Here are some notes I took from today's conference call, May 28, 2009.
Mind you, I came in after the conference had already started.
Also, this is not verbatim. I have done some paraphrasing but I still think it's pretty accurate.
David Plouffe was introduced at 1:12 p.m. by Mitch Stewart.
David Plouffe thanked everyone for working for Obama to help him get 365 electoral votes. Although we accomplished so much in Nov., this cleared the way for the opportunity to make change. In essence, it was just the first step. We worked very hard for the opportunity to have real healthcare reform for businesses and families that are being crushed by healthcare costs. The President ran on reform to healthcare and education. It had been talked about for so long but nothing had been done. So, now is the time.
David Plouffe went on to say that the President is defying the cynics, skeptics, and critics but this change is not going to happen in D.C. alone. It will come from other parts of the country to Washington. We will be asked to spend precious time that many of us have little to spare, but we need to implement this into our lives where we will be calling of lists, and knocking on doors.
We need to speak with our family members and colleagues. Nothing is more powerful than human beings talking to other human beings. We need to be passionate about why healthcare reform is so important. So, we need to take ownership of this. (House parties on June 6, service on June 27). If the country is demanding healthcare reform, we’ll get it done and Washington will not have any option but to follow us.
We need to get costs under control and make sure everyone can have affordable healthcare coverage. As we head into the summer, we all can’t focus on just relaxing. We will have to roll up our sleeves and go out there and make healthcare happen. There is huge interest in this. This is not some distant Washington debate. Most people have health insurance but they know they are paying more for themselves and so are their employers. It affects everyone.
So, spread your net wide. This shouldn’t be a lonely affair. You can lead it in your community. If we all work together, we can make the promise of the election a reality.
From the President of the United States:
President Obama says hello, Mitch…calling from Air Force One line, I think. Mitch tells President, you are talking to the President.
President: It is great to talk to everybody. I want to start off by saying thanks to everyone who knocked on doors and registered voters. You had the confidence that we could reclaim the sensibility in Washington, that we could restore a sense of fairness and stability to our economy. We have to keep ourselves safe but be true to our ideals. That is the kind of change you voted for and that is why I am President, and I will never forget this.
Economic Recovery Act was successful because of us. Hundreds of thousands of pledges were signed by all of us. Americans from coast to coast were committed to making investments in energy and healthcare. We passed a budget plan and Economic Recovery Act. Now, we have the task of passing a healthcare reform act. Healthcare costs are crushing families.
Businesses and families are also getting hammered each and every day. Millions of Americans have lost their healthcare. The President has heard these stories via email and other forums from the citizens of the United States. The President cited an example of a lady who is fighting an insurance company who threatens to cut off her health insurance, and she’s already depleted her savings.
We need healthcare reform legislation that fixes the things that are broken. The status quo is unacceptable, and we need to get it done this year, or we won’t get it done. All of us need to educate our friends, relatives, and neighbors. We can protect choice of doctors, hospitals, healthcare providers, and ensure affordable healthcare. The President greatly appreciates all our support.
Question from Mary Alice in Grand Rapids, MI. She mentions her county went blue for the first time since 1968.
Mary Alice asks, as volunteers, what do you need us to do in order to grow this grassroots movement?
Answer by PBO: We need you to stay involved. The election only gave us an opportunity for change. We need to remobilize, reach out to friends and neighbors in support of our agenda. On 6/6, host a kickoff event to help launch healthcare reform. We need to refute arguments as to why we can’t drive down costs. The most important thing is to mobilize people in local communities block by block, neighbor by neighbor to make sure everyone understands. When that happens, Congressmen will take notice. Some are in districts or in states where right now politicians are resistant. We need to mobilize and telll them it’s not acceptable to preserve the status quo. To get involved, go to the Organizing for American website on www.barackobama.com.
Bonnie from Portland:
Question: My son has graduated from college this past winter, and he is burdened with college loans and cannot afford healthcare. What will you make available to young people like my son?
PBO: I have personal experiences and know how tough it is. We want to make higher education more affordable by increasing PEL grants. This year, the Administration will implement an income-based repayment loan and are dedicated also to simplifying the student loan application. We need to eliminate middle men in the current student loan programs who get fees off the top. As to the issue around healthcare for these young people, we must ensure young people can stay on their parents' health insurance plan up to age 25.
From Leanne in Birmingham, AL
Question: In a state as conservative as AL, what is the most important goal that can be accomplished ?
PBO: Keep organizing and talking to people, especially young people (who historically haven’t voted as much.) What I think the American citizens want, even in the most conservative communities, is action. It’s not a red or blue state thing. It is an American recognition that Washington needs to get off the dime. Inaction on healthcare leads to costs everywhere, including AL. If we want to cut our deficits, and a lot of conservative communities are concerned about all the debt we are building up, the most important thing we can do to close our budget gap is to rein in healthcare costs. Change comes from the bottom up, when people in their communities are out there talking, persuading, presenting facts, supplying information. Grassroots work makes a difference primarily because people trust their friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers as opposed to talking heads on tv. So, having the tone of reasonably presenting the case of why change is needed, that will work everywhere. That is why I was successful, and that’s why we will keep on being successful.
The President thanks us all for a great job and then hangs up.
Mitch:Two more things to go over.
For more info, check out the website.
A colleague of mine who is a veteran voter registrar sent me some information about how to conduct a successful voter registration. I am posting it here in hopes that it will inspire everyone to get started in his/her state:
Tools you will need:
1) Portable table and a couple chairs small enough to keep in your car.
2) Voter registration signs reminding people that if they move they have to re-register.
3) Clip Boards
4) Candy for the kids and those registering (optional)
5) Ball point pens
6) Duct tape and tie wire to hold signs
7) Your voter registration certification
8) Weights to hold your paper down
9) Erasable board to specify certain dates or to communicate the importance of voting.
10) Also dress nice. People think you are more important than you are and will treat you with a little more respect.
11) If you own a pop up tent they are great to hang signs on and keep you in the shade.
*Always ask permission to use the location and obey their rules
*Turn in all forms and make sure the form is completed
*Suggest you use a non-partisan approach. Not only will you get a lot of Democrats but it will also make it easier for those in authority to grant you access to their property.
*Always remain positive and leave the person with a “have a good day” even if they are difficult.
*Person to person contact has been proven to be the most effective way to motivate people.
*Go to places where people are not politically active and try and catch them in areas that you can approach them easily. People shopping at indoor malls many times will just walk around making them available.
*There is a time to knock on people’s door but I do not like people knocking on my door uninvited.
*Post your Voter Registration location (with complete address) times, dates and email it to interested people. Be there at the times you specify. This will allow your volunteers to work an hour or all day. If they do not know where the location is, suggest that your volunteers go to map quest and type in their home address, along with the voter registration address. This will allow them to find it, without calling you for directions.
*If you get a lot of volunteers, spread them out in different locations in the area. If in a mall, cover as many of the main doors as possible. The advantage to having a lot of people assisting is to create enthusiasm, which you will need.
* Have at least four or five quality voter registration signs and place them with people at the busy spots.
Senior centers
Festivals
Universities
High Schools
Grocery Stores (allows the store manager to give you permission)
Any well attended event
In Conclusion: About ten years ago the BOE tried paying people to register voters. It cost them about fifty dollars a form. We are not only doing our fellow citizens a service we are also saving tax payers dollars. Through voter registration we collectively can make a difference in our communities. No matter how much a special interest gives to an elected official it is still votes that win or lose elections. The only true qualification for this endeavor is a willing heart and a good attitude. The rest is learned by doing. On behalf of the Democratic Central Committee I want to thank you in advance for your valuable service to our communities locally and to the nation.
Okay, Folks
We're reaching the home stretch. Time to bring this baby home for Barack. We've been at this thing for fifteen months (make that fifteen LONG months) and we need to bring home the nomination for Barack.
So, I've come up with a plan (and quite an ingenious plan, if I must say so myself):
Here is a letter that Rev. Wright wrote to Jodi Kantor of the New York Times. All I can say is: SHAME ON YOU, New York Times!
March 11, 2007Jodi KantorThe New York Times9 West 43rd StreetNew York,New York 10036-3959Dear Jodi:Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he was. For two hours I shared with you what a genuine human being he was. I told you how incredible he was as a man who was an African American in public service, and as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or the other whether or not she was going to run.I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how idealistic he was. We talked about how refreshing i t would be for someone who knew about Islam to be in the Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn’t I think it would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval Office who not only knew about Muslims, but had living and breathing Muslims in his own family? I told you how important it would be to have a man who not only knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to 9/11/01 in the Oval Office, but also how important it would be to have a man who knew what Sufism was; a man who understood that there were different branches of Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed Jews; and a man who was a devout Christian, but who did not prejudge others because they believed something other than what he believed.I talked about how rare it was to meet a man whose Christianity was not just “in word only.” I talked about Barack being a person who lived his faith and did not argue his faith. I talked a bout Barack as a person who did not draw doctrinal lines in the sand nor consign other people to hell if they did not believe what he believed.Out of a two-hour conversation with you about Barack’s spiritual journey and my protesting to you that I had not shaped him nor formed him, that I had not mentored him or made him the man he was, even though I would love to take that credit, you did not print any of that. When I told you, using one of your own Jewish stories from the Hebrew Bible as to how God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?,” that Barack was like that when I met him. Barack had it “in his hand.” Barack had in his grasp a uniqueness in terms of his spiritual development that one is hard put to find in the 21st century, and you did not print that.As I was just starting to say a moment ago, Jodi, out of two hours of conversation I spent approximately five to seven minutes on Barack’s taking advice from one of his trusted campaign people a nd deeming it unwise to make me the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print? You and your editor proceeded to present to the general public a snippet, a printed “sound byte” and a titillating and tantalizing article about his disinviting me to the Invocation on the day of his announcing his candidacy.I have never been exposed to that kind of duplicitous behavior before, and I want to write you publicly to let you know that I do not approve of it and will not be party to any further smearing of the name, the reputation, the integrity or the character of perhaps this nation’s first (and maybe even only) honest candidate offering himself for public service as the person to occupy the Oval Office.Your editor is a sensationalist. For you to even mention that makes me doubt your credibility, and I am looking forward to see how you are going to butcher what else I had to say concerning Senator Obama’s “S pi ritual Biography.” Our Conference Minister, the Reverend Jane Fisler Hoffman, a white woman who belongs to a Black church that Hannity of “Hannity and Colmes” is trying to trash, set the record straight for you in terms of who I am and in terms of who we are as the church to which Barack has belonged for over twenty years.The president of our denomination, the Reverend John Thomas, has offered to try to help you clarify in your confused head what Trinity Church is even though you spent the entire weekend with us setting me up to interview me for what turned out to be a smear of the Senator; and yet The New York Times continues to roll on making the truth what it wants to be the truth. I do not remember reading in your article that Barack had apologized for listening to that bad information and bad advice. Did I miss it? Or did your editor cut it out? Either way, you do not have to worry about hearing anything else from me for you to edit or “spin” because you a re more interested in journalism than in truth.Forgive me for having a momentary lapse. I forgot that The New York Times was leading the bandwagon in trumpeting why it is we should have gone into an illegal war. The New York Times became George Bush and the Republican Party’s national “blog.” The New York Times played a role in the outing of Valerie Plame. I do not know why I thought The New York Times had actually repented and was going to exhibit a different kind of behavior.Maybe it was my faith in the Jewish Holy Day of Roshashana. Maybe it was my being caught up in the euphoria of the Season of Lent; but whatever it is or was, I was sadly mistaken. There is no repentance on the part of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times. You should do well with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my face and told me a lie!Sincerely and respectfully yours,Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. ,Senior PastorTrinity United Church of Christ
Mike Huckabee has it right. Here is what the former Baptist minister had to say about the Clintons:
Huckabee, on to Clinton's immoral base as well as her underhanded strategies, calls on the grassroots to support his traditional morality for America's soul good.
"Surging Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee today said that his success in Democratic Arkansas proves that he has the background and training to take on the Clinton political machine on the national stage.
"'None of them have ever run against the Clinton political machine,' he told reporters in a conference call today, referring to other GOP candidates. 'That means something.'
"Huckabee's history as governor of Arkansas is an unusual one; he became a rare statewide-elected Republican in a state where the old Clinton political machine is still in operation. In answering questions from U.S. News, he said that Sen. Hillary Clinton's operation is very similar to the old Bill Clinton campaign, mostly because both share the same operatives and tactics."
Living daily with the Clinton lies and deceit machine is exactly what Huckabee has had to deal with. It's been in the air he was forced to filter.
Huckabee referred to USNEWS that Hillary Clinton is "ruthless" and therefore must be hit head-on. With that, Huckabee is working hard for votes not only in Iowa, but then New Hampshire and South Carolina.
"He plans to spend all of December in Iowa, where he is in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney. His recent surge in Iowa and New Hampshire polls has translated into more donations."
Copyright © 2007 by J. Grant Swank
Dear Mr. Edwards:
I know you are a busy man these days with a lot on your mind, and I realize you have received a plethora of e-mails, phone calls and the like on this very topic I am about to discuss, but I hope you will allow my your audience for a few minutes since I feel what I have to say is of the utmost importance.
Earlier today, it was brought to my attention via the news media that you are seriously considering endorsing Senator Clinton. Now, I have lived on this earth for over a half a century, and although there was a time when the American people could trust what was printed, I am well aware with the influx of the cable news networks and the Internet, it is incumbent on any reader not to hastily jump to unfounded conclusions, based on what has been put out. But in case there is some substance to what I have read,I would like to impart my thoughts on why I feel endorsing Senator Clinton would be a grave mistake.
Clearly, Senator Clinton has a lot going for her. She’s intelligent, has a commanding knowledge of the issues and has been around Washington, D.C. for many years. She can hold her own against any Republican candidate and no one but a fool would dare suggest otherwise.
Having said that, Senator Obama certainly isn’t naïve about the issues. In spite of what some may suggest, his message is much more than just empty rhetoric. In his theme of hope and change has emerged a unique quality that any person putting his or herself out there as a serious candidate would covet. This quality is best illustrated in an excerpt from Toni Morrison’s letter to the Senator:
“In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.”
Mr. Edwards, I don’t know what either the Clinton or the Obama campaign has promised you, nor do I care….and I have a feeling you don’t either since you appear much too honorable a man to remotely consider selling out this country’s future in exchange for an ambassadorship or a position as Attorney General in a Clinton cabinet. No, Mr. Edwards, your conscious would never permit you to be led into such asinine behavior. My sense is you would much rather remain neutral, which, quite frankly, may be your best option.
Another reason I feel endorsing Mrs. Clinton would be a serious mistake is her baggage. I won’t go into that extensively since I am confident you know to which I refer, only to comment there is no escaping her negatives which would only serve as a tool of divisiveness, no matter how much the Senator from New York continues to tout her years of experience. It is this baggage that the Republicans would not pause for a fleeting moment to remind the American people of which, in turn, would set off in every citizen’s mind the many things he or she dislikes about the Clintons. I like everyone else watched what happened this past weekend and yesterday, with Obama winning all the primaries on Saturday, then winning by big margins Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. (although Senator Clinton acted as if there hadn’t even been any races). That should certainly pierce through any doubts surrounding Senator Obama’s electability.
I have heard it said that you do not believe Obama is a strong fighter like Mrs. Clinton, or words to that effect. Please allow me to point out that Senator Obama’s whole life has been one big fight against overwhelming odds. Yes, Senator Obama will definitely be a fighter. He knows exactly what he’s going up against. All of the dirty tricks and lies, the fun made of his name, and a host of other underhanded tactics, Obama has been through before.
Mr. Edwards, this country is in a rut and with the exception of the Bush Administration – and most likely Senator McCain – we all know it. Our infrastructure is falling apart, people are losing their homes, gas prices at the pumps are taking bigger chunks out of our paychecks, and nobody is getting a raise. In short, we are being drained, and there is a “fed-up” feeling growing exponentially in this country or, to put it another way, we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. It won’t be easy to put America back on its feet, to restore its greatness, but it can happen as long as we have a leader with the talents to motivate and inspire us to work together, to pull us out of that rut, not further polarize us. We need someone who can make us feel good about our country and ourselves, someone who can come into the White House with a huge mandate from the American people. And that person is Senator Obama. Even reporters from other countries have wisely observed that Barack Obama stands heads and shoulders above all the other candidates but they don’t feel the Americans will have the good sense to elect him President. I sincerely hope they are mistaken.
In conclusion, I must apologize for the length of this letter. What was originally intended to be a 500-word note has turned into over 1000 words. However, I knew I would not be at peace until I made my thoughts known. I know the pressures on you must be heavy with people coming at you every which way. Yours is a situation this writer would never envy. But I can rest in the comfort of knowing you deeply love America and all it stands for and in the end, you will do what is best not only for the Democratic Party but for the United States of America.
My prayers are with you, Mr. Edwards.
Respectfully,
Carol Robinson
