Please share your stories of offline political activism here. (More)
This week my partner and I completed our GOTV packet, having called 1000 young Democratic women over the past two-plus weeks. The responses were better than I expected, and were even stronger in the past few days as voting by mail and early voting began. We left several hundred messages and had over 100 live conversations. Everyone we spoke with said they were planning to vote, and all but 8 said they would vote for President Obama and our state and local Democrats. Two women said they were voting for Mitt Romney, two were still undecided, and four declined to say.
I also staffed our county campaign office on Wednesday, where volunteers made over 300 calls and we also had a steady flow of local Democrats seeking yard signs, buttons, and bumper stickers for President Obama and our other candidates. I also fielded calls from voters who needed help with name changes and other registration information, and voters who wanted our recommendations on down-ballot issues such as judicial retention elections (we recommend YES on all) the proposed amendments to the Florida Constitution (we recommend NO on all).
We and our county’s other precinct leaders now begin our ‘chase’ calls, contacting voters-by-mail who were sent but have not yet returned their ballots. The ‘chase’ calls continue right up until November 6th, as in Florida the ballots can be hand-delivered to a county Supervisor of Elections office and will be accepted until 7pm on Election Day. I will be also staffing our campaign office on Election Day, to coordinate our phone banks as well as schedule rides to polling places.
October 29, 2012 at 8:06 am
Sounds good, Crissie.
We had our usual Wed/Thurs phonebank. Tip of the hat to the local businessman who lets us use his office to make calls. The calls were blah, and then double blah. We were asked to make calls to Republican women in the Alabama parts of Pennsylvania. (James Carville’s description.) I had probably 4 out of 5 respondents say Romney.
Thursday doubled-up as a phonebank day. While I was at the local businessman’s office, my colleague ran our 3rd latino phone bank. Better results but tons of not homes.
This weekend we transitioned to our Staging Location. Again, a local business person stepped forward to let us use her restaurant’s banquet room for our staging location.
On Saturday, we made 2957 calls the traditional way — bring your cell phone, here’s your list. But, we also went higher tech with predictive dialing technology. Log on to votebuilder, click on “NY to Ohio calls,” enter your phone number and let predictive dialer connect you to a live person. We had a small problem in that the signal in the location is weak. Our LI Field Director delivered some “Hot Spot” booster technology to improve our signal. Sunday, although we had fewer people and shorter – due to Sandy — hours, we probably made as many calls.
Some of our Southampton crew hopped on buses to PA again. We have about a dozen core OFA members who are just incredibly dedicated. Makes me smile.
Discordant note. On Friday I canvassed for Tim Bishop and wrapped up ED#37 canvassing. When we brought the canvass list back to Bishop campaign headquarters I said to the Bishop coordinator, “Still cautiously optimistic?” She crunched up her face and frowned. I can’t believe that voters are believing the Rovian B.S. pumped out by the Republican challenger. Hope Tim’s ground game pulls him through again. One of my friends is upset with me that I’ve been OFAing. But, like I’m reporting, I’ve canvassed an entire election district and early on made calls for Tim, and, given $.
I just made a decision that Obama’s reelection was more important but that I’d help Tim when I could.
October 29, 2012 at 9:10 am
Thank you for your activism, Mike!
I understand your decision to focus more on the presidential election than on Rep. Bishop’s campaign. I also share your hope that others in your local Democratic Party are working hard for Rep. Bishop and will pull him through.
October 29, 2012 at 8:39 am
I’ve been phone calling. Endlessly. Suffice it to say, I well exceeded the early promise I made to myself. This week we chase Vote by Mail people who have not yet submitted their ballots.
October 29, 2012 at 9:10 am
Thank you for your activism, winterbanyan!
Have you been getting good feedback in your calls?
October 29, 2012 at 8:45 am
We have phone banks Tuesday and Thursday and phones/canvas on Saturday and Sunday. Other DFL/OFA offices have stuff on M,W and F so I stop in at the St.Paul office those days.
We also use the predictive dialer and I have been training people on that. It does take a bit of getting used to to have the next call right there, kind of ready or not. Last Saturday, at 2 pm we’d made 8,000 calls and spoke with 1,700 voters just with the predictive dialing.
From now on we are not doing any data entry from the manual call sheets. We will turn those over to the DFL for use in 2014. The coordinated campaigns work pretty well here. I think the state house and senate races maybe come up a little short but they also have volunteers.
Hats off to the “comfort committee” who fed us very well on the weekend. Good sloppy joes and a great way for people who can’t imagine phoning to pitch in.
I also got to hear Dr. Jill Biden speak and send us off to canvas. She is/was very good.
October 29, 2012 at 9:12 am
Thank you for your activism, addisnana!
Does predictive dialing require you to use a cell phone, or can it work through an ordinary phone line?
I second your hat-tip to the “comfort committee.” That kind of support is so important, and it does bring in volunteers who couldn’t help otherwise.