Dear President-Elect Obama, Please, Please, keep this site up! We, the Grassroots for Obama, have been vitalized, spirited and connected through mybarack. Many Grassroots organizations are continuing to work for your platform and issues after you take the oath of office. We need to communicate and share ideas! Please consider NOT SHUTTING DOWN THIS SITE! you said, "We are the ChANGE we need!". We cannot do it alone so please let us continue to support you through this site.
Our Fayetteville organization, Sandhills Grassroots for Obama will be starting new community involvement programs in two weeks. Let us HELP YOU make the Change. We are proud and happy that you will become our 44th President and we will help you, just as you said you can not do it alone....so let us use this technological vehicle to exchange ideas on what many of us will do . God Bless you and I'ld love to help send the Vans to the WH to move the Bushes back to Crawford.
Gosh, I really haven't had time to blog or read the blogs lately but I want to share with you what Andrea and I are doing to kick off GOTV in Fayetteville, NC. We are hosting a "Barack-O-Ween" Dinner at our Campaign for Change Headquarters on Friday, Halloween for the Obama Field Organizers, Democratic Party Candidates Organizers and Volunteers. Our Trick or Treat Bags include the following. Feel free to duplicate this or make your own Treat Bags! :
“NOW, LET’S GO OUT AND CHANGE THE WORLD!
Hi Obama Friends,
Lucia from Rhode Island called our NC Campaign for Change Office to request we write letters to editors and I told her we could probably reach more editors by posting this to the Obama Blog. She was calling each state but I thought this would be a quicker way to reach more people. Will you please take a few minutes from your busy Obama Day and send this to your local newspapers and your groups? Also, send to your friends and ask them to help as well. We have got to do as much as we can to win this election! Thanks...Bev
To the Editor: I wonder if your readers are aware that John McCain’s father died of a heart attack at the age of 70, two years younger than McCain is now? And that his grandfather’s ticker also gave out--at the age of 61! Don’t let McCain’s feisty elderly mother be all we know of his genetic inheritance. We ought to be concerned that this potential Commander-in-Chief might succumb to a heart attack--at any moment.By choosing the least-qualified Vice Presidential candidate in memory, someone whom many members of his own party have said is not ready, John McCain hasn’t put “Country First.” Not by a long shot.(Signed)
I have been away from my computer for a month....after a great cruise to Alaska then to Vegas and off to Denver for the Acceptance Speech! One of my Obama friends forwarded this to me and I'm hoping it is not true!!! Can anyone enlighten me?
Just wondering if you guys got this message...i received it from a co-worker who knows i am an OBAMA supporter...what do you think??
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:12:09 -0500
On or about October 5th, Biden will excuse himself from the ticket, citing health problems, and he will be replaced by Hillary. This is timed to occur after the VP debate on 10/2.
There have been talks all weekend about how to proceed with this info. Generally, the feeling is that we should all go ahead and get it out there to as many blog sites and personal email lists as is possible. I have already seen a few short blurbs about this - the 'health problem' cited in those articles was aneurysm. Probably many of you have heard the same rumblings.
However, at this point, with this inside info from the DNC, it looks like this Obama strategy will be a go. Therefore, it seems that the best strategy is to get out in front of this Obama maneuver, spell it out in detail, and thereby expose it for the grand manipulation that it is.
So, let's start mixing this one up and cut the Obamites off at the pass - send this info out to as many people as you can - post about it on websites and blogs - etc
Dear Obama Friends,
I am still in Mile High City of Denver! Getting to Invesco Stadium included about 3 miles of walking at a snail's pace in a crowd of so many people! I was interviewed in line by German TV Station, US News and My Space. Once in that magnificent stadium, the music, entertainers, sounds and electricity flowing through the stadium is something that will always be remembered. When Barack took to the stage, tears flowed, and it took a while to quiet down, How exciting. History was made and I was a part of it, Now it's time to bring all that enthusiasm and electricity to every little US town and big city to assure Obama is in the White House. Don't stop.....Keep going.....and never give up....Reach out to everyone and let's have Change!
Sen. Barack Obama's $52 million haul in the month of June is nearly certain to quiet whispers that his vaunted fundraising machine had slowed, and seems to justify his decision last month to opt out of public financing for the general election.
Obama's campaign announced this morning the $52 million take and that Obama had ended the month, his first as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, with $72 million in the bank.
"You continue to prove what ordinary Americans committed to change can accomplish, despite the Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs funding so much of our opponents' campaign," wrote campaign manager David Plouffe in an e-mail to supporters announcing the news that doubled as a fundraising pitch of its own.
"As I mentioned in my video message to you earlier in the week, we're facing a Republican machine with unprecedented resources at its disposal," writes Plouffe. "The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee finished June with nearly $100 million in the bank."
While the money chase tends to get outsized attention in the media -- it's easily quantifiable and the numbers are BIG -- it's impossible to overstate how much money matters in the race between Obama and John McCain.
Obama's decision to opt out of public financing for the general election -- the first presidential candidate to do so since the system was put in place in the early 1970s -- means that money will be front and center to every strategic decision made by both sides in the coming months.
Obama took a calculated risk in opting out: that his fundraising advantage over McCain would be large enough to justify the time and energy it takes to collect hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, how did he do in his first month as the nominee?
That depends on who is doing the analyzing.
Obama soared well above the $30 million figure laid out in the Wall Street Journal (and vehemently disputed by the campaign at the time) but well below the $100 million number that some Democratic fundraisers floated.
Compared to the cash-collecting performance by Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) following his own securing of the nomination, Obama measured up well.
Kerry collected $44 million in March 2004, the first full month it was clear that he would be the Democratic nominee. That was a huge spike from the $8.4 million he had raised in February and the $7.6 million (including a $3.5 million loan) he collected in January of that year. All tolled for his primary campaign, Kerry raised $249 million; Obama, as of the end of June, had collected $347 million -- all but a few million of which is in primary dollars.
Obama did not set his own personal fundraising record for a month. The $52 million in June was close but not quite as much as the $56.7 million the campaign raised in February. In that, Obama is the victim of his own successes; had he not raised $136 million in the first three months of the year (Kerry raised $60 million during that time in 2004, McCain raised just $39.7 in that same time period this cycle), there would be no question about the unmitigated success of Obama's fundraising.
Taken broadly, what Obama's June fundraising number means is that rumors of his fundraising machine's demise have been vastly exaggerated. Obama continues to compete only with his past eye-popping totals when it comes to cash collection and, due to the relatively small average contribution to his campaign ($68 in June), he continues to grow a massive list of donors who can keep giving as he turns his attention to raising money for the general election.
If Obama can put together four more months of $50 million raised, he will have $200 million to spend on the general election; more than double the $84 million that McCain will get from the public financing system. (UPDATE: The Fix, no math whiz, has been informed by several smart sources that the previous calculation is not entirely accurate. Of the $52 million Obama raised in June, jusr $2 million was for the general election. Therefore, Obama needs to find a way to continue to raise considerable cash for the primary -- until he becomes the party's formal nominee in late August -- AND collect money for the general election, a more daunting feat that was made clear above.)
It now seems clear that Obama is positioned to enjoy a significant financial edge over McCain in the general election.
It's important to remember that money, especially at the presidential level, is not determinative of the outcome as demonstrated by McCain's underfunded run to the Republican nomination earlier this year.
But, any campaign or candidate would rather have more money to spend than their opponent coming down the home stretch. And, as of today, Obama seems likely to be in that position when summer turns to fall.
By Chris Cillizza | July 17, 2008; 10:05 AM ET | Category: Eye on 2008 Previous: Fix Pick: Get To Know Sheldon Adelson |
Obama Fellows who are in your locale could use all the help we in the grassroots movement can give them. Remember, they are volunteering their time this summer, without PAY, and are hitting the ground running! In my town in NC, it's brutally hot and those young fellows are out daily in that hot sun registering voters. At day's end, they have data to input and their days are long! I'm helping them by inputting data into the Barack Obama Data Base and many of you who want to do something for the campaign, but can't get out in that summer heat, or are homebound, can do the same. Just contact your local or state Field Director and start helping! If you love working on the computer in the comfort of your own home,it doesn't take long and it's rewarding!
