Anyone who has been doing any door knocking or phone banking, please let us know about your experiences, including as much detail about your area as you feel comfortable revealing. And if anyone wants any suggestions about how to contribute, just ask.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Not field work, just anecdotal:
My dad, a 60 Something former R as of 2008, finally convinced his longtime girlfriend to vote for O in Toledo. The reason: gift from God rape comment from Mourdock. Joe the Plumber lives in dad’s development.
Early voting in Ocracoke and Dare County, NC is shut down because of Hurricane Sandy.
I’m really beginning to wonder about the potential impact this thing. Could it be a game changer for someone?
Pennsylvania. If the eastern part of the state cannot vote it could turn Romney.
I’m on my way out the door so this will be a hit + run comment, but I’ll check any replies tomorrow.
I live in Michigan and it’s pretty much a lock for Obama here. But Ohio is obviously still very much a toss up, and may decide the election. Any advice for an out of stater trying to help out in a neighboring state? What should I be doing? Should I phone bank, or actually go down there next weekend since I’m only 45 minutes away? Any other suggestions?
And I promise I will not mention the fact that their football team is garbage 🙂
Whenever I did out of state stuff it was because I knew who the field organizers were. In 2008 I knew a few in Nevada and Pennsylvania, and they had me phone bank for them to pick up some of the slack at the office. It’s also very easy as you can do it at your house.
I usually volunteer out of state, sometimes a place I’ve lived before so I’m familiar with the area but sometimes not. In the past, in my experience, especially if you have a car, but even if you don’t there’s alot you can do. If you decide on phonebanking since it’s only 45 minutes away, I’d still recommend going there to phonebank from an Obama site there. Makes a difference to be in the place if possible in my experience. I’ve done door-to-door in regions I didn’t know at all and it was fine. Driving people and supplies here and there, for example. Of course you could go around wearing Romney garb to Romney voters and talk about football.
I would suggest that you go to the Balloon Juice website. Kay is one of the front pagers and she is very active and very plugged in to OFA in Ohio. You can send her an email by clicking her name in the list of front pagers on the main page. If you don’t normally post at balloon juice, just tell Kay that WaterGirl sent you.
http://www.balloon-juice.com
Many of my OFA group are and have been working parts of Ohio for some time, mostly phone banking. Those who couldn’t go are continuing the GOTV here. OFA in Indiana is coordinating with state and local Dem organizations like never before and the software continues to improve.
I’m really baffled that more teachers are not involved, especially after the assaults on public ed and their unions earlier this year. The info I got from a former teacher’s union leader is fear for their jobs and conservative mind set, at least around these parts.
Yes, this continues to confuse me. I am in SD, and am campaigning on education. There is a TERRIBLE education bill which is up on a statewide referendum. SD pays teachers at the lowest rate in teh country. Yet, I cannot get teachers to help my campaign. Annoying.
Teachers can be job-scared unless there is a strong union to back them.
Probably the case. The union is very weak here. Teachers are not allowed to strike. I actually think that strikes do not work with teachers anyway.
Here’s a comment I just read from Kay at Balloon Juice: (see my previous reply for more info)
kay Says:
If anyone is in the Ft Wayne Indiana area and wants to help in Ohio, they could use you in Henry and Defiance Counties.
They need you for the last 4 days of GOTV.
Either call Ohio OFA or just show up. Both counties have field offices.
Henry or Defiance, any of the last 4 days, including election day.
These are GOP Counties, predominently. It’s about an hour, hour and a half (depending) from Ft. Wayne.
I knocked on my 619th door yesterday for Claire McCaskill in Missouri. President Obama is not as popular, Governor Nixon (D) is very popular. I hate to say that there are a lot of bigoted religious extremists here, afraid of socialism, too. One piece of advice: if you don’t hear the doorbell when you press it, try knocking. I was surprised how often the bell just doesn’t ring–every contact helps!
I ring the doorbell, wait 5 sec, then knock. I also wait for the dogs to bark, since about everyone has dogs.
Done some phone banking in very blue Seattle, WA. Because we’re new to this, the OFA office gave us sheets to contact volunteers and a little script to help us along. Ended up ditching the script and saying “You got your ballot, dammit, now don’t forget to vote!” and “Could you volunteer a bit?”
Helps a teensy bit (especially on the local races) and it does feel good. About a 10% contact rate.
As I have indicated to you, Boo, I am running for State Senate in SD. I will not indicate where or what district, but I have been knocking on doors since after Labor Day.
I am running primarily on education. This gets a good reception from 95% of people I talk to.
I don’t knock for Obama, for Matt Verilek, or anyone else. I knock only for myself.
Good luck to you, dataguy. I’ve run and won 5 times now at the county level. Too damn old and tired to take it further up the food chain to the state lege.
I am running against an established incumbent on the R ticket. The only thing that gives me a reasonable chance is that my opponent has been substantially redistricted, to the point that only 16-18% of the district have ever seen that person’s name on a ballot. Plus many consider that person to be a negative reason to vote.
Tomorrow brings another 6 hours of door knocking.
Good luck, man. I know sometimes we’ve had our disagreements, but solidarity is very important. I’m so glad that many people are branching from volunteering to actually running.
I have a friend who made calls with me in 2008. Now he’s running for mayor (in Texas).
Georgia black turnout on record pace
So after all that hoopla over the OTR interview by Obama, the DMR endorsed Romney Whatever, DMR, whatever.
Obama up 4+ in VA, I’m betting the foreign policy debate hit home for the military wing of the VA.
WaPo Poll: Obama Still Above 50 Percent, Holds 4-Point Lead In Virginia
Just finished a hot day of canvassing here in SoCal for my favorite State Senator, Fran Pavley (she wrote California’s cap-and-trade bill). We’re also doing work for Julia Brownley who’s running in one of the most important red-to-blue races in the country. Don’t have a very good anecdotal sense of “how things are going” because we’re mostly in GOTV mode now and are using Democratic lists. But people seem enthusiastic and eager to vote FWIW.
I posted this information in a previous thread, but I will say again; The ground game in VA is in the process of “dry runs” for Election Day with an impressive system of information-sharing from the ground to Messina to Obama in 35-45 minutes. With this system, they can begin transferring volunteers from one precinct/area to another as needed. The ground game here has only improved since 2008. I was in awe of the organization and the numbers of volunteers prepared to roll (and are of course already rolling for months and months).
Not doing field work per se, but I am poll watching all day every day through election day. I’m in Illinois, our county clerk is republican, and his office has been screwing around with people who come in to vote, in all the ways you can imagine. Especially change of address issues and “grace voting”, where you can register and vote even after the voter registration deadline has passed. He doesn’t even have grace voting anywhere on his website. I loathe this man.
Although Illinois will surely go for Obama, there are two races that he no doubt cares deeply about: one hotly contested red-to-blue congressional race, and his own reelection.
That kind of screwing around with voters is a big part of how I first got politically involved. We had a republican county clerk here when I was in college, and he did everything possible to interfere with college students voting. That was the one and only election in 40 years of voting where I voted republican. (Unless you count the primary where I voted republican in the hopes of keeping daddy Bush off the ballot for the general.)