WOW, what a day.
YES, we can. YES, we did. YES, we will.
And what a speech to end the campaign and start the presidency ... and our next challenge -- to unify the nation and work together to use this "chance" to make the change.
To see what I posted by TXT to Twitter today while canvassing and working as line manager and doing other volunteer work for Obama, see my Twitter account page:
www.Twitter.com/tom_ohio
and
www.Twitter.com/tom614
Well, that was fun! No, really!
Used half a vacation day today to help with ground battle in Ohio this afternoon. So many volunteers showed up in Westerville for 4 p.m. shift that all the door hangars were put up before the night shift arrived. But there was pizza to be had! ;-)
Then I made some phone calls -- to Ohio and Florida. Amazing how many wrong/disconnected numbers you go through before you get ahold of a person.
But so worth it ... if nothing else, narrowing down focus for follow-up calls tomorrow to those who said they would be voting that day for Obama -- so we're sure to call them and not waste time calling again those with outdated info.
Great to hear the cumulative efforts of volunteers in Ohio over the weekend. Amazing!
Tom
This is it - the last ask in the last days of an amazing journey of 20+ months of volunteering.
All I have to say is: PLEASE VOTE!
Do it now if you can!
Do it this weekend if you can!
Do it by Monday if you can!
Make sure you do it by Tuesday, because
-- after that you don't get another chance to change the world.
You never know unless you ask.
A very wise man from Ohio gave me some of my all time favorite advice in life – it was his “you never know unless you ask” story. His story was all about dating girls – how guys worry about not being cute enough or smart enough for the girls to like them and want to date them. But he finally figured out – you could sit at home wondering about lots of things – or you could get out there and ask lots of girls for a date and eventually one would say yes. It was about how action trumps! No girl will ever go out with you if you don’t ask. Simple as that really. You have to ask to get what you want. And the worst that happens is they say no. But if they say YES! – Then you have a date and isn’t that the goal.
Well, we have a date – the date is Nov. 4th and we need the American public to make a date to vote for Barack Obama as our next president. What I need from each of you is for you to help me do the asking all across America in the last 4 weeks of this campaign. Here’s what I need your help with:
We need Registered Voters! Deadlines are approaching as early as tomorrow.
We need Votes – many states can vote early.
We need to Get Out Voters On Nov. 4th
We need more volunteers to help with all the above.
We need donations.
We need you to continue to speak to your friends, neighbors, and family.
And, we need you to ask your fellow American’s to do more in the following ways:
You never know if someone will volunteer for the campaign – unless you ask.
You never know if someone will donate to the campaign – unless you ask.
You never know if someone will travel to another state to help – unless you ask.
You never know if you friends are registered to vote – unless you ask,
You never know if your neighbors know about early voting – unless you ask.
You never know if they will vote for Obama – unless you ask.
The Columbus Dispatch decided not to print this, so I decided to blog it.
The nomination of Sarah Palin is depressing because she is a dangerous bundle of contradictions, and if McCain is elected, she would be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Her lack of qualification seems to be her main qualification. She sneers at community service, yet offers herself as a woman of the downtrodden. She supports pro life yet reduced funding for a transitional home for teenage mothers in Alaska. She has scarcely traveled abroad yet pontificates about when and how to make war, even with Russia.
She proposes reform but as the repeated canned statements that she gave during the Gibson interview indicate, she allows herself to be programmed by the same people who have misled the American people for eight years. Her success has resulted not from hard work and accomplishment but through a calculating political move by McCain.
How the circles of influence grow via grassroots campaigning
The campaign officials like to talk about sewing the seeds to grow the grassroots of the campaign –a great metaphor, but I actually think it is more fun than this farming metaphor proposes and takes less time than waiting for the seeds to germinate– I think it is a lot more like skipping stones on the water- or dropping a pebble into the pond and watching the ripples grow.
And it is amazing to see how quickly the ever widening ripples reaching out to spread from sea to shining sea. Each pebble into the water sends out a ripple that grows and hopefully touches another. Each pebble represents a volunteer who will help reach out to at least 10 more people. And that is how we grow a grassroots campaign all across America.
Just to show you how something as simple as this blog has grown the grassroots in just one week, here’s a list of what you’ve been inspired to get involved doing for this campaign – and for America! – THANK YOU!
Grassroots means it is up to you!
Here are some ideas to inspire you to help in creative ways. If yard signs are in short supply – make your own.Have a painting signs party. OR…The BarackObama.com website even has downloads of Logos, signs, and posters to use: http://www.barackobama.com/downloads/
Here’s an eco-friendly way to share your support:http://steppingstonesforobama-barb.blogspot.com/ If it is buttons you need – button making parties are going on too all across the country – look on the MYBO site for an event near you: www.My.BarackObama.com Many schools and scout troops have the machines – all you need is the time.Here’s a link for some artwork on Registering to Vote for the next 2 weeks. REGButtons.pdf321K View as HTML Download
Special thanks to Chet Farley for helping with this artwork.
Lastly, here’s my latest idea: do you remember the days when trees all across America had big Yellow Ribbons tied around them? It was all about supporting our troops coming home from a different war in another era. They were everywhere – all across America!
What if we all tied big Purple Bows around our trees this time? – in support of Barack Obama?
Purple – because we no longer want to be Red versus Blue!
Purple – because we want to bring home another generation of our troops!
Purple – because it is my favorite color!
I will work on getting Tony Orlando to re-write the lyrics to the song too!
Now it is up to you to get creative and come up with your own idea of how to spread the word and show your support for this campaign.
Please write back with your ideas and I will happily spread the word.
But, everyone I know is already registered to vote!
I know we hope and pray everyone around us is registered to vote, but guess what the numbers say this can’t be so. The national statistics say that only 6 out of 10 women are registered to vote. So that leaves 4 out of 10 who need to register soon to be able to vote in this upcoming election.
Maybe they moved. Maybe they forgot that you have to both register and vote to stay on the registration rolls. If you haven’t voted in the last 5 years – you may not be able to vote this year—even if you were registered in the past.
So it is a simple thing to do in over the next few days – ask everyone you know if they are registered to vote. If they say yes – thank them and move on. If they say no, please help them get registered to vote.
Here’s the link we like to recommend:
http://www.voteforchange.com/
Remember – friends don’t let friends get to November 4th without being registered to vote!
Reach out and touch your neighborhood today!
The other day I asked you to reach out and touch the campaign, to get to know what resources are available on the website and how to find answers at www.BarackObama.com and create your own site on www.My.BarackObama.com or MyBO – which will help keep you in the info loop with the campaign as well as give you ways to get involved each day.
Today, I would like to share with you another tool to help you to get involved right in your own neighborhood:
Neighbor to Neighbor. This internet tool is easy to use and oriented towards get you to reach out to others in your local area.
http://my.barackobama.com/modules/votercontact/login_signup.php
Neighbor to Neighbor is a new campaign internet tool that allows you to put in your own address and obtain a list of local undecided voters for you to reach out and touch in your very own neighborhood. It will either give you a list of names and addresses for a walking around the block, door knocking, canvassing for the campaign locally or a list of people to call. These are people who are mostly UNDECIDED as of yet.
The information provided to you will also include talking points, or a script, and even some questions to get the ball rolling easier. It is always a good idea to read through all the info first – before you head out or pick up the phones. Sometimes there are flyers to print out as well if you are knocking on doors. Other times there are key questions to ask in your calls.
The key thing this does is make the political neighborly; and therefore, personal – in a very friendly and open way. It is about neighbors reaching out to neighbors about issues that affect them and their communities. It is about friends reaching out to friends, and it is about family reaching out to friends. .” This is not about badgering anyone – it is all to be done with kind persuasion as well as listening.
It is about you stepping forward and saying “Hey, I am your neighbor, here’s why I support Barack Obama, and I am hoping you will too! Now how can I address any issues or concerns you might have before you vote?”
Here’s the ask – straight from the Candidate! Monday, Sept. 15th, 2008 in Pueblo, Colorado Senator Barack Obama asked the crowd to do these 4 things to help him get elected:
1. Knock on doors
2. Make calls
3. Do some community organizing
4. Vote
Today I will only ask you to do one thing –make sure you can VOTE!
I need you to register if you are not registered. Here’s the link you need to make sure you can vote this year. Do this soon as; deadlines are coming up in all states. http://www.voteforchange.com/index_obama.php If you are already registered, I need you to make sure it is still valid and you are still in the system, Many states have changed computer systems, have purged voter rolls, are now using foreclosures to try to deny citizens of their right to vote, and sometimes mistakes just plain happen.
So take the time now to find your voter registration card, or get a replacement; check your registration and update it if needed – have you moved in the last 4 years?; and lastly make sure a mistake won’t prevent you from voting or force you to vote on a c provisional ballot. http://www.voteforchange.com/index_obama.php
If you know you will have a problem voting on Nov. 4th do take the time now to learn how to vote early or request your absentee ballot.
http://www.voteforchange.com/index_obama.php
Why not guarantee your vote happens by taking care to check today? http://www.voteforchange.com/index_obama.php
Missed opportunities to register voters leaves too many of them off the rolls. If everyone picks up one voter here and two voters there, we can register thousands more voters. Think outside the box to get your personal voter registration tally as high as it can go. Besides carrying voter registration forms everywhere, here are some tips I've discovered:
We quickly discovered that there are key differences between a table that can get up to 200 registrations at one large event and a table that brings in only a trickle. Key tips include:
-- Have a magnet to get people to your table. A stand-up Obama cut-out figure ($35 on the web) standing next to the table will bring loads of potential voters near you. Everyone wants to have his/her picture take with the life-like figure of Obama and they are that much closer to voting. We had some people donate $350 worth of Obama pins (if you buy 1,000 pins, they only cost .33 each) so we could display them at the table next to a donation pail. Within a month we could pay back the donor and were on our way to buying 4,000 buttons in order to have Obama pins at every local event.
--NEVER sit and talk to each other behind the table. It’s tempting to talk to other Obama supporters about how you all like Obama, but it sends prospective registrants walking past your table. Be inviting. Make sure at least 2 people are standing up outside of the table holding attractive signs such as “Moved Lately? Changed Your Name? Register to Vote Here!” As people walk by, smile and ask them if they need to register to vote….have they moved lately? Convey team enthusiasm and have those clipboards with registration forms prominently displayed on the table.
-- Make attractive, colorful signs with a clear message and cover the table with a red or blue tablecloth – with spills, plastic is best. Ask your volunteer base if anyone has a folding white table because it makes life easier in setting up. Assign two team captains who can takes a few minutes to train any new people, keep track of button donations so you can replace your buttons, post the event, schedule the shifts of people, and take care of set-up and take down. And smile, smile, smile. We’ve found that many people already registered will walk by and thank us for taking the time to do what we are doing. Makes for a great day!
As I’ve volunteered on the Obama campaign the past few months – often more than 40 hours a week-I’ve realized that if school districts were run like this campaign, student achievement would soar. To date I’ve never seen more than a handful of these Obama campaign strategies used in any of the many public school districts in which I’ve worked or consulted:
P Campaign: The campaign sets clear measurable weekly goals for staff, conveys those goals through weekly phone call meetings, and expects staff to provide feedback on how they’ve met the goals by the end of the week. All staff and volunteers make decisions based on meeting those well defined goals. The data is collected and used on a weekly basis. When the goals aren’t met, the electorate isn’t blamed, but rather the staff works even harder. Typical school districts: In contrast, the majority of schools set up long term goals, often waiting to evaluate their success and take action on their failures at the end of the school year. Far too often when those long term goals aren’t met, the reaction is to blame parents or students. A “damaged goods” theory abounds in education – “how can we expect improvement, when the child comes to school with such a background; with such baggage;with such a homelife………..” Schools that have had success with these at-risk students are ignored and rarely replicated. School districts that “get it.” Schools that utilize DIBELS progress monitoring or other curriculum based measurement where teachers meet in teams to make changes and discuss instructional strategy changes based on the weekly results use this effective short term goal setting and concurrent action. This practical approach of measurable short-term goal setting is primarily utilized by special education teachers whose university training was rigorously based on educational theory derived from psychology where measurement of student achievement is seen as practical and possible.
P Campaign: The campaign takes staff with no experience in political campaigning and trains them, providing support by having them work in teams. Although I’ve observed that some of these individuals aren’t cut out for the work and quickly fail, many are on a rapid learning curve and quickly become adept at learning how to more effectively organize their community. Typical school districts: Schools are restricted to only hire teachers who have gone through years of the often mind-numbing education classes that replace more rigorous course work. Individuals who might soar as teachers just as these campaign workers soar, are completely left out of the process and we all lose from not having their talents in our schools. A typical university education class, “Teaching Social Studies” often has education majors learning how to have students make Russian nesting dolls or spending weeks gluing sticks into log cabins in contrast to a more rigorous history or geography college classes. The art always sounds creative, but far too often there is little or no core knowledge associated with it. When students don’t know where Russia is on the map or they don’t have factual information about Russia, the nesting dolls have been a waste of time…..but that type of paper and paste creativity was what was encouraged in ed school. Today it’s even possible to “buy” a doctorate in education by taking some of the proliferating on-line degree courses. School districts that “get it.” Some charter schools, Teach for America, and some school districts in the south where there are teacher shortages have alternative routes to education where new teachers receive a minimum of education courses – those that provide practical behavior/class management skills, etc. Data from recent studies shows promise that many of these new teachers as a group are as successful or more successful than those who sat through the two years of ed courses in college.
P Campaign: The campaign staff uses high levels of praise, noticing when each other or volunteers do something that helps the effort. Whether a volunteer directs a phone call to the right person, or a staff member finds a great bus corner to register voters at, the effort is often noticed and praised. Both staff and volunteers increase their level of commitment and effort by being honored. They get “better” at what they do by receiving positive feedback. People working in the campaign clearly recognize that praise for good work not only increases productivity, but it increases the commitment to the larger effort and community. Typical school districts: In contrast, one can work in a school for years and never receive positive feedback from administrative staff because it’s not part of the culture. In education school, teachers-to-be are urged to follow the teaching of Alfie Kohn and avoid using extrinsic reinforcement because it will hamper the child’s internal motivation. In far too many schools, one will hear frequent praise to students from only a handful of superb teachers. School districts that “get it.” School districts where Positive Behavioral Support is used automatically increase the level of positive feedback in their schools by teaching behavior, rewarding behavior, and establishing plans to minimize disruptive behavior.
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Rasmussen. 6/9. Likely voters. MoE 4% (5/7 results)
Obama (D) 45 (44) McCain (R) 42 (45)
Not a massive gain, and well within the margin of error. Let's look at the internals:
6/9 Total Men Wom GOP Dem Other Obama 45 39 51 13 74 35 McCain 42 47 38 83 16 40
5/7 Total Men Wom GOP Dem Other Obama 44 36 51 11 70 37 McCain 45 55 36 84 17 50
