The Strategy

Al,

A big thanks for keeping the calm while all of us are being roused to a frenzy by the irresponsible media. I haven't registered any new voters, but I signed up with HuffPo to be a citizen reporter and cover some of the grassroots efforts in my neck of the woods. That's my bit and I will also do phonebanking closer to the elections.

I really, really hope that you are right when it comes to the massive effort undertaken by thousands of Obamateers all over the country - I also believe you are. Interviewed an Indian/American volunteer for my site and she was so incredibly hardworking and optimistic, I just caught the fever from her!

Keep up the good work and keep us sane.

Cheers.

Well, here's a post of Al's I can agree with wholeheartedly. Indeed, even for that (large) cohort of Dems who don't revere Obama but do support his candidacy, here is reason for the kind of true excitement that perhaps the candidate himself doesn't engender in many skeptical breasts.

This is the great and important work, and it does happen well outside of the vision of the "Village," as Digby calls it. It's well away from the daily McCain "gaffes" and Obama "presumptuousness" the press is obsessed with this particular week.

Moreover, work like this has staying power - even if Obama should somehow lose (and I don't believe this is possible) we'll owe him a debt of gratitude for a new cadre of political activists who weren't active before.

And, in the end, it's about policy - not politics. In that arena, an army always helps. Good post.

This is excellent news thanks Al.  I have seen the underground rumblings myself - I attended a kickoff meeting by the campaign last week here in my small county in Vermont - and fifty people showed up (on a weeknight in the middle of the summer in Vermont!).  I also am a member of a listserv of a grassroots group in Northern Virginia, and I can tell you that I've been notified of between 20-30 events (voter reg, canvassing, phone banks, parties) that are going on this week.

KD

My wife told me yesterday that she is really worried about November.  When I asked why, she said the attacks on Obama are reminding her of the attacks on Kerry and Obama isn't going after McCain very much.

I told her not to worry, that this is summer.  People aren't paying that much attention and that the attacks on Obama don't have any of the strength of the attacks on Kerry.

I also convinced her, the political non-activist, to do some work for the campaign.  We will be working out something we can do together, be it registering voters, phonebanking, whatever.

Al, whenever I hear comments about Obama letting McCain get away with his gaffes, I tell them that there is no need to do much right now.  That no one is paying attention. However, I bet the campaign is making a listing of all the gaffes, contradictions and downright falsehoods to roll out when the campaign gets going in earnest. 

Also, and I almost get tired of saying this, when looking at polls, the more important numbers are the favorability numbers.  Although the two are similar, Obama's very favorable numbers are double McCain's.  These are the people that are far more motivated to get out there and vote.

Also, according to Rasmussen, Obama appears to be starting to get his bounce form his trip.  He has gone from a tie to a 5 point lead in three days.  So don't consume yourself with worrying.  Get out there and do something.

Don't polls use as their sample "likely voters" (ie folks who have voted before)?

I always wonder about this when I read the latest screed about how Obama and McCain are "neck and neck". I wonder how many of these newly registered voters are flying under the radar of the polls.

I've mentally signed myself up to do voter registration on parts of all my Saturdays from now through Nov. Maybe my time with it will grow, let's hope so. I think it's good to start small- starting is half the battle!

I've done it once so far. It was fun, even for a very shy telephone-phobe like me. An important tip: put a sign on the back of your clipboard that says what you're doing: "Voter Registration! And Mail-in Ballot Sign-up!" Then people come up to you; it works much better than walking around asking people if they need to register. Oh, and standing in one place seems to work better than walking around, I think. I stood on the street corner and said "Good Morning!" to people, and let my sign speak the rest.

It was nice, the Obama office paired me up with someone else for my virgin voter registration day. We both had fun figuring out what works best. At the same time, we were enjoying the sights at a little art fair where we were canvassing.

Great post Al.....

I just saw on the news last night that here in Georgia, voter registration has increased 27%.....yes....I think that is a lot, and there is still room for growth....a lot of people are sleeping on Georgia, but this voter registration is going to have pollster shook

I think of it as being the sleeping giant...lol....

I hope we overwhelm the system in Nov.  Have serious concerns about voting machines.  I used a 'touch screen' when living in MD, had the frightening experience watching the screen 'register' for a candidate ABOVE the place I put my finger!  Had to 'vote' 3 times - with 'Judge'  I called over to watch what was happening -until the correct vote registered!  Of course, no paper trail.  Thrilled now to use Paper & Pencil in Chesterfield MA.  Accurate.  I hope BHO Campaign is planning for this.

News from Western MA for Obama:  Canvassing
Here's a report on what we did on Saturday, July 12, in Keene, NH:

318 doors knocked on
137 contacts made
93 supporters identified

Here's a report on what we did last Saturday (July 19) in Keene, NH:

22 total volunteers
833 doors knocked on
310 contacts made
200 supporters identified

This was a fantastic showing - thank you all so much!

Here in Illinois things are in full swing.  I have been a steady volunteer for a year and a half, and was asked to join up with the campaign as an organizer. Last week about 30 of us were trained, given some great organizing tools, and sent out with our own area to work until the election.

We are still working as a group, but now we have so many volunteers to manage and with new ones to recruit, they are training organizers like me.  I assume that Camp Obama will a similar experience in other areas of the country, we just got started a bit early.

Illinois is focusing on our border states (all of them!) and divided up by area. Because we are in northern IL we are heading to Wisconsin, organizing trips every weekend to register voters and canvass.  We have gone to Milwaukee the last two weekends. We are all being asked to commit to GOTV on election day in that state, and recruiting others to vote early and join us.  I am really psyched, and ready to get to work.  I think this will be one of the most important things I can work for in my lifetime, and I am not kidding!  

I agree, it's hard for us hard-core political junkies not to get upset with the MSM mouthpieces who have to earn their big salaries somehow during the summer.

I've done voter registration already, and I'm looking forward to my Platform Meeting tonight!  I have over 35 RSVPs; and there is still that chance that a rep from the Campaign might come!

I've found that the best antidote (besides Al's Chicken Little Shots!) is to get away from the computer and really away from the TV and do something!

We are the ones we have been waiting for...

waterprise2 AKA Pam

Liberal with a Capital L!

Great for me in my 2006 Senate Primary run.

Democrat for US Senate (Wisconsin 2012)

The single most welcome thing I have read on the internet this month was kath25's diary How To Run a Voter Registration Drive on dkos. It provides fun, helpful tips about how to effectively register voters, and is the kind of action-encouraging writing that is so valuable during these "dog days" when our registration efforts may build the foundation for some real surprises this fall.

It's never too early to bring new voters into the process. I can't claim to have registered a thousand new voters (as the Travis County, Texas drive discussed in the link has), but here in Ohio, there are enough outdoor concerts, festivals, and other public gatherings that are perfect for getting a few dozen registrations in a single weekend. Who knows how many might make a difference in this swing state? The great thing about kath25's diary is it provides tips that should be useful for energetic progressives in any state who want to make a difference. No doubt many of these tips will be conveyed at Camp Obama sessions in the coming days, but it helps to have them online as well.

As Suzy commented, I too want to help overwhelm any voting machine problems that will inevitably happen this year.

So I did a litle back-of-the-envelope math to figure out how many new voters, above and beyond what the campaign is doing, we'll need to register to overwhelm "outside forces", which includes voting machines, media bias, and 527s.

Here's what I calculated: assuming that each outside force affects the national polling some amount, I figured using 2004 numbers that media bias could account for about 2.5%, 527s for about 3.0%, and voting machines for 1.1%.

To provide that extra 6.6% to Obama, out of an estimated turnout of 150,000,000 voters in November, we need to register 9,900,000 new voters. (I calculated that this would require roughly 200k new volunteers to work from now until the election.)

Here's more detail on it:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/29/16259/2655/312/543793

Al,

You've  got me fired up.  I took a break from things after the primary, but now it's time to get back in the game.

Yes we can.

Al,

Does this sound like a reasonable guess about the Obama campaign's thinking?

From my vantage point, I see the McCain campaign "hitting" Obama daily over some trivial point (e.g., not going to visit soldiers in Germany, use of the phrase "world citizen", etc.).  In addition to the idea that it's summer and no one is listening, could the thinking also go that McCain is punching and punching to little effect?

That is, the more McCain denounces and attacks Obama, the more people tune him out. And when Obama starts more vigorously attacking McCain in the fall, people will listen to him because it's new.  McCain is going on and on, and people hear blah, blah, blah.  Then they hear Obama's voice and their ears perk up.

The McCain campaign is punching and punching, but it's not connecting, not doing any significant damage.

In the later rounds, the Obama campaign will come out swinging, going for the knock out.

If the general election campaign were a hockey game, it would only be the first period.  Neither team has scored, and Barack has only a small edge in shots.  But, he has been keeping the puck in the offensive zone.  More importantly, he has been finishing all of his checks and has vastly outhit the opposition.  The great edge in physical play hasn’t yet paid dividends on the scoreboard, but it will in the third period, when the Obama Campaign will skate circles around a tired, worn out, and turnover-prone McCain campaign.

... and what do I see? Nothing but chicken littles surrounding me. I'd like to echo (and commend) Al's comments here, and maybe add something (or not).

Having been away, I'm really surprised to see how many seem like chicken littles lately. For example, the normally level-headed Nate Silver sound a little panicky over at 538, perhaps having eyed too many July polling numbers, giving in to this idea that the election is won or lost over 3.25% shifts in July. The numbers show that Obama may have take some hits around July 4th as events gave an impression of 'waffling' or not being commander-in-chief ready. But, as Nate mentioned, even that 'waffling' is no more than 1/60 likely voters.

However, since then two things have happened. 1) Obama got a few of his more controversial positions out of the way in early July and retooled for the general. I don't think that this was moving to the center; I'm still one of those who says, "if you're surprised by his move on faith based initiatives you're not paying attention." And, to channel Al, he sent messages that he's a) not going to cowtow to any interest group on your pet issue (mine is FISA), and 2) he's going to respect your right to dissent, organize, and pressure him toward doing what you think is right. That narrative cycle took a few weeks to unfold, and I think it came to a crescendo with the patriotism speech.

Second, and most importantly (echoing the thread here) the real game is the ground game, the voter files, and setting the stage for a favorable result 3 months from now. These matter far more than 1/60 voters in July. No one will look back 3 months from now and say it was all about having a snappy comeback to a stupid line about cheese or something. What will make a difference is if Georgia has a 20% increase in voter registration. You get the youth to turnout 75% and the game is over.

What the pundits who want Obama to "hit back" are missing (other than the fact that they were so wrong 12 months ago when they wanted the same thing) is that hitting back will only drag him down with them, hardly anyone is paying attention this month, and McCain is becoming more irrelevant by the day. Every scramble that McCain makes to worry over how to make an internally consistent message will just eat away at his campaign as they try to maneuver the minefield he's established for himself.

In fact, the fallout of the foreign trip, both explicitly and implicitly in terms of our associations with Obama will more than make up for whatever opportunities Obama missed. These images of him talking to our troops or speaking in Germany are worth 1 million snappy comebacks. Especially because we know that having a snappy comeback is not his problem. In any debate Obama should make McCain look horribly tired.

What's impressive about this, to me, is how the campaign has kept its eye on the prize and ignored the punditry, the media, and stuck to the key issues: Voter turnout, shifting demographics and the shifting electoral map, and a truly nationwide 50 state strategy so that Democrats cannot be framed as a fringe party of the elite or educated.

This is the reason why I became an Obama supporter in January - because I believed he could become a transformational political leader and president.  The New Deal era was begun and sustained by increasing voter participation and creating new Democrats.  This is what we can get again.

Polls - which are showing bounces for Obama in Gallup and Rasmussen today - don't register the increase in the voting population.  What must also happen, and I'm quite sure the Obama folks are well aware of this, is to

1. Look early at such things as the number and condition of voting machines, their distribution in precincts across each state, and the state of the voting lists.

2. Get as many voters as possible to vote early or absentee.  As they did with the primaries, set up systems to bring voters to early voting sites.

3. Monitor voting sites with an army of volunteer lawyers and folks trained to know election law.

4. Help people meet any onerous voter id laws.

On another topic, I think there's a great opportunity for mild ridicule against McCain. This should not be personal but policy-oriented. What I want ridiculed is this -- the claim that Obama is politicizing the war (but, implicitly, supporters of the war are not). Given how the Republican party has used support for wars as a proxy for patriotism and their nastiness about political opponents' views of terrorism and wars, this deserves to be laughed out of the room.

I really feel that absentee and vote by mail is an important factor that is rarely talked about.  These votes are like money in the bank.  Relying on a voter to cast his vote on election day--when polling places are crowded and machines in traditionally democratic precincts seem to breakdown at a disproportionate rate--is a shaky proposition.   Like the first part of that old Chicago politics adage says:  "Vote early..."

Absentee voting is available to just about everyone in every state.  And it's so much easier and hassle-free.  Plus, it gives you extra time on election day to volunteer.

Tomorrow, I plan to participate in three voter registration drives in my area.  I signed for one in June and the other two have only recently been organized by volunteers and Obama workers here in the South Fulton/Southwest Atlanta area.  I have helped out on three other drives this summer and want to gain enough experiece to organize some drives of my own.  On August 2, the Tri-Cities Unite For Change group will have its second meeting where we plan to start voter registration drives in College Park, East Point, and Hapeville, Georgia--all heavily African-American populated towns near Atlanta's airport.  Arelle_dee: why don't you join us?  My personal goal is to register 100 people this summer. I am up to around 20 now.  There are a reported 500-600,000 unregistered African-Americans in Georgia alone.  If we can register and turn-out the AA voters in historic record numbers and gain 33-35% of the white vote with record turnouts among youth and progressives, Obama has a great shot in the Peach State.

Al, thanks for this post.  I fear that sometimes we get so caught up in looking at this thing as an intellectual exercise, that we forget that wars are won on the battlefield.  We fieldhands should know this.  Barack knows this.  That's why he continually reminds us that this will not be easy and everyone has an important part to play.  He's doing his to the best of his ability, so let's hit the field and do ours.

Our job is simple.  Let's cultivate and harvest.

Sorry.  In my haste to post, I didn't sign-in properly.  I'm anonymous.  I did just apply for a co-publishing account, however.

Howard Dean is scheduled be in Atlanta on the "Register for Change" bus tour tomorrow.  I don't think I'll be going, but I hope he inspires more people to get involved in registering more voters in Georgia and throughout the country.  They began their tour in Crawford, Texas--George Bush's so-called hometown--and are scheduled to be Savannah, Macon, and Atlanta tomorrow.

In total agreement here.  No one is paying attention to the talking heads, even they don't seem to have the energy for it, they are laughable.

Meanwhile, we the Obama grassroots are keeping our collective nose to the ground, and registering, mobilizing, organizing all around us, every chance we get.

I'm hosting my second Porch Meeting for Obama tomorrow, the first was a month ago.  This time, we've been asked to contribute to the Party's platform.  I'm unaffiliated and don't care much for partisan stuff, but I'm  trying to bring other unaffiliateds (as well as Rs and Ds, of course) around common themes.  So far, Alternative Energy and Foreign Policy seem to have it.

So yeah, Al, I'm with you: nose to the ground, aiming for Nov 4.  Barack does his part (magnificently, I might add), we do ours, we win.  Cheers.

Drag 'em to the polls, too!

GOTV is even more important....

To add something to the person's wife that's worried about November. One of the big differences is that Obama is getting Democratic support from his party. Something that Kerry didn't have in 04. Plus, the GOP and media had nothing on Kerry, just like they have nothing on Obama. They made it (or are making) all up. And Obama has Dean's 50 state strategy.

I think everything will fine. We just have to keep working hard. :) 

Hey Suzy, I'm a neighbor here in the Valley and have some free Saturdays.  I'll have to track down the local Obama group and get myself to NH.  I went there in '04 to get people to the polls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR200807...

Chris, join us at http://fieldhands.ning.com/ - also Southern New England Group: Jess is having Platform meeting in Worcester.

Very active Western Obama group too.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1825738,00.html?xid=rss-politics-cnn

Money Quote: (how do you do block quotes @ The Field ?)

....Not everyone has treated Obama like a Commander in Chief, but some did him one better: after Obama joined King Abdullah II for dinner at the palace in Amman, the Jordanian leader hopped into his Mercedes and drove Obama to the airport himself......

A bit of ribbing the old guy as well...

Karen - Was there anything that you saw on this trip that changed your mind? John McCain, as you know, is saying, "Well, he already knew what he was going to think before he got there."

BO - Well, I thought John also suggested that I'm always changing my mind, so he's got to make up his mind about what he says about my mind.

amk

Among other efforts, Southern Illinoisans for Obama are active in voter registration in the swing state of Missouri, working out of the official Obama office in Cape Girardeau, MO. (Three carloads went this morning.)  We are taking turns and mine is next.  I am looking forward to this battleground, since it is Rush Limbaugh's home town. Victory would be so sweet in Missouri. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/us/politics/26cnd-obama.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1217099439-liw2MIsET3fYiqzE2WlWDQ

This guy never loses the perspective (and the eye on the ball) and he is being called "presumptuous" ?

Money quote : ( I am still illiterate on blockquotes here @ The Field)

“We’re in a very tight race, despite having a week of great press and John McCain having a had a week of not-so-great press,” Mr. Obama said in the interview. “If that doesn’t keep you on your toes, I don’t know what will.”

amk

Muthu -

To make blockquotes click "Turn off style tools" below the comment box, then type in <blockquote> before the text that you want indented and shaded and, very important, then </blockquote> afterwards to close it out.

Now, I will be McCain trying to master the "tubes" (or was it innertubes ?)

BTW, I am trying to do my part by plugging voter registration and GOTV ad-nauseum at kos blogs. Probably will get kicked out of there because of that meme.

amk

but it was already full.  I am really hoping that the campaign will open up more.  Spent time calling a swing state today with about 10 other very fired up Obama supporters and we finished over 400 calls.  Let me attest, that this is the BEST way to cure oneself from CLS (chicken little syndrom) that many of us come here to have come to rely on Al to give us our innoculations...

I was just on DailyKos and John McCain has put out an ad against Barack for not visiting with the troops in Germany! Wow! Is this what a clean campaign looks like?! PATHETIC!!