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Bob in Rome (Rome, Italy)

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"With the right words everything could change." Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father

Gallery of AIO Events

By Bob in Rome - Aug 24th, 2008 at 7:39 am EDT

Also listed in: Americans in Italy for Obama

All-Italy House Party and Call-In with Nancy Pelosi -- 12 September 2008

Read about it on Facebook. Hear it on YouTube!

Weekend in the Piazza -- Vote from Abroad

Posting flyers in Trastevere, 23 August 2008. Elisa is fired up. How about you?

Your voice can change the world. Download, print, and post this flyer wherever Americans Abroad meet. VotefromAbroad.org/6

Elisa, Billy, Molly, Marco, and Vincenzo stand with Liberty, La Rome Non Si Discute -- August 16, 2008

Molly, Laura, Jean-Claude and Bob at Piazza Navona on August 9, 2008. Photo by Cris. See more on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kv251Aosh8

Unity Celebration -- 30 June 2008

Thanks to all who attended, and to all the Americans in Italy for Obama volunteers who worked so hard to make our unity celebration a great success.

Photo by Diane Epstein. Click here for more photos!

"One Voice for Change" and "Bridges for Obama"

ONE VOICE FOR CHANGE
APRIL 12, 2008
TRAJAN'S FORUM
ROME, ITALY

Photo by Diane Epstein. See more event photos here.
"MILLIONS OF VOICES CALLING FOR CHANGE"
NINA GARDNER
AMERICANS IN ITALY FOR OBAMA
"WE ARE HERE TO ANSWER THE CALL"
R. WILLIAM FRANKLIN
AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME
"OBAMA"
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY BEVERLY LEWIS
"THIS MOMENT IN HISTORY"
ALAN EPSTEIN
AUTHOR OF "AS THE ROMANS DO"
"WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD"
PERFORMED BY HAROLD BRADLEY
"HELLO, BARACK!"
PERFORMED BY HAROLD BRADLEY AND BEVERLY LEWIS
OUR STORIES
AMERICANS IN ITALY FOR OBAMA
"YES WE CAN"
PERFORMED BY ALL OF US

BRIDGES FOR OBAMA
See more photos here!

PONTE SANT'ANGELO - ROME (photo by Diane Epstein)

PONTE VECCHIO - FLORENCE

PONTE DELLE TORRI - SPOLETO

Democrats on Repubblica!

Americans in Italy for Obama members celebrate on Super Tuesday. Join us by clicking the Join Group button at top of page. Invite your friends!
Click here to view video. YouTube celeb Giuseppe Micheletta pictured second from left.
Click here to read all about it (thanks Araceli)!

"Fired Up!" in Rome, Italy - 25 Jan 2008

Americans in Italy for Obama event announcement for our 25 January meeting at the Centro Studi Americani.
Welcome Desk at Fired Up Meeting

Ciao! Sono Cristiana...
Pre-Registration Desk at the Centro Studi Americani

Elisa managed our "Fired Up" pre-registration desk. "Como Se Dice… Como Se Llama?"
Because of the Sandwiches There

Our youngest organizer surveys the refreshments table (thank you, Eric!)
New Democrats Abroad Sign-Up

Democrats Abroad registered over 30 voters for the first ever Global Presidential Primary on 5 February 2008.
Get Out The Vote
Anthony Sistilli, Chair of Democrats Abroad - Italy, explains how to vote in the "51st state".
Nina Gardner, Co-Chair of Americans in Italy for Obama, with Elisa
Our 25 January meeting in Rome was attended by over one hundred participants!
Giovanna and Danilo at this Moment in History

Palazzo Antici Mattei, the venue for our 25 January 2008 event, was built between 1598 and 1618. It now houses the Center for American Studies.
Picture This

Bob (center) shares the camera with Francesco, videographer of our 25 January "Fired Up" event, and his wife Grazia.
Americans in Italy for Obama, Ready to Go

Rome organizers gather at the Fontana delle Tartarughe following our 25 January "Fired Up" event. Pictured from left to right are Nina, Bob, Cris, Chris, and Elisa.

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Top 10 Tips for Americans Abroad to Multiply Our Obama '08

By Bob in Rome - Apr 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm EDT

Also listed in: 10 groups

Ciao!

I'm Bob, co-administrator, with Nina Gardner, for the Americans in Italy for Obama group. Karin Robinson and I recently talked about strategies to boost communications and community among Obama supporters in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region by making better use of the social networking tools at My.BarackObama.com. Both Nina and Karin wanted me to share with you the solutions and workarounds I've discovered from doing grassroots organizing of Americans in Italy on this site.

So here's 10 things you, as Obama supporters in EMEA, can do to make these tools work for you:

If you are reading this blog entry, it means you have already taken the most important first step and setup an account on the site. At the right side of your screen, there's a box that contains links to all the major tools. Click on "My Dashboard" and then the small arrow next to "Edit profile" to see your current settings. Make sure you fill in all the fields, then upload a photo (please don't skip adding the photo), and tick the box at the bottom of the page. That's it! You've got a profile.

OK, now it's time to make friends and start influencing people. You can practice by adding me (I always welcome new friends :). Just click where it says "Add Bob in Rome to your friends network" and send me a note. Now repeat this step for other people you know (or would like to know) who are on the system, or even better, e-mail invitations to Obama supporters who haven't yet created their own My.BarackObama.com profiles. I'll say more at the end of this note about why getting more people involved here is so important for us and for our campaign.

The next step is to find communities for your country or city. Again, go back to the Dashboard box at the right side of the screen. Look to the middle of the list, and click on "Groups". Under "Find a Group", enter a keyword, for example, "Italy". Scroll down the page to see groups in Italy, and click on one of them. There you'll see a button that reads "Join Group". Move your mouse cursor to that button, then click... now you're in the clique.

Maybe you don't see a group for your country, what then? If the group you're looking for isn't there, consider creating one yourself. If it is there, but looks to be inactive, scroll through the member directory at the top and locate members with a star (*) at the end of their names. These people have administrator rights on that group. Write to them and offer your help!

Like, what kind of help? OK, here's three important things to consider. First, are you seeing multiple groups that appear aimed at an identical community? In that case, email admins from each of these groups and encourage them to merge the groups (out of many, one).

Second, look at the category entry(ies) at the top left. Do you see "Americans Abroad" there? If you don't, ask the admin to add this subcategory of the "People" category. If you are the group admin, go to "Edit group" on the "Admin actions" menu, scroll to the options at the bottom of the page, expand the People category (click on the "+" sign), tick the box next to "Americans Abroad", and click "Save group" at the bottom of the page.

Here's the third group thing. It's the trickiest, but also one of the most exciting, I think. By now you may have noticed that this site really wants you to have a U.S. zip code before it lets you do much of anything. After your email address, your zip code is one of the most precious things BarackObama.com wants from you. Why? Because these two things, email address and zip code, are key to the campaign's efforts to build its mailing list, get out the vote, and raise funds to pay for things like this cool site, TV ads, and other essentials! Here in EMEA, we need zip codes too for precisely the same reason. And thanks to the U.S. Military Postal Service Agency (FPO/APO), we can borrow some codes to help organize ourselves. Go to this site, search by country and city, and find a zip code that suits you. For example, if you search for "Spain" you'll see that the U.S. Embassy in Madrid is listed as 09642. What can you do with this information? Lots! for starters, return to "Edit group" and enter it in the box for "zip code". Now on to Tip #8 and why this is so neat...

Back to the toolbox, and an entry near the top labled "Events". To create an event you've got to have (guess what?) a zip code! Each event's zip code positions that activity at a specific geographic point. This helps Obama supporters to browse what's happening near their homes, and it helps statewide organizers to know where to find you when they need your attention. Here's the best news. FPO/APO zip codes in EMEA countries all begin with "09xxx". When you search for events or groups that have been listed with an APO/FPO zip code in your country of residence, all other EMEA entries will be listed as 0.0 miles from your location. Yea! Welcome to "EMEA County" of the 51st state.

Another bonus. There are people who already list their My.BarackObama.com groups and events using these FPO/APO zip codes, because they are members of the U.S. military. These service members have contributed more to the Barack Obama campaign than to any other Democratic candidate. We need to build community together, and listing our activities together will do just that. Example: try searching on the U.S. Embassy - Madrid zip code in Tip 7. Search for groups, search for events, do it again a week from now, and again next month--watch us grow as one.

In Tip #2 I promised to explain why these tools are a lot more than just toys. If you are not yet fully convinced, then consider Texas. Remember Texas? Big disappointment, right? Wrong. We won Texas. And My.BarackObama.com had a lot to do with it. Read this excellent article from Rolling Stone to understand how the "Texas Two Step" learned its moves here.

I hope you've found this interesting, and I hope you'll enter your comments and suggestions following this note. Do it now, OK? Just click on the "Write a Comment on this Post" or "Reply" links just below. Let me know if these ideas have been useful to you.

Obama '08!
--Bob

EMEA County, AA (Americans Abroad)
United States of America

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Americans in Italy for Obama -- Organizing Team Meeting Notes

By Bob in Rome - Mar 1st, 2008 at 8:49 am EST

Date: 24 February 2008
Place: Bob's apartment, near Piazza Orologio, Rome, Italy
Participants: Bob, Molly, Cris, Martin, Giuseppe

We began the meeting by reviewing the voting results from the Democrats Abroad Global Primary, where Obama received 69.1% of the 1,251 votes counted in Italy, and he won 65.8% or the 23,105 votes worldwide. Final allocation of convention delegates by region:

Americas: 1 delegate for Obama and 1 for Clinton
Asia-Pacific: 1 delegate for Obama
Europe, Middle East and Africa: 4 delegates for Obama and 2 for Clinton

Party rules give each Democrats Abroad delegate a half vote, so the 6 Obama delegates represent 3 votes at the Democratic National Convention, and the 3 Clinton delegates represent 1.5 votes. Individuals occupying these 9 available delegate slots will be selected at the regional caucuses.

Read more about it here:

http://www.democratsabroad.org/article/2008/02/21/obama-wins-democrats-abroad-global-primary
(updated February 22)
http://www.democratsabroad.org/node/4663
(from Anthony Sistilli, Chair, Democrats Abroad Italy)

Next, we talked about strategies for growing the Americans in Italy for Obama community. Our group now has 89 members! We are the second largest my.BarackObama community in the Americans Abroad category and more than twice as large as the closest country specific group.

Joining the group is a first step toward getting further involved. For those of you who have not yet edited your profiles, please click "My Dashboard" at the right side of the screen, then "Edit Profile" to get started. Choose a name to identify yourself on the site, add a few lines about why you support Barack Obama, upload a photo, then post a blog entry and start inviting other members to your "friends network." This is among the most powerful tools we have, it helps us to reach out to Obama supporters locally and all over the world and to build a stronger community both online and in life.

Once you've created your profile, take the next step and invite work colleagues, family and friends to visit your page. Post our site link http://abroad.barackobama.com/italy to other web sites inviting still more people to learn more about our group and its activities. Group members not based in Rome are encouraged to post notices of Obama supporter meetings in other parts of Italy. Hosting a local meeting is a fun way to meet interesting people and every meeting advances this movement for change one more step.

We also talked briefly about gathering the group for a March 4 Watch Party. This idea has moved forward in the last few days (thank you, Cris!) and we circulated an invitation yesterday for all group members to meet at T-Bone Station in Trastevere, Via Santa Dorotea 21, starting at 20:30 on the 4th of March. Sign up here to reserve your seat at the table. We are calling this event the "March to November Watch Party", befitting our hopes for election results even more "super" than our previous celebration on 5 February.

Organizing meetings are held almost every Sunday at my place near Piazza Orologio. We gather starting at 17:00 and talk business from 17:30 to 18:30. If you would like to join our next meeting, please sign up here.

At our organizing meeting on 2 March, we will discuss plans for the party on Tuesday and follow-up unfinished agenda items from last week, including video and music projects (Giuseppe), Obama campaign activities planned for Europe (Bob), and ideas for promoting voter registration for the November election (Wendy).

We look forward to being joined by founding group member and original organizer Virginia, who recently returned to Italy from Texas. As we do every week, participants are welcome to stay after we finish the meeting's business items to share stories and personal thoughts about what is happening in America in this election and our part in it. Our group also includes dedicated organizers who are not US citizens. We value their support and their perspectives on the worldwide influences of Obama's different kind of politics, especially here in Italy.

Obama '08!
--Bob

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Get Out THAT Vote

By Bob in Rome - Jan 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 am EST

Also listed in: 9 groups

Americans Abroad for Obama

Between now and the 31 January deadline for Democrats Abroad registrations (only those who register before the end of this month will be allowed to vote online!), let's concentrate all available time and energy on registering NEW Democrats Abroad, especially young people, independents and people who may have voted with the other party in past elections. If we succeed in Getting Out THAT Vote, we will win the DA primary by a wide margin. We now have less than 10 days to do it.

http://www.votefromabroad.org

College students studying abroad, U.S. government and military people, young professionals, dual nationals and recent immigrants, people who waited too long to request their absentee ballots, even 17 year olds who will be 18 by 4 November 2008, we need to go after them NOW. Schools, English-speaking organizations and social gatherings, military bases, American cultural events, let's use the Internet tools we have in front of us to our maximum advantage. Obama can win the online vote, but whether he holds an advantage among the more traditional Democrats Abroad who will take time to vote in person at a polling place on 5 February is far less certain.

http://www.votefromabroad.org/

Yes, it is INCREDIBLY challenging to reach an American population that is spread throughout a sea of non-Americans, but it is not impossible. Last night, our group, "Americans in Italy for Obama", passed out flyers at a local English-speaking "pub quiz" event here in Rome, letting people know about a large meeting we're organizing for this coming Friday at the Centro Studi Americani. We have posted the flyers in English speaking bookstores and circulated them via email to family, work colleagues, and local mailing lists, encouraging anyone who is interested to go to http://abroad.barackobama.com/italy and pre-register for the event. As of this morning, 72 people have signed up online to attend, and we are expecting a substantial number of walk-ins. Democrats Abroad will have a registration table at the event, and they can only rejoice at the influx of new members. These Internet tools are new and powerful, and we need to use them to our full advantage.

http://www.votefromabroad.org/

There are more than 160,000 Americans in Italy, but fewer than 2,000 Democrats Abroad members. I suspect you have the same kind of numbers in your neighborhoods. In the few days that remain before the 31 January deadline we can double or triple the number of registered Democrats Abroad and deliver our delegates to Barack Obama. This is a campaign that is becoming more and more about winning each and every delegate. Fundraising is vitally important too, but we should broaden the focus for these next few days and Get out THAT Vote. The American Abroad who votes with us on 5 February will have made a personal investment in this campaign. Even if it is a first investment, it will probably not be their last. We have work to do, and the moment for change is now.

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On, New Jersey!

By Bob in Rome - Jan 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pm EST

Also listed in: Central NJ for Obama | Northwest NJ for Obama

To my dear friends and family back home in the United States: We can make the difference on 5 February. Rock the vote. Be registered, be ready!

Love,
Bob in Rome (mailed my NJ absentee ballot!)

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Welcome to Americans in Italy for Obama!

By Bob in Rome - Jan 4th, 2008 at 6:59 pm EST

Also listed in: Americans in Italy for Obama

If you are visiting here for the first time, welcome to our group! Americans in Italy for Obama is the gathering place for Obama supporters in Italy. We are here to share ideas, news, plan events, meet and mobilize for change. If you are not a US citizen, we can't ask for your vote or for your donations to the campaign, but we can certainly share your company and enthusiasm.

Here's a quick tour of things you can do here:

Contribute!

For US citizens only: We have a specially designated fundraising page. Each contribution you make through this link will be recorded as coming from an American in Italy. Let's show the Obama campaign our support.

Get Out the Vote!

Be sure to register and request your absentee ballot. Visit http://www.votefromabroad.org/ for easy instructions.

Blog!

"Your voice can change the world." Build your My.BarackObama.com online profile page, and tell the world why you support Obama. Participate in groups with others who share your interests. Let your colleagues, friends, and family know about your commitment to change we can believe in.

Participate!

Check here regularly for upcoming meetings, organizing, and fundraising events in Italy.

Thanks for being here and come back often.

Bob and Nina

Shortcuts

Our fundraising: http://donate.barackobama.com/italia
Our group: http://my.barackobama.com/italy

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23244708@N06/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/liberazione59
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55253450720

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America, Our Moment is Now

By Bob in Rome - Dec 21st, 2007 at 1:59 am EST

The right words.

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Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.