds me of godiva.
i remember my rookie year at nationals, when judy “the camel” layzer stood up before our first game in the scorching florida sun and said (paraphrasing) “it’s hot. but it’s hot for the other team too. i don’t want to hear another word about how hot it is. let’s play.” we won nationals that year.
that’s how this campaign is. My colleague JR is running an office out of the corner of a starbucks in virginia beach. they literally hold interviews behind the espresso machine. they still managed to answer 19 phone calls, send out 10 staff-people and register 28 voters before 3pm.
3) there’s no crying in baseball.
last night jojo cracked the whip for the first time. at 9:30pm we rolled out a new reporting system that every one of the 57 offices, including my 6 in Virginia had to get out before the night’s end. When I told my directors, they were shocked. some of them had already gone home. i made them go back to the office. i walked them through technological glitches in the form. i provided moral support. at 12:45am i got a call from the director in roanoke who had saved her form to a flash drive under a different file name, and the file had become corrupted. i made her sit down and do it. she was crying. i felt like an asshole. but, by 2:15am, I had all the numbers files and now we can finally get a comprehensive analysis of what’s going on in the state.
and tonight, all the numbers files were done by 11:30pm. the goal is 10pm. we’ll make that happen tomorrow night.
4) being a local.
i get to canvass in roanoke tomorrow. i can’t wait to register progressive voters in southwest virginia. yay!
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September 15th, 2008 nick
Campaign pit stop at the 611.
Look who showed up this weekend! Granted, it was for less than 12 hours (and 8 of those were spent sleeping), but hey, we’ll take what we can get around here. At least she got to enjoy the antique clothes rack that was recently perched on the wall above the floor heater, admire the new color paint in the bedroom, stroke the Xootr’s sleek silver coat (we might have to name it Silver, as in “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi yo, Silver!’”), and eat eggs for breakfast, as usual.
Next time we see each other might be in Arlington, VA when I go down for an Edward Tufte workshop in early October.
In other homefront news, the hibiscus tree from the front steps is no more. We suspect its roots as the culprit in causing the plumbing woes (so far nothing too gnarly, just showers and laundry grey water backing up into the basement utility sink) and hope that by digging it up thoroughly, getting the plumber dude to come one more time and maybe sending some nasty root-killer chemicals down the drain we can avoid the $5-10K layout for new pipes under our existing front porch.
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September 15th, 2008 Johanna
i spent today moving from one wi-fi spot to another in richmond. was a highly connected day, buying a cup of coffee here, appetizer there, beer here… i’ll likely make one more watering hole stop before the night is over.
Things on the campaign keep adapting and changing. We roll with the punches like a boxer.
I stopped by the state board of elections today to order 1,500 voter registration forms for each of my offices. They told me that I could only have 100 – that they are so short on forms because there’s such high demand this year.
Either someone screwed up or someone is trying to make registering voters more difficult. How conspiracy-minded do you want to be?
I was planning on heading to Roanoke tonight, but since there were some big staffing readjustments today it made more sense for me to stay in Richmond, where I’m highly connected via wifi, and make sure all the transitions got arranged smoothly.
Just gotta find one more housing slot in Norfolk, Va… anyone got any ideas?
JN.
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September 15th, 2008 nick
It took me a few days to pick up on the news that David Foster Wallace committed suicide this past Friday. What a loss. Just spent about 1.5 hours foraging in the forest of links that have followed his death. A selection:
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September 14th, 2008 nick
Thanks to the NPR Live Concert podcast, I picked up this Tom Waits concert on the ipod a few weeks ago. First listened to it on the chinatown bus back from NYC last weekend — the perfect soundtrack to tearing anonymously down I95 at midnight, sprawled out across a few seats that seem to have lumps in all the wrong places, unable to sleep. The first track throbs with raw energy. As if I needed any more convincing, this concert puts Waits squarely in my pantheon of favorite musicians. Not quite Dan Bern status, but he’s almost there.
Turns out you can stream it online as well as download it as a podcast. Check it out. Now.
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