The next three weeks, beginning August 10, are critical. Both houses of Congress are on summer recess, but you can reach members through their DC offices and their home district offices. Since they claim they will use the recess period to listen to constituents back home, let’s take them up on that offer.
You can bet the opponents of change are doing the same. On August 2, at Senator Specter’s Health Care Town Meeting at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, I got a first-hand view of how a small group of loud, booing opponents of health care change can really affect a meeting. That same dynamic can happen over time in the office of a member of Congress.
We have the numbers of organized people; now we need to put those numbers to work. Do not allow a member to think that most of his/her constituents don’t care about health care change.
You can phone, email, write an old-fashioned letter, fax, or—possibly most effective—go to visit.
No matter what medium you use, be sure your representatives know that you strongly support the Presidents three principles of health care reform:
Reduce costs
Guarantee choice of doctor and plan
Ensure quality care for all
On Sunday, August 9, in West Chester, PA, OFA did phonebanking for the President's health care reform principles.
This time we phoned people in our state but not our immediate area. We got more answered phones and virtually everyone who answered declared support for the Obama principles. Nearly all agreed to phone their representatives in Congress. As a result, the phonebank was a high energy event.
Call your reps in Congress AND since they are in their home district offices during the summer recess, pay them a visit. You can get the phone number and address for home district offices at
http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm
Let them know that you support the President’s health care reform principles.
On Sunday, August 9, in West Chester, PA, OFA will do a phone bank and canvass for the President's health care reform principles.
Please join me and the rest of Chester County OFA in West Chester on Sunday. I’ll probably be canvassing (unless we have rains like last Sunday’s). But others will phone bank. Your choice.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple?source=topnav
On Thursday, August 6, OFA had a table at Swingin’ Summer Thursday in West Chester, PA. It WAS swingin’: a hot salsa band just half a block away.
I saw no end to the enthusiasm of people for President Obama’s three principles of health care reform. The people I talked to know the issues, know disinformation when they see or hear it, and are ready to phone or even visit their members of Congress now that those members will be in their “home” offices for the rest of the month.
The people who sign the declarations have not been fooled one bit by the propaganda. They are going to lead us to victory.
I just watched an inspiring video posted on HealthReform.gov that showed President Obama reading a few of the letters he gets every day. Most of the letters the President reads on this video are about health care.
The President reads ten letters every day of about 65,000 that arrive every week. He makes a handwritten reply to three or four per day. (The White House staff replies to all of them.) The video also gives us a peak at how those letters arrive at the White House and how they are selected to go to the President.
If you ever feel your energy for the health care reform fight flagging, watch this six-minute video at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/Inside-the-White-House-Letters-to-the-President/
On Thursday, August 6, OFA will canvass at Swingin’ Summer Thursday in West Chester, PA.
http://www.west-chester.com/boroughcal.php?z=9&c=&d=2004-09-05&t=m&f=l&p=1&t2=&f2=&p2=&time=1244514226
I love meeting people at public events like this. And this time it is doubly important. We will be asking for declarations of support for the President’s three health care reform principles. And we will, of course, supply the contact information for our two US Senators and all locally based Congresspeople so that the people we meet can contact their representatives directly.
If you are based in Chester County, PA or anywhere close by, please join me and other members of OFA in our canvass. Training will be provided at the start.
Find the event and sign up at
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple?source=sidenav
Thanks.
On Sunday, August 2, OFA in Chester County, PA had a busy day. First, we did phone banking for a few hours in West Chester. Then some of us travelled to the National Constitution Center for the Health Care Town Meeting with Senator Arlen Specter and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.
That happened to be the day that over four inches of rain fell in the Delaware Valley, closing the Schuylkill Expressway. Our trip became a tour of the western suburbs.
1. The acoustics of the meeting location were awful: high ceiling, very reflective surfaces, a booming sound. Unless you were right in front of one of the public address system speakers, you probably could not understand what was said. I moved around until I found a spot to listen.
A loud group will gain more attention than a listening group, no matter what their relative sizes. But Senator Specter and Secretary Sebelius are veterans of public service: they know this. What we don’t want is for Senator Specter, in particular, to think that only the loud, negative people care.
On Sunday, August 2, OFA will do a phone bank for the President's health care reform principles in West Chester, PA.
This is the time for all of us to put pressure on the Congress. In addition to gaining declarations of support for health care reform, we must prevail upon the people that we call to phone and/or email their members of Congress with a strong message of support for the President's health care reform principles.
When phone banking, be ready to provide the phone numbers for your US Senators and all locally-based Congresspersons.
The final step for any person that we reach through phone banking is for him or her to report the results of their own calls to Congress. You can give the following instructions:
We need large-scale health care reform and a vigorous bill to get us there. Nibbling around the edges will not do.
To any member of Congress who says, “The votes just aren’t there” for a strong reform bill, we need to note that “The votes just won’t be there” in the next primary or general election if you do not take leadership on getting a strong bill through.
The forces of "do nothing on health care" are hard at work. Now we need to bypass all the posturing and wordplay and make it plain enough that even a member of Congress can understand: we want real health care reform that includes every American.
On Sunday, July 26, OFA did both a canvass and a phone bank for the President's three health care reform principles in West Chester, PA.
The turnout, though small, was better than what we had expected based on sign-ups on the website. Three people stayed in the office to phone bank and two went out for the canvass. Both had their challenges.
The phone bankers, even before starting, noticed that there were no phone numbers on some of their printout pages. That makes phone banking difficult.
This Sunday, July 26, OFA will canvass for the President's three health care reform principles from 12:30 to 3:30 in West Chester, PA.Volunteers should sign up at
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/healthcarecanvass/gpfh3v
How many times have you asked yourself, “What can I, as one person, do to influence the national health care debate?” This is the answer. The personal meetings of a canvass in a town or neighborhood really do make a difference. We will gather declarations of support for the President’s principles of health care reform and send the declarations to the members of Congress for each signer.
And here’s the best part:
On Wednesday, July 22, OFA had a Listening Tour session in West Chester, PA with David Knight, Pennsylvania State Field Director for OFA.
In the audience were about 15 of the most active volunteers for OFA in Chester County, PA. David was introduced by Greg Myers, the workhorse community organizer for OFA in the Phoenixville, PA area. David gave us some of his background that led him into the world of politics.
David said the purpose of the meeting was to ask, “What should OFA do in our communities to gain even more support for the President’s three principles of health care reform?”
To the question of what OFA locally should do, there was no shortage of ideas. Clearly, gathering more declarations of support and more volunteers is the base for everything else. In a further step, encourage everyone to write and post their own health care story
http://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare/stories/new
On Sunday, July 19, OFA had a table at the Turks Head Festival in West Chester, the county seat of Chester County, PA.
We had anticipated doing a canvass in parts of the town that day, but given the number of volunteers and the expected size of the crowd at the festival, we decided to table instead. So we had to postpone our canvass volunteer training using Hassle Lines (see the July 17 entry in this blog). Flexibility!
We had two volunteers initially: one remained at the table to engage passers-by and the other walked through the festival grounds clipboard in hand for the same purpose.
It would be interesting to research which way is the more effective at 1) gaining declarations of support for the President’s three principles, and 2) the next step, signing up volunteers for the OFA effort.
What is your organization’s experience with this? Please leave a comment.
This Sunday, July 19, OFA will canvass for the President's three health care reform principles in West Chester, the county seat of Chester County, PA.
If we have new volunteers who have never canvassed before, we will do a brief training. We will, of course, hand out the printed materials and make sure everyone understands them. But, after that, we will do an exercise called Hassle Lines.
Hassle Lines
The group makes two lines facing each other--like a Virginia Reel. The members of one line take the role of OFA volunteer, knocking on a door. The members of the facing line take a different role, usually a person opening the door who we would like to talk to about health care. We give each line a few moments to get into their roles and then ask that they begin the conversation. We let it run for only 30 seconds or maybe one minute.
OFA in northern Chester County, PA had to divide its forces over the weekend of July 10-12. Friday evening was the Blobfest in Phoenixville (honoring the movie “The Blob” which was filmed in part in Phoenixville). Saturday was the Rotary Club’s Ice Cream Festival in Coatesville.
A community festival is a goldmine of organizing opportunity. People are having fun and they bring their children along. Those are two good starting points for discussing healthcare reform.
The Ice Cream Festival featured the Lukens (Steel) Concert Band, Lukens Dixieland Band, and the Lukens German Band. (Lukens is the big steel mill in Coatesville and was a prime employer for the city for decades. My grandfather and father both worked there.) Also at the Ice Cream Festival were antique cars, crafts, face painting, food and, of course, ice cream. There were numerous non-profits there and some medical and dental services.
All this was fertile ground for discussion and gaining endorsements for the President’s three principles. Often, as soon as I mentioned health care reform, the person I was talking with would grab the pen and sign.
We need to convince the congressman who represents much of the area, Gerlach (R-PA), that our broken health care system affects the entire country, including those who put him in office.
