Its just 12 weeks to the November election - - time to wake up Obama supporters and get active in a local group. I would like to see groups becoming active in all Texas counties, just attend a meeting in Dallas, Collin or Rockwall counties for an example of how to get a group going, build active participation and what to do to help promote the Obama campaign.
In simplest terms your group tasks are: voter registration, campaign visibility and getting out the vote during the "early voting" opportunity and on election day. There are many more tasks that can be undertaken in conjunction with your local Democratic Party organization.
If you can afford to buy Obama yard signs and distrbute them in your neighboorhood, that would be helpful, ditto with all Obama advertising. Be generous, buy what you can afford and then give it away.
The next meeting of the Rockwall County group is on Aug. 12th, see separate meeting announcement. It takes people, lots of people to support a campaign across a county, so please get involved, attend as many meetings as you can and participate in campaign activities.
Best regards,
Thom Bouis
p.s. Rockwall County Democratic Party needs donated office space for a campaign headquarters for immediate occupancy through the November election and would appreciate donation of a permanent office space. if you would like to make a cash or check donation toward the expense of office space, please visit the website wwww.rockwalldems.com.
Another great meeting at the Country Cafe in Rockwall, TX with a dynamic and growing group of mostly newly active individuals. To recap significant group events, we now have a co-administrator of this website so that it can be kept updated more timely and we have co-chairs and a liasion with the Democratic Party. Seeing the enthusiasm is really wonderful, with 54 members signed up on this site and many others participating, I expect this group will be able to field quite a team for community contact.
Our next meeting will be at the home of Nancy Sanchez, it is an all day open house event, nevertheless, I expect to be there for several hours starting at 2pm, and that will serve as our next group meeting date.
The owner of the Country Cafe tells me he intends to close for most of July to take a vacation and conduct some remodeling to install a pizza oven, so, if your home is large enough to host the group, pleae do volunteer, otherwise we are looking for a new meeting location for most of July.
I would like to see the group start conducting a mass voter registration drive in July and start planning Obama Campaign visibility events. We need your ideas, your energy and your resources and most of all we need you in person to participate in as many meetings as possible and to serve in any co-team capacity that you can. By having multiples of leadership, the group is not hindered by the absence of one leader at any given time.
Attorney John Albritton has offered limited use of a room in his office to store signs and literature for the group. The room is NOT suitable for any significant people activity as it would be disruptive to his law office. John also owns a property in Royse City affronting IH-30 for which he and I have had multiple discussions about letting the Obama campaign use the space until November. I'm confident that some arrangement will be worked out in the coming weeks as time is of the essence. If you know of any alternative FREE Obama Rockwall County HQ opportunities, please bring them to my attention so that discussions with the property owner can be initiated.
For those whom did not attend the meeting, the national campaign has requested my resume. Texas is going to be one of the battleground states in the fall election, so expect to see a huge expansion in national campaign staff coming into Texas.
Meanwhile, don't forget to order generously any Obama advertising or merchandise that you can afford to either display yourself or share with others or the public. Again, I strongly encourage the use of vehicle magnetic signs and Obama shirts, they are a wonderfully effective form of campaign advertising.
972-768-6160
We had a great initial organizing meeting at the Country Cafe, so wonderful seeing many newly involved political activists from the Rockwall County Convention turning out again to support our candidate Barack Obama for President.
We've made some plans to continue meeting, grow or group and to take several prelimary steps to improve the group's visibility. So much to do, and only 20 weeks left to do it all in, we need your help. In fact, we need a small army of volunteers, there are about 50,000 registered voters in Rockwall County and we need to knock on their doors at least twice in the remaining weeks. So, if you have a lose weight goal, maybe we can help with some teamwork walking, talking and knocking on doors.
While we cannot create a PAC, we can spend our own money as we please, all that you want to spend, so don't hesitate to buy large quantites of signs, stickers, buttons and magnetic signs too and distribute them freely. There is no restriction on your doing so. Anything to increase the campaign visibility in Rockwall County is fair game as long as its legal. So, bring us your ideas, lets workd together and while we are at it maybe make a few new friends.
I look forward to seeing everyong next week, Country Cafe, 3045 N. Goliad, Rockwall, TX.
Event: Rockwall County Democratic Party - Countywide Convention
Where: Rockwall High School Cafeteria, Yellow Jacket Lane, rockwall, TX
When: starts 10am, ends when its over, which could be quite late in the afternoon, evening or into the night.
What to bring: Yourself, a notepad, a pen, and any resolutions that you may wish to propose. If you bring resolutions, they need to be in a specific format, see the Texas DEmocratic Party website for details.
Before you come to the convention: Obtain a copy of the meeting notes of your Precinct Convention held on March 4th from your Preceinct Chair or Precinct Secretary. Review the notes carefully, make sure they are correct and complete. If anything is missing or incorrect, insist that it be corrected. If necessary, request an emergency meeting of your Precinct before March 29th to fix anything amiss.
If you don't have a group in your county or township, create one. So far, each group I have created has grown from one person to several quite quickly and the groups just keep growing in total membership. Try it, it works !
Please visit the respective dallas, Rockwall, Hunt, Collin, Hopkins and Delta County groups for examples.
You don't have to do it all yourself. As soon as someone joins a group that wants to help out daily, you can promote that person to be a co-administrator of the group.
Anytime you want to meet several thousand people, just be a volunter at one of Barack's appearances and try your best to manage the end of the line. There are of course many other volunteer duties, inside and out. Nevertheless, I'm not one to stand in one spot for long, so working the end of the line was a good fit for my comfort. I'm sure I walked quite a few miles during the entire 7 hours I was on site.
Seeing the response to Barack is almost like seeing a rock star visit, the intensity of the people to follow his every move and word is amazing.
Senator Obama brought forth an issue late in his speech that I know first-hand needs to be addressed, that is, competence in government. I'm hopeful that he totally restores the federal merit system of hiring, which is not the case today. During my own 31 year career, I personally witnessed the gradual decline of the federal merit hiring system, to the point that in my opinion the only merit hiring remaining is at the extreme lowest grades of clerks and typists. Above that level and one rapidly gets into vacancy announcements that are tailored for a specific applicant before the job is ever announced to the public. In other words, by finagling the rules, the merit system has been converted into a "good ole boy" type network of political, religious and social network placement. Cudo's to Barack if he can right-side the federal merit system.
Many of my friends and the news media have periodically suggested that Barack is at personal risk as a Presidential candidate from various elements of our citizenry who either associate him falsely with Islam or who cannot accept the idea of a black or half/black man becoming our President. I can assure all those whom have such concerns, I have seen for myself that Barack is well protected by multiple layers of protection, starting with pubic, volunteer and staff eyes, local Police, federal Police and a very large Secret Service contingent whom are highly competent. With the context of terrorism ever in the background, I have noted people in large groups constantly sizing up those around them and paying more attention to what is going on both nearby and as far as they can see. The patient attentativeness of the thousands of people standing in line, waiting to see Barack impressed upon me that clearly the public shares a broad personal safety and security concern for attending large events.
In talking with many hundreds of individuals, it quickly became apparent to me that half of the attendees have never visited their precinct polling place as they always early vote at a different location. I spent considerable time explaining how to identify one's correct precinct number and how to look up the precinct address on the Dallas County website. Hopefully the folks handling the precinct conventions are well prepared for hundreds and maybe thousands more people than they have ever seen before.
Our appreciation to the owner and staff of the Country Cafe in Rockwall, TX for providing the venue for a successful organizing evening and dinner. Thirty people attended, of which nearly all are anticipated to become active in the campaign and quickly attend follow-on training set for Feb. 19th, 7pm at Grandy's in Rockwall, TX.
A total of 400 flyers were handed out and 20 campaign contribution forms. A total of 3 volunteers worked the booth at various times through the day. The predominant comment by an 80% margin was to effect of "don't know who to vote for." Second most predominant comment by 10% was "not voting for Hillary," and 3rd most predominant comment by 5% was "I only vote Republican."
In summary, generally very positive views of Barack Obama for President. Most notably, the children of the Republicans were clearly Obama supporters even if their parents claimed not to be.
