Click For Obama is asking all Obama supporters to help us raise funds by clicking on our website sponsors. Just click, visit the site, and click out. We can raise $100,000 dollars for the month of November 09.Times are tough and money is tight, but if you Click For Obama we can generate funds without having to pay one penny. Click here then click around the sites links. Tell your friends and make this link viral.Thank you,
Click For Obama Team
As our contentious national debate on health care reform nears its conclusion where are the big ideas that can unite Americans across the political spectrum? There is growing evidence that including the choice of a government run health insurance plan (a “public option”) would significantly strengthen the legislation and advance key principles held by liberals, moderates and conservatives. Here’s why:
1. The Public Option Increases Free Market Competition and Choice
One of the central principles of conservatism is the power of the free markets and consumer choice. Adding the choice of a public plan to compete with private plans will generate more choice and encourage healthy competition with insurance companies to drive down premiums and offer more value and quality to patients.
2. The Public Option Brings Us Closer to Universal Health Care
A core liberal principle is promoting an inclusive society with universal rights. A public plan will bring our nation much closer to the long-held goal of universal health care. It will make affordable health care available to millions of Americans through a public plan without the pressure to increase private profits for shareholders and raise revenues to cover marketing costs and exorbitant CEO salaries.
3. The Public Option Saves Money
"Blue Dog" Democrats and other moderates are committed to the principle of fiscal responsibility. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the strong public option included in the original House bill (with reimbursements set at Medicare rates plus five percent) would save taxpayers $110 billion by pushing down premiums for health care consumers. A modified version of the public option supported by some “blue dog” Democrats would save $25 billion because it would require the HHS Secretary to negotiate rates with providers independently of Medicare and its larger purchasing pool.
Given these facts about the public option and their consistency with guiding principles across the ideological spectrum, it appears Congressional opposition to a public option must be based on: 1) a commitment to protect insurance company profits and the campaign contributions they engender, or 2) a fierce partisan determination to block strong health care reform to undercut President Obama and gain political advantage going into the 2010 and 2012 elections.
Fortunately, the opposition is losing credibility as the benefits of reform are better understood. Several polls demonstrate that the choice of a public plan is popular and that including it increases overall support for health care reform legislation. For example, a recent New York Times poll found that support for offering “a government administered health insurance plan” to compete with private plans is overwhelmingly favored by 65 to 26 percent, a five point gain in support compared to their poll a month earlier.
Now is the time for reform advocates to push hard on these points as the moment of truth approaches for the public option and the health care reform that America so urgently needs.
Guns at rallies, Attacks, Using the N word, calling Obama a Nazi, chanting Nazi slogans and even attempting to attack elected officials as they try to moderate the Health Care town halls, it seems the press is moving very slowly to understand who the FEW, the Minority, screamers, racists and right wing nut job, home grown terrorists really are.
Just reported: the SEIU obtained a Tea Party startegy via a Right Wing mobilization conf call.
The summary: Just destroy Obama's plan at any cost....No reasons....just be the party of NO
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/seius-notes-on-a-tea-party-strategy-conference-call/
We (a group of team leaders and volunteers in York County) decided we needed to stay in touch and brainstorm things we can do locally to improve our community. We wanted to be ready to mobilize volunteers and share information when the national OFA calls on volunteers to help with projects.
We are looking for volunteers to present ideas for projects and to organize projects. The only rule to get your voice heard is to show up. See the extended post for details...
The local steering committee meetings are held on the second Tuesday of every month at 7:30pm at the Red Lion B&B, 101 S Franklin St, Red Lion PA 17356. Contact George and 717-332-7429 or george.a.sanders@gmail.com for more information.
"We won because the American people mobilized for change. It was really people at a grassroots level who carried our campaign financially, who carried it organizationally, and we don't want that to dissipate." - Barack Obama
The organization will operate on these core organizing principles:
The organization's goals will be to promote:
In order to accomplish these goals, we will:
Hi Everyone,
In the months after the WISCONSIN RIVER VALLEY GRASSROOTS CONFERENCE on Feb. 21st, a coalition of Team Leaders and active volunteers decided to meet and discuss how we could continue on with our network still on the ground post-election.
It is clear there is a great interest to strengthen and continue that network. Dan Grandone and J.D. Stier attended our second meeting and agreed it is a good thing they are enthusiastic to see continue.
There is now a third and fourth event on the calendar. Please consider attending if you can.
Tuesday, May 7th -- a collaborative meeting to set in motion a more 'formalized' sort of group description and establishing the group as an entity working within the goals of OFA but also working with many local and statewide community service issues and focus groups. We are expanding our invitation base to anyone who is interested in attending, and especially those who were part of the network that volunteered to elect Obama. Here is the agenda:
PLEASE NOTE: This meeting will move us from talking to walking. So come prepared to be in on the ground floor of developing an action agenda for Dane County.
Thanks
Dear Obama Team Leaders,
The anticipation of spring is upon us and with it the arrival of President Obama's first 100 days in office. It's difficult to determine which to be more excited about, but for most of us it probably is the 100 days.
Throughout the long winter we have continued to work with our teams, participate in the Grassroots Festival, and meet the OFA Wisconsin Coordinator, Dan Grandone). It seems clear that we will be stronger and more effective if we share our energy in some form of county wide network.
With this realization, it is time to take the next step in building the Dane County Grassroots Network. Join us at the Alicia Ashman Library (large meeting room), 733 N. High Point Rd.1 on Thursday evening May 7, at 6:30 pm. This meeting will be a work session with some heavy lifting for the future. We encourage you to bring one or two additional team members with you who are also committed to this project.
See the attached agenda for details.
We look forward to seeing you on May 7. If you have questions call any of the numbers below.
Ron Biendseil 836-1920
Bruce Green
Nate Timm 220-0139
Eric Sundquist
GRASSROOTS NETWORK AGENDA
MAY 7, 2009
6:30 p.m., Alicia Ashman Library, 733 N. High Point Rd. (Corner of High Point and Old Sauk, one block east of the Beltline)
WHO WILL KEEP US ON TIME??
6:30 WELCOME AND BRIEF HISTORY OF EFFORTS TO CREATE A GRASSROOTS NETWORK IN WISCONSIN. (Obama campaign experience, Grassroots Festival, Organizing for America listening sessions, Dual Rail Meeting, first meeting of grassroots teams at the Alicia Ashman Library
6:40 PURPOSE OF TONIGHTS MEETING:
Identify top priorities of issues people want to begin working on with other area teams
Develop preliminary work plans to address top priorities
NOTE: the underlying assumption is that you are here because you want to DO SOMETHING
6:50 WHO’S HERE Rapid fire -- Your name and community
7:00 MISSION STATEMENT:
The Dane County Grassroots Network consists of progressive groups, teams, and individuals committed to the civic betterment of the community and the nation.
The mission of the Dane County Grassroots Network is to:
Facilitate the exchange of ideas, information and skills among network members in order to promote the civic betterment of our community and nation
Identify issues of common interest to groups and facilitate shared activities and campaigns.
Is there anyone here who CANNOT live with this as the mission for this initiative??
7:10 Identify top priorities that the network will address
Who will join the Coordinating Team for Dane County? This group will support work groups, problem solve, trouble shoot, and plan follow up activities of this meeting
7:30 Break into Work Groups to begin developing action plans
8:15 Reconvene as large group to BRIEFLY report on highlights of work plans
8:30 We’re out of here.
Possible Priorities ( for further action by work groups)
Note: participants at previous meetings have endorsed the need to develop an electronic communications network to support our efforts. Marcia has agreed to coordinate this effort. If you’d be interested in being part of this work group STAND UP AND BE COUNTED NOW.
WORK TOGETHER TO:
(First, circle your top 5-6 priorities. Then check off your TOP 3)
___Influence state legislative priorities
___Support President Obama's political agenda
___Influence the national legislative agenda
___Support a national Health Care initiative: facilitate education, information
dissemination and action etc, on this issue
___Support a state Transportation initiative: RTA facilitate education, information
___Support a national Energy policy: facilitate education, information dissemination
and action etc, on this issue
___Support a national Education initiative: facilitate education, information
___Organize coordinated community service projects (short term and ongoing
projects)
___Develop and support youth involvement in a grassroots network
___Find and support a credible Dem. candidate to oppose Rep. Paul Ryan
___Establish Study/Discussion Groups (books, articles, issues, etc.)
___Establish a Grassroots Academy to help network members hone their political
skills, community organizing skills, communications skills, etc., and develop political, business and community linkages
Others??
1 The library is at the back of s small shopping center at the corner of High Point and Old Sauk Rd. Turn into the shopping center and head to the back corner. We’ll be there.
I will post the announcement of the HealthCare Reform forum announcement in my next posting. Please take a look and consider attending. We are and can still make a huge difference if we keep the network alive and functioning!
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Good afternoon,
I just wanted to get active again with my blog, and I wanted to find out if anyone out there is interested in helping me to learn what is going on in Alaska with Organizing For America. I am pretty sure there are things happening...
I am eager to get involved here again continuing all the great work that we accomplished together.
What's going on where you are?
Please leave me a comment, or send me an email to get.at.jonathan@gmail.com.
Talk to you soon!
Jonathan
Until Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, I had never been involved with politics. The reason to a large extent may be due to my biggest learning during the campaign. What excited me most was the openness and transparency about which and under which President Obama spoke and ran. It was that and his ability to inspire hope and possibility that caused me to work so hard on his, my and all of our behalf’s. It was exciting to see how so many people were empowered when they also got involved in the process. Contrary to my experience with the Campaign, I learned how our organizations, institutions, and yes even the nations we have built across the world have separated us from one another. President Obama found a way to bring people together with a common vision toward a common end.Over the last week in working with the Organizing for America initiative, I have watched and experienced people, in the name of “grassroots” effort initiating organizations, groups and taking actions that have become and are becoming politicized, taking on lives of their own and separating themselves from others as well as the masses. Although I believe in mantra, "All is Good," to the extent the foregoing continues to occur, achieving “Change We Can Believe In” will be delayed.We must build open organizing systems and other initiatives and efforts that are inclusive and transparent. If we do not, we will continue to separate, alienate and in fact cause conflict with one another that will not be productive. I believe we all believe in a common good and desire a world that works for all. We will accomplish that by working together, and I will agree with opposition as well, so long as it is peaceful and respectful.
Oscar Carter
Creating A World Community
Hello fellow Obama Supporters: Support the Houston Resource Directory by subscribing and adding your Social Skills Set. MyHoustonTexas.Info - is an INFORMATIONAL website and a RESOURCE directory; developed by a group of Houston campaign workers for President Barack Obama; 2008 Presidential Campaign [www.My.BarackObama.com]. Similar initiatives have been started in other States. Social skills set are similar to interests, hobbies, qualifications and competencies; which highlight marketable skills and work experience.
Examples: (a) Betty listed her Social Skill Set as retired, clerical, and bookkeeping. Shelia is a small business owner who lives in the same neighborhood, and needs assistance managing her business finances so; she contacts Betty about her bookkeeping services. (b) Willie listed his Social Skill Set as painting, yard-work, and mechanic. Jose lives in the same neighborhood, and needs assistance cutting a tree (from a natural disaster) so; he contacts (interviews) Willie about his yard-work services.
This social skills set concept is indicative of community empowerment, community development, and sustainable communities, and representative of President Obama's goal of empowering communities to work together. For information about collaborating or developing a similar community resource mechanism; please contact: Darryl.Riser@MyHoustonTexas.info
Franke James has a great post on her blog about an offer she received around Christmas: $200 to the charity of her choice in exchange for one night of dinner. Only the catch is, the the person making the offer was a complete stranger. Read her post to see how it went -- reminds me of the great community spirit that organizing can capture.
North Dakotans!
Join the Change that Works Campaign. Help work for a stronger and fairer economy, increase access to health care, and support employee free choice. Sign up for email updates on future activitie.
http://www.seiu.org/changethatworks/northdakota/
We scheduled our Economic Recovery House Meeting before the call was made to have such meetings, so because we were early, we’re late. We broke into groups today to talk about what we can do to stimulate our corners of the economy, but we kept going off on tangents which eventually became the main topic of conversation.What’s up with Organizing for America? On January 26, David Plouffe introduced Mitch Stewart as the new Executive Director of Organizing for America. And then … nothing. We’re not used to waiting around doing nothing. Mitch said OFA will keep us involved. So keep us involved already.At least let us know what you want us to do. During the campaign we were asked to make these calls, knock on these doors, check these boxes. Recently, it’s been more like “Watch this video”. What? Without some leadership, we’re coming up with some crazy ideas on our own. How about we use the phone bank at barackobama.com to ask constituents to get their representatives to vote for President Obama’s initiatives? Or lobby state and local governments to spend the stimulus money on programs that we support? Or have our members monitor how our money’s being spent? We also need OFA’s leadership to make it easier for our groups to connect with other groups. There are so many groups and members within miles of each other. In our own group we’ve got people who want to expand their community gardens, or increase the membership of their giving circles, or – well we can’t list them all here. Everyone’s already doing something good that could be made better if more people worked together. But the OFA site doesn’t make it easy for groups and members to work together on their shared interests. Facebook and other platforms do a much better job, but wouldn’t it make sense to keep our community all in one place?We know it’s early yet, and we’re being a little impatient. But this movement was not built on patience. Don’t let us lose our momentum. Give us some guidance, or we’ll go off in a million directions. At least let us know what you plan to do to keep us all involved.
We all helped Obama in our own way: some phone-banked; others knocked on doors. Because of my busy schedule, I couldn't do any of that.So I decided to become a voluntee internet strategist for Obama's campaign. I launched my own "50 State Strategy" - essentially a massive e-mail campaign, where I micro-targeted voters. I sent out over 100,000 e-mails on his behalf the past 9 months to people from the 50 states.It was a great deal of fun. I spent two hours a day mining the internet for e-mails specific to region, race, ethnicity, etc. And this worked beautifully. For example, when Obama was endorsed by the Asian-American PAC (the 80-20 Initiative) I sent an e-mail out that same day to over 500 members of Asian-American fraternities and sororities. And when Obama had a surprisingly rocky start with a Latina member of Congress in June (the start of the general election), I went into overdrive, e-mailing over 2000 Latinos across the country for a whole week straight about his commitment to concerns Latinos hold dear.Moreover, when I e-mailed states like MT, ND, WY, ID, WV, and NE, I played up his eye-popping appeal among white voters. However, when I e-mailed NM, CO, OR, CA, FL or WA (more cosmopolitan, and racially/ethnically diverse states) I simply showed how he was winning and what his positions were.So in four years when we're all working to get Obama re-elected, let's not forget about the internet. Its powerful. And it was largely responsible for him getting elected.
And when he announces his bid to run for re-election, I'm determined to have 600,000 e-mails I can send his info to. I'm growing my list, which currently is over 200,000...we have to keep the momentum going!
2morrowknight is an internet strategist and community organizer who blogs at 2morrowknight.blogspot.com, and is author of a forthcoming children's book. You can follow him at Twitter.com/2morrowknight and friend him at Myspace.com/2morrowknight.
As we await a full report on what Barack and his team will do with the campaign organization post-election, my primary concerns can be summarized in three questions:
December 31, 2008
by Wade HudsonIn "The Prophet," Ari Berman reports that a former Democratic National Committee (DNC) official close to the Obama campaign says, "Most of Obama's grassroots infrastructure is going to go to the DNC. That's the prevailing gossip of the past few weeks, and it's been pretty consistent."Primarily merging with the Democratic Party makes sense on a number of levels. But for the Party to help "transform the nation," as Obama affirmed during the campaign, it would have to become much more than a vehicle for elections. It would have to become an activist organization dedicated to fighting for its platform year-round, as discussed in Transforming the Democratic Party.To transform itself, the Party would need to undertake serious, year-round precinct organizing. As TiVo and other technologies enable viewers to avoid television commercials, old-fashioned, door-to-door, face-to-face outreach will become more valuable. Precinct organizers could work within their neighborhood throughout the year -- meeting, contacting, and mobilizing neighbors to strengthen and expand social connections and engage in political action (including voting) and community service. This organizing would involve establishing personal relationships with as many neighbors as possible, while listening closely to their concerns. Methods would include welcoming new arrivals to the neighborhood and encouraging eligible voters to become registered Democrats, vote in elections, and participate in joint political action, hopefully including national actions coordinated by the DNC. These goals would be accomplished by knocking on doors, making phone calls, leaving personal notes, and convening neighborhood gatherings including block parties, house meetings, discussion groups, and other activities. Organizers would recruit neighbors to become part of their team and share the work. On Election Day, teams would monitor the polls to determine who has voted and, before the polls close, contact those who have not. Pertinent information would be fed into the national database.Whether through MyBO and/or the Democratic Party, Barack Obama needs to transition his campaign resources into a strong, independent, grassroots organization that can undertake coordinated, united action nationwide. Countless Obama supporters gave their heart and soul to the campaign because they expected as much, based on statements made by Barack and his staff during the campaign.One such statement was "Obama: The Organizer and the Moment," a post to the official Obama section of a social networking website in early 2008. At the top, this post placed a quote by Barack from his first political campaign, "What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer?" The post opened with the following:
As many of you know, Barack Obama started his political journey far away from the confines of the Beltway. As a community organizer on the streets of Chicago's South Side,... That's what Barack Obama has done throughout his life, and that's what this whole campaign has been about. Barack has always been an organizer, and he still is an organizer -- that's how he's inspired millions of people, from myriad social positions, to come together and fight for change… We are training people in all of these states not only to make a difference in this election, but to make a difference in their communities, in a sustained way. Regardless of what happens today and in the days ahead, one thing is clear: Barack Obama hasn't just run a presidential campaign, he's built a genuine grassroots movement. In a single year, Barack Obama -- who started his journey organizing on the South Side -- has organized a broad swath of America.... They are empowered, active participants in the struggle for change and they are not tired. The organizing has just begun.
We now have a new national climate with the election of Barack Obama as President. Obama, with the strategic assistance of Marshall Ganz—an old SNCC and farmworkers’ union organizer—developed very sophisticated mobilizing approaches to build a new kind of electoral machine. It was central to his election. But as he has noted many times, “change comes from below.” Obama will be responsive to the kind of agenda that was expressed in [San Francisco]. It is the responsibility of people on the ground to put that agenda front-and-center before the new administration and before countless municipalities, counties, special districts, school boards, state governments, congress, corporations and major nonprofit organizations. That will require something different from the electoral mobilization organization that played such a large role in electing Obama. And Obama understands this. Asked during the primary whether Martin Luther King would support him or Clinton, he responded, “He wouldn’t support either of us. He’d be out in the streets building an independent social justice movement.” ...Obama’s agenda is a presidential one. Community organizing’s agenda should be to push the president. There will be plenty of people pushing him from Wall Street, the auto industry and others in elite circles. If there is not a countervailing push, organized independently of Obama, hopefully with his blessing, we will be disappointed in him as a President—and will have ourselves to blame (emphasis added).
The national office should establish a mechanism to enable those (local) teams who wish to do so to select representatives to relatively small councils of fellow representatives who would communicate horizontally with one another in a deliberate, thoughtful manner to share reports on their work, ask questions, provide mutual support, and develop recommendations to send upward toward the national office through a layer of such councils (e.g., town/city, intra-state regions, state, regional, national) – so that the national office would pay more attention to recommendations from the national council than they ever could to tens of thousands of recommendations from individual members.
