I attended my local Democratic Party meeting, where we learned about the Florida Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign for the 2010 elections. (More)
One major change here is that Campaign for Accountability – the Florida version of Organizing for America – has become the voter outreach arm of the state party, so we now share volunteer information and outreach lessons from President Obama’s 2008 campaign. As discussed Thursday in Morning Feature, the change is already apparent in our voter outreach calling scripts, which focus more on open-ended questions and listening to voters.
In 2010 our outreach will focus on state issues and especially our governor’s race. We have a great Democratic candidate, Alex Sink, who is currently leading over Tea Party Republican Rick Scott. Scott was the CEO of Columbia/HCA in 1997 when the company was convicted and fined $1.4B for Medicare fraud. He wants to stop implementation of the 2010 health care act, duplicate Arizona’s unconstitutional immigration law, further limit women’s health care decisions, and break Florida’s public schools. We are also encouraging registered Democrats to vote in our state legislative races, which will be crucial as district lines are redrawn after the 2010 census. I’m making GOTV calls, and will also be helping to coordinate volunteers at our county Democratic Party office.
Please share your stories of offline political activism here.
I phonebanked several times this week. I was distressed by the number of disconnected numbers, because it would seem to indicate the toll the economy has taken among people who have been established in my area for a while.
On the other hand, there’s the joy of speaking to people who say, “I’m voting a straight Dem ticket, so call someone else who needs a reminder. ” 🙂
What I’m not so far finding is dithering or uncertainty. That could change, I suppose.
Thank you for your activism, winterbanyan. I’ve also spoken with voters who plan to vote a straight Democratic ticket, which is very encouraging. And I’ve had fewer completely negative responses this year than I expected, though that may be because this year my county party’s voter outreach campaign is focused on registered Democrats.
In our community, disconnects are not that uncommon…there is a lot of low-income housing. They also go in spurts. Our calling list is in order by phone numbers (so we can tell if voters are in the same house and avoid calling them twice). When I am in the exchanges that I know are in the cell phone blocks, the disconnects are more frequent.
Good job, winterbanyan. Glad to see you hanging in there. This work is so important.
I phonebanked twice this past week. On Wednesday, I signed up two volunteers on the spot and got commitments from two others who need to check their schedules.
Yesterday, we started phase II of our voter outreach. We are calling people not to get them to volunteer but just to remind them of what we have done and that we need congressional majorities to help President Obama meet his objectives. This list is all people who (in theory) voted for Obama in 2008 and have not been contacted since.
Lots of disconnects, lots of no one homes but my first connected call gave me a thrill:
The woman on the other end said “I’ve been waiting for you to call! Why aren’t we doing more to reach voters?” When I asked her if she would be willing to help, she said “Absolutely…where do I sign up?”. Got her all the info. That was a great way to start the day. I dialed 98 numbers, connected with a couple dozen people, and only had one person who “is going to vote against Obama this fall to get him out of there”. I did not have the heart to tell her that Obama was not really on the ballot…in the way that would “get him out of there”…I am hoping that her state of cluelessness extends to not knowing her way to the polling place.
Sorry, that was mean.
Thank you for your activism, Jan. And that’s great news about your response rates. Just getting an answer on 1-in-4 calls is excellent. That only 1-in-98 was really negative is astonishing.
I had my first “Deceased”. That one is hard to deal with.
And one guy, when I asked “how are you this afternoon?” said “not so good” and told me that he had buried his son 2 days before. Calling someone on the phone can connect you to another human’s pain. Dealing with it with kindness and courtesy reminds the Democrat on the other end of the line why we are Democrats … because we care about each other. If one person thinks of me as “that nice person from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and Organizing for America” that is a win also.