:dubious:
You wouldn’t happen to be originally from Boston, would you?
“Vote often and early
For James Michael Curley…”
By the bye, I’m doing desk duty weekly at the local Dem HQ and will be driving voters to the polls on Election Day. Also buying Obama swag online and donating it to the HQ – we can’t keep it in stock.
I’ve been doing all I can to get students to register to vote. I’ll admit I might not be as enthusiastic if most of the students at the school weren’t black and thus likely to vote for Obama.
Beyond that, the irritation of living in a red state is that there’s not a lot I can do other than make it a little purple. AND to vote for Democratic candidate Bobby Bright (mayor of Montgomery and a very decent man who’s done some good things for the city) as Congressman rather than the Talibama horror Jay Love (Republican and hard-core Fundie)- they’re running a very tight race at the moment. Any Democratic Congressional gain will help.
ETA: And it’s Obamajadin, damn it! (Alternate spellings: Obamajadeen, Obamajideen, Obamajahadin; once D.C. is safely renamed Obamajad we can standardize a spelling.)
Just in case anyone is reading this and they are also a government employee who had been considering volunteering for a campaign, there are only a handful of agencies in which Federal employees cannot engage in political activity on their own time. Those agencies are things like the CIA, FBI, Federal Elections Commission, the Secret Service, and a handful of others.
If you don’t work for one of those agencies, you are free to participate in handing out election materials, helping GOTV, contributing to candidates, etc. (The only major exception is that you cannot receive campaign contributions for a candidate.)
More on the Hatch Act is here:
http://www.osc.gov/ha_fed.htm
I will be contributing substantial tax revenues to my state, in the form of alcohol purchases.
Don’t make that assumption. My fuckwit uncle-in-law is black; so is my 21-year-old cousin who has proudly proclaimed his intention to vote for McCain. As for your red state issue, I like to think of what I do in Tennessee as being one more thing that forces McCain to counter and thus expend his scarce resources.
Students are going to be a bulky group this election year. Obama has really made it a priority to get the vote out in the colleges and universities throughout America. I love seeing so many young people so excited to vote for Obama.
One suggestion would be to write an OP ED to your local paper praising the younger generation in getting the vote out. No matter who they vote for as long as they go to the polls. Most will lean Obama I’m sure.
My wife has worked for the Obama campaign full time for over 4 months. My son has been a full time organizer and is heading to Indiana tonight. I helped organize the Dearborn office and have been doing door to door canvassing. My feet hurt.
The Dearborn office would put anyone to work on phones or canvassing. They also could use office help from data processing to answering phones.
Can you point any Indiana Dopers to ways they can help now that we’re in the final stretch?
“what do do” is superfluous.
Anyway, I volunteered to canvas on Monday, but was so worn out from the holiday weekend I didn’t show up. Perhaps I’ll try to make it out soon, but it’s quite difficult to find time these days. I know I owe it to my country and all, so I’ll be putting forth sincere effort to make it at least once or twice.
Me too. I want to help, but the Hatch Act specifically says no.
Sigh.
Print out this bumper sticker and get all of your friends and family that support Obama to put this on their cars. It’ll guarantee a win, I just know it. Once people see thousands of Obamanauts out on the roads, they’ll be intrigued and will become more inclined to vote Obama. Flawless plan.
There is one way to win an election. It is a lot of work but quite straightforward and even has a catchy acronym - IDGOTV.
It sounds trite, but elections are won and lost on how many voters are identified in advance, and brought to the polling stations. So there are really only two steps:
If you are the candidate, or close to them, you can increase the numbers in step 1 by convincing each of your constituents to vote for you. A local politician once told me “it’s easy to win an election - all you have to do is visit each of your constituents three times.” However, this is an inefficient use of time for most campaign workers. Most are not as persuasive as Obama or his highly qualified communications people, so leave the convincing to them.
The most efficient use (in terms of volunteer effort:votes received) of the average campaign worker’s time is identifying voters in the district. Don’t waste your time at the door (or on the phone) arguing with people - even if it wins a vote (which is not always likely, lots of people make a sport of arguing with door-to-door/phone canvassers just for fun), it will be only one vote, and you will have less time and energy to identify a bunch more voters. Only once you’ve got a “vote for Obama” or “vote for someone else” or “undecided” beside every single name on your voter’s list, should you be spending your time trying to convince people of anything.
I am worried that so much of Obama’s support comes from people who haven’t voted before (youth, students, etc). Please make sure they vote. I can’t help because I live in a different country (and I don’t know any Democrats Abroad) but I want to urge you all to dedicate your efforts to IDGOTV. It seems like a thankless and boring task but it is absolutely vital.
On Election Day they will need people to call down their lists of identified voters, and to drive these voters to polling stations. If you can’t do anything else, do that.
Kyla, if you head to Goshen, Indiana, you’ll be helping me out. The campaign redeployed me from Dearborn, Michigan to Goshen, Indiana. Hi, Philosophr. Hi Skald.
What can you do? Get your ass to your local office. You’re in a very safe state either way? Let me know. I can get you in touch with a virtual phone bank to talk to undecided, leaning, and sporadic Dem voters from the comforts of your own home.
All the work we’ve done as far as voter registration is all for naught unless we get these folks to the polls.
Change of plans. I’m now in Laporte, Indiana.
Edited to add: Apparently La Porte is the hometown of one Slug Sigorino. If that’s not a reason for Dopers to come here, then I don’t know what is.
Obamatrons?
Obamamias?
McCain-naughts?
