Eh. Misourri was close. We couldn’t get an inverse Regan map, but what we got was amazing given the political clinate.
Misourri might be the only battleground state we didn’t get.
Either way, I thank you for your effort.
I would like to thank you and all the Indiana volunteers who turned this red state blue*! You all amaze me! I am profoundly grateful to all those who found the (seemingly) endless energy to make calls, knock on doors, get out the word and the vote.
Now for my question -
Do you know of any plans the Obama-Biden administration has for using this massive community they have built?
*Too bad we still reelected Mitch Daniels, but really, it would have been tough to beat him with a really great candidate - which we didn’t have.
I was unable to volunteer, couldn’t donate a dime and basically hate myself for it.
What I did do was thank every volunteer that called, talked to my friends and family, might have actually convinced a few people to vote for him.
Oh, and I used my gas guzzling minivan that I drive for an hour every morning and an hour every night in terrible rush hour traffic into a rolling billboard. I’ve had people honk and wave, honk and cuss and have generally sat there thinking about all the folks stuck in traffic behind me who couldn’t help but read it.
Thank you LOUNE.
Oh, we turned the country bluer than the electoral map alone shows. Go here and click the link that says “voting shifts” and feast your eyes on the sea of blue. Only 6 or 7 states out of 50 got “redder” this election cycle than last. All the rest, Blue, baby, Blue!
And apparently, Missouri is still undecided. It’s not likely, I admit, but it could still go to us.
Auntbeast, I can’t believe you would hate yourself for not doing more than you did. What you did do was incredible! Have you ever done even that much for a candidate before? You campaigned on the road with your vehicle and talked to people, convincing them to vote for Obama. That’s tremendous. Do not sell your contribution short – every vote counts, and so does every effort.
BaRock On!
Hey LOUNE baby, does that mean we’ll be seeing more of you around? I was just about to ask about you in the MMP.
Congratulations! Good job!
Hey, LOUNE, that sounds like it was an excellent experience. What was your typical day like? (Was there such a thing?)
And thanks for your work. Those volunteers wouldn’t have been effective without training, yanno.
GT
You’re very welcome, but again, thank our volunteers. We couldn’t have done it if real folks didn’t band together for a common goal.
What community do you speak of? Are you talking about the organizers, the volunteers, or both?
You did your part. I talked to people at the door, one lady comes to mind immediately. She answered the door around midday with a baby in her arms and two other very young kids following close behind. She said that if this were a few years ago, she’d have been right out there with me, leading the charge. Many people would have loved to have been more involved, but they weren’t. I was doing my damndest to go out there and do it for you. I remember the last time that Barack and I were in Michigan at the same time. He was relatively close by and every single volunteer I had was at the event. I sat there in an empty office for a few hours before closing up shop and hitting the pavement myself (which I did every day, whenever I could anyways). I decided that if my volunteers couldn’t be there, I had to pick up the slack, so that day alone, I knocked over 200 doors and walked about the distance of 6 miles.
You voted, and that was your part. Don’t feel ashamed.
…And dammit, stop thanking me! (insert smiley)
**Roo **and gt, yes, I’ll be around a lot more now. There was my typical day in Michigan where I’d be up and at the office by 9, catch up on emails/current events, be on a conference call, and then after that was over, I’d grab a snack and go register voters until the nightly conference call. After that, depending on what was going on in the community would be more voter registration until I went home. Repeat until clean. My turf in Michigan was pretty heavily registered, so after I got entrenched, my day was spent trying to get more volunteers until about 3 or 4, where I’d drive out to my turf and try to talk a volunteer into knocking doors with me in transit. I’d do that until about 8ish or dark, whichever came first. Then I’d go back and get on the call.
The higher ups asked if I could move to Indiana. I didn’t have a car, but I said that I’d do whatever I could. I told them that if scrubbing toilets for the last 3 weeks in Indiana will get us the win, then I’ll happily do it. My car was totalled in a wreck when I was still in Michigan, so I had to get a ride to Indiana from another organizer (thanks, Ana!) to South Bend. I crashed at a monastery, then hitched a ride to La Porte, Indiana where I helped get things back on track I was then asked to go to Michigan City, so I got a ride there and crashed at the house of the other organizer. The organizer there needed someone to handle a lot of the local political pressure he was facing and to take a lot of the operational burden off his shoulders because he was quickly getting burnt out (very common for people that had been on all through the primaries, like he had). So I did the superstar-traded-to-another-team-to-be-second-banana-to-win-a-championship-ring thing and helped get some order and energy for the home stretch.
During the last three days, I slept 4 hours. It was all about getting ready for the crash of volunteers, handling them, and getting the data back efficiently. Those last 4 days were tiring, but great. Constant work getting everything ready and up and running, getting things cleaned, anticipating problems and solving them before they happened and everything.
Oh yeah - well THANK YOU - and everyone who looks like you!!
Seriously, thanks to you and all the volunteers and everyone who helped make this happen. All I did was vote, and throw a little money at the campaign. Mostly buying t-shirts for my son, or chances in the “My Dinner With Obama” lotteries.
I was getting scared that Virginia would not turn blue, or that somehow McSame would pull out a win. After the historic horror that is the Duh-bya presidency, all I did was vote. That was my part, but it may not have been enough. Thank you for holding up my end.
And if you don’t like our thanks, accept on behalf of the campaign. Pass 'em on to all the people you worked with!
I will definitely do so. I need to get my hands on some decent letterhead and hand-deliver a bunch of letters to my former volunteers.
Bump if anyone’s interested.
Organizers and volunteers both, I think - I can’t imagine that an effort of the campaign magnitude could be sustained long term, but we saw a lot of people willing to put in a lot of time and energy and money for something they believe in. I really think people will be even more willing to pitch in and get things done together - just wondering if there might be plans to capitalize on that in some way.
During the campaign I was able to donate money but not much time, and I’m hoping there will be future opportunities to give time as well (without waiting until 2012!)
And I have thanked the volunteers I know, many times since the beginning of their service to the campaign. I should do that with much beer, as well 
Yes. There is an alumni email address I’m going to get, as well as other things coming down the pipeline. Hell, in two years, for congressional races, I’m one of the first people they’re going to be calling as far as a field plan goes. Also, planning has to be done for the inauguration, and they’re starting work on that as well.
Us getting Barack is step one. We’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ll be dipping into this vast network we’ve created periodically to get support going. I can’t speak authoritatively on the subject, but I’m willing to bet that the people that made this all happen (the volunteers) will be included. I know that I’ve got t get my rump into our systems and tag my top 20 volunteers. The campaign told us to.
For what? Well, we’ll have to all find out at the same time now, won’t we?
Can I ask the obvious question: how did you get the job in the first place? Obviously you volunteered, but you’re not at the base level.
There will be plenty of opportunities for you, I’m sure. You can keep yourself informed by signing up on barackobama.com (if you haven’t already) and checking in on change.gov.
Ah yes, my story.
I’ll give you the short version.
I was doing an internship for technical support for tax software. It ended and my former employer decided they didn’t need any more people, so they let me go. So a relatively short while down the road, I had the regimen that a lot of unemployed folks have. I visited Monster.com every day to see what was there, applied to many of them, and got responses from none. This one day, I rolled out of bed and plopped down at the computer. It was during the Democratic primaries and I was looking at results and I realized that I didn’t know much about Senator Obama, most noteworthy, because he was becoming the clear frontrunner. So I sat down and did some research. I liked what I was reading and realized that he was about some things that I could get behind. Unfortunately, it was already around 1 and I hadn’t accomplished anything, so I got over to Monster and typed in my zip code. The first return was an application to volunteer for the Obama Fellowship. That was a 6 week all-volunteer program in one of 26 battleground states. I applied for it thinking that I’d never get in, that the poli sci students had already flooded the positions, that the connected people would have already got in. In about 2 or three weeks, I got a call from one of the organizers that was in the area. She had come up after the South Carolina primaries. We chatted and had a phone interview. She said she’d call back. She did call back a week later and it was roughly a month before the fellowship program started. She said she was in town, that I was in town, and asked if I wanted to get started early. I agreed, and we started registering voters and securing resources. I had the foresight to save a decent amount of cash from my last job (read: $3000) and I lived off that. So, I volunteered for 12 to 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, until the end of the Fellowship, where the campaign extended me an offer to stay on as paid staff, which I happily accepted.