Fables of the reconstruction

Obama Volunteer Organizing Website to Remain Up

An intriguing announcement from Obama staffer Chris Hughes about the site referred to as "myBO":

Over the past 21 months, millions of individuals have used My.BarackObama to organize their local communities on behalf of Barack Obama.  The scale and size of this community and its work is unprecedented.  Individuals in all 50 states have created more than 35,000 local organizing groups, hosted over 200,000 events, and made millions upon millions of calls to neighbors about this campaign.  There can be no question that these local, grassroots organizations played a critical role in Tuesday's victory.

What has made My.BarackObama unique hasn't been the technology itself, but the people who used the online tools to coordinate offline action.  My.BarackObama has always been focused on using online tools to make real-world connections between people who are hungry to change our politics in this country.

And the site isn't going anywhere.  The online tools in My.BarackObama will live on.  Barack Obama supporters will continue to use the tools to collaborate and interact.  Our victory on Tuesday night has opened the door to change, but it's up to all of us to seize this opportunity to bring it about.

In the coming days and weeks, there will be a great deal more information about where this community will head.  For the moment, let's celebrate this victory and know that the community we've built together is just the beginning.

This is potentially a huge deal. Obama built a volunteer army of millions and has just announced that he's not disbanding it. This could give the new President a built-in lobbying tool he can use immediately. If the site continues to be successful, those millions of volunteers will be in place and organizing themselves when the midterms roll around. And again in the 2012 election. With improvements to the site, organizing could get hyper-local. Forget a 50-state strategy; give me a 3,141-county strategy.

(I am assuming all of this is allowed under campaign finance law, which I am not an expert in. MyBO is an asset owned by the Obama '08 campaign. My understanding is that leftover campaign assets can be used for any lawful purpose, so long as they are not converted to personal use. I suppose that means Obama could lend myBO to his administration for organizing volunteers around specific issues. He also could lend it to the DNC for party-building purposes. Then he could take it back to use it to run for re-election.)

Update 11/10/08: It's officially an Obama administration lobbying and mid-term election tool.

Benefits of an Obama Administration: Part I

Justice David Souter, age 69.
Justice Stephen Breyer, age 70.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, age 75.
Justice John Paul Stevens, age 88.

Part one of a semi-regular feature.

Election Night in the East Village

Fucking hippie faggot traitors:

They're not fooling anyone, you know. They're still secretly in league with al Qaeda and were secretly elated when the towers fell. I know, I saw how they acted.

Yes, They Did

John Lloyd of Drexel Democrats:

In 2004, 736 people voted in the 10th division of the 24th ward, which encompasses all of the dorms. That was 51% of registered voters. This year, there were 2054 voters, representing nearly 75% turnout, and 77% of those voters voted for now President-Elect(!) Obama. ...

The dormitories, some of the fraternaties/sororities, and a few houses at Drexel netted Obama more votes than John McCain netted in each of 9 other [Pennsylvania] counties that McCain won (Mercer, Greene, Fayette, Clinton, Forest, Cameron, Sullivan, Wyoming, and Pike counties). Those 9 counties (colored in red, at left) cover an average of 579 square miles each and are home to an average of 50,000 people each, and we provided Obama with a bigger lead in 24-10 than McCain got from each of those 9 rural counties, and more than Mercer, Greene, Fayette, Clinton, and Forest counties combined.

As I previously mentioned, the Drexel Dems registered 3,000 people to vote between move-in day for the fall semester and the deadline of October 6th.

I would bet you anything that the number from Centre County, where Penn State is located, tell a similar story.  Young people came out to vote in droves. Now they're political. Another reason to thank President-elect Obama and his team.

"I Agree With You, I Want to Do It, Now Make Me Do It."

What Digby said.

Annoying People Wandering Aimlessly

If it weren't so funny, this would hit a little too close to home:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Reaction Shots

We were all sitting in the barber shop chairs in the polling place for Philly ward 34, division 1 around 7:30 p.m., and no more voters were appearing out of the dark and rain. One of the committeewoman's friends entertained us with stories of how, since she was studying to be an usher in her church, she was cutting back on fornication. She now limited herself to one man, not husband material but someone with the necessary equipment and skills, and when the needs of the flesh got to be too strong, she'd take him on a vacation to her timeshare to satisfy that desire, and then would come back home and pray for forgiveness, until next time. The Lord would understand.

Someone wandered in and announced, "He's losing." Apparently things looked bleak in Virginia, where the polls had closed at 7. Obama was also going down to defeat in North Carolina, allegedly. Gloom set in. Somebody said maybe it was a good thing he didn't win. "Two wars and a recession? Maybe it's better to dump it all on McCain." Someone said he would have been assassinated anyway. The question of whether there would be riots came up. We decided there wouldn't be.

A short collection of Philly election images:

Video of Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins introducing Joe Biden on Election day eve, 2008.

Polling places and celebration from the always-awesome Zoe Strauss. Buy the book.

Albert Yee on the streets and inside the Obama Chinatown office.

Andrew from the Malcolm X Park blog with video from 52nd Street in West Philly.

The Very Fact of a President Obama Helps America Project Military Power Worldwide

Out of all of the many good reasons to vote for him, one of them was that a President Obama would improve America's standing in the world. What few people may have realized is that one way that higher standing manifests itself is in the effect on the U.S. military's propaganda war with Islamist militants:

One of the themes of this conference was information operations, or "IO" -- how the U.S. can influence others around the world. This officer and other conference-goers were disgusted, by how badly the U.S. had bungled this war of ideas, and allowed opinions about America to sink so low. Candidate Obama, the group concluded, was the best IO campaign America had had in years. Allies were more ready to listen. Enemies' narratives about America were being undercut.

Seven years after 9/11, Americans overwhelmingly elected a black man whose father was Muslim. That new President has promised to use the power of the United States to defeat the enemies of freedom worldwide. This isn't mere symbolism.

Everything's All Better Now

Proposition 8, making gay people second-class citizens again, passed in California, with the strong support of Latinos and African-Americans. Whites and Asians opposed it. In the last days of the campaign, then-candidate Obama didn't lift a finger to stop it, probably fearing the loss of his stupendous edge among black voters nationwide. And he probably could have stopped it, because California African-Americans and Latinos voted for him 94% and 74%, respectively. Now he's won by stepping on the bodies of 50,000 children of gay couples in California. That's some whoop-de-doo change, buddy.

Obama has spoken nice words about promoting transparency in government using all this technology that was developed during the campaign. For example, the incoming administration has set up a website, change.gov, to manage the transition. It is password-protected.

Obamania!

Update: Apparently they fixed it; change.gov no longer requires a username and password. It will be interesting to see how they work in the Obama logo or some reference to it in the inauguration.

I'm Worse at What I Do Best

Old music for a new day.

We All Won

It was a long day yesterday. Watching Keith Olbermann call it for Obama at 11 p.m. was sweet, but it didn't totally feel real. Then we went out on the street and found crowds gathered in the middle of Broad St., just like for the Phillies only sober. People throughout the city were cheering, or driving around honking their horns and screaming out of their car windows. We killed a couple of bottles of champagne and ended up on a fire escape eight floors up, just listening to the noise. I spent the last three days shouting to be heard as I trained people to phonebank, so I didn't feel like screaming, just hearing other people be happy.

Like the man said in his victory speech, the election itself is not what we're after. It was a Dem win, but it has to be a win for more people than just those who voted for Obama, or it was pointless. I hope that Obama keeps his central promise in last night's speech, the one about always being straight with us. Sometimes running things make promises of honesty harder to fulfill, although undoubtedly Obama's first instinct is to tell the truth.

He definitely was right that accomplishing change will require hard work, and I hope the people who mobilized to win the election will be called on to help win the policy fight. He was also right that change will require sacrifice, but Americans will sacrifice together if called upon to do it by someone who seems to understand what he is asking for, and why.

So, I'm very happy today, but worn out. I'm jubilant that a huge part of humanity who felt disregarded see recognition of themselves as worthy in the face of the new American president. It was wonderful to hear the cheers and the car horns. I just need more sleep now.

America Won

Champagne.

Voter Suppression Tactic in Philly

I'm in the 36th ward in West Philly. Anonymous text messages are being sent to Obama voters giving them inaccurate information that will result in them not casting the vote for Obama. Alert everyone that if you vote straight Democrat in Philadelphia, press the top (party) button and then do NOT press the Obama button. The red light next to Obama's name should be lit and steady.

This is It

Now go vote.

The Conservative Version of "I'm Moving to Canada"

Except they're moving to a gulch, and taking their love robots with them.

This Fucking Election

In block text form. Remember "Double Gitmo"? I don't.

(Via O.W.)

Here's My Weekend

If you can't read that, on Sunday our 76-person phonebank crew made 7,416 phone calls, and reached 1,210 voters, of whom 889 were Obama supporters. This was mainly calling into the Philly neighborhood of Fishtown, which was made famous here. 

Lists are prequalified so that we're only calling people with certain voter characteristics, including new voters and infrequent Democratic voters. This was a "tier 3" list, which means that our confidence in the data is only so-so. There are many, many disconnected phones in a list like that, but every one we cross off is one fewer call we have to make tomorrow.

Of the people who we talked to who are not Obama supporters,  a large percentage refused to answer. This might be because they're voting for McCain and fear a confrontation, or they may just not like telling people stuff like that over the phone. A fair portion of the non-supporters are undecideds, or at least that's what they say.

Totals for the weekend: 13,469 calls made, 2,148 voters spoken with, of whom 1,679 are for Obama. Fifty new volunteers were recruited. Simultaneously, we had a canvassing operation going that was far larger. There are ten field offices like mine in Philadelphia, in addition to headquarters.

More tomorrow.

Update: Here's a bigger operation not far from here in Delaware. One day, 20,000 calls.

Pennsylvania Polls Open in 24 Hours

In 24 hours, people will start voting in Pennsylvania.

Like a lot of volunteers and Obama supporters, I am suddenly anxious. Not because there is any particular cause to be anxious, but just that the end of the process is upon us. It seems like the year flew by. It's already November 3rd? Wasn't it just last week that we finished voter registration? A friend of mine admitted that she hadn't been putting time into the campaign because she was still PTSD from 2004; I think I have been volunteering so much for the same reason.

We have a French television crew who has been camping out in the office, taping the process and interviewing volunteers and staff. One of our more committed volunteers is a young woman from England who flew in for the week just to work for Obama. I realized from them that this campaign is a strange phenomenon to people around the world. Our election system mystifies them: You have to register to vote? And still not everyone votes? And then the way you cast and count the votes differs from state to state, county to county?

The personal interactions are strongly American. People of very different backgrounds from across the city walk in off the street and are immediately put to work together. A second-generation Chinese-American guy meets the Society Hill philanthropist and they handle putting the lit together. A North Philly thug with scars on his face makes phone calls with the wife of the former city editor of the Daily News. The young English woman, from a noble Arab family, hits it off with a Louisiana Jew and they go out to dinner.

I now am overseeing three divisions in West Philly on election day, not one. I have five out-of-state attorneys who will assist; I was introduced to them via email last night at 11:30. We will start at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow and wrap up sometime after 8:30 p.m. Yikes.

One Day Left

Local programming:

Obama Time

It's been a full house all day. It's 8 p.m. and we're making calls into Fishtown, having exhausted Ward 5. We passed our total for yesterday, 6,000 calls, at 6 p.m.

There are 200,000 Obama volunteers in Pennsylvania. Yesterday, they knocked on 800,000 doors and made 500,000 phone calls.

We start with fresh lists and door it again tomorrow.

All data via Pennsylvania Voter Protection.

Obama Time

How to Vote in Philadelphia

This is pretty cool. A video on how to use Philadelphia voting machines, pamphlets you can print and distribute in your neighborhood, and a tool that lets you look up your polling place (but only if you give your email address - sneaky.)

One aspect of the video people may find strange. The presenter emphasizes that if you vote straight Democrat, then you should not then also select Obama's name again. Are Philadelphia voters especially stupid that they require this explanation? No, not especially. The problem is that this procedure is exactly what you have to do if you vote straight Democrat and want to also vote for Obama in North Carolina. Apparently, the warnings there about how to do it right have spread as rumor and now people here think it applies to Pennsylvania.

Possible Dirty Tricks Operation in Pennsylvania

DocJess at DemConWatch:

The big problem we had yesterday was the number of callers who reported that this was the second or third call that they'd gotten TODAY. The standard, correct, and TRUE answer is that we were calling from the National Campaign, but there were other groups with access to the same lists who could have called. Namely, Women for Obama, Jews for Obama, Hispanics for Obama, Catholics for Obama, etc., etc., PLUS Move-On, SEIU, the state Democratic Party....but there was something to the information we were getting from respondents that was a little off.

It took a few hours to figure out, but it turns out that SOMEONE - and I do not know who (although I certainly have my suspicions) is calling our people and saying the following: Hi, I'm so-and-so for the Obama campaign, reminding you that Election Day is Tuesday, and your polling place is (this location).Problem is, that "polling place" is incorrect. The ramifications of which are obvious.

So we're all over this, but for all of you that think PA is won - how do the opinion and tracking polls pick up that people may be sent to the wrong location, stand in line for an hour, and then get told that no, this is not your polling place? Will the voters be willing to go to another place? Wait in line again?

The "wrong calls" are targetted to younger and lapsed voters, also to new-to-the-area voters, and they very well might not know where their polling place is.

The other obnoxious thing we found out is that some older voters are receiving calls which offer to send cars for them. And when we ask WHO is coming for them, they realize that there was no name left, no contact phone number. Another set of problems.

I will alert my phonebankers today to this problem. I will also ask permission from the campaign to have our people affirmatively warning voters of this tactic.

Why McCain is in Pennsylvania and Other Obama States

I've frequently wondered why McCain is spending money and time trying to win in lost-cause states like Pennsylvania. Nate Silver at 538 has offered the explanation that early-voting states are even lost-causyer, but Pennsylvania has no early voting, so he's coming here as his last, least-worst hope. (Diagram that sentence.)

I now have a new, additional theory: Maverick! McCain thinks he's still a fighter pilot, and fighter pilots believe battles are won by attacking, not defending. When Obama started playing in the Republican end of the field, McCain's instinct was to "take it to him" on Obama's territory, despite the fact that McCain's campaign lacks the effective ability to "take it to him".

I have to add: This is the difference between a captain and a general. McCain has once again demonstrated his lack of judgment.

Two Days Left

If you haven't volunteered yet, you probably aren't going to now. You lazy fuck.

Today we're putting out doorhangers rather than canvassing. Much less stressful on the volunteers.

Monday we contact our entire GOTV universe again, then Tuesday morning around 3 a.m. we put out different doorhangers. At 7 a.m. polls open in Pennsylvania.

Daylight Saving Time Ends

One extra hour of sleep tonight. Turn your clocks back if you haven't already.

For What It's Worth

I don't believe this was an actual McCain campaign-supervised volunteer who made this call:

Friday night (which happens to be the start of our Sabbath) my wife answered the phone to hear a man stating he was from the McCain-Palin campaign. He asked who she was supporting. She replied that we will vote for Obama. He replied with "but he's a f-----g n---er!". Before I get to my wife's response I'll first have to say that I understand desperation and I also understand that this pitch may actually work for a few people. I also understand that there are people who are whack-jobs phone-banking for both sides. But here are some facts:

My wife and I are Black. Citing the fact that Obama is a f----g n---er as a way to sway our vote may not be a great idea. My wife and I live in Maryland... Baltimore, MD.... One of the most African American areas of Baltimore Maryland. How on earth did our phone numbers get on to a McCain volunteers phone bank list of potential voters to be calling at this stage in the game? We have never received a call from the Obama campaign.

As I said, for what it's worth. If any one of my phonebank volunteers lit into a tirade against McCain or Palin personally, they'd be off the phone and off the team instantly. Can't trust someone like that to interact with voters at all.

To believe that a McCain staffer sat there and listened to a volunteer make a call where he uses a racial slur is simply beyond belief.

(Via.)

Update: I don't believe this happened this way, either:

A Grosse Pointe Farms woman has doled out political tricks by refusing Halloween treats to children whose parents support Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Shirley Nagel passed out candy Friday — but only to those who shared her support for Republican presidential candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin.

Fox 2 News says a sign posted outside Nagel's house, about 12 miles west of Detroit, served notice to all trick-or-treaters. It read: "No handouts for Obama supporters, liars, tricksters or kids of supporters."

Nagel tells WJBK-TV that "Obama's scary." When asked about children who'd been turned away empty-handed and crying, she said: "Oh well. Everybody has a choice."

Okay. So, wait. Stupid conservative lady decides to be a total asshole and turn kids away. Check. How does she know who is an Obama supporter? I guess it could be it's just the black kids, or maybe she knows the people in her neighborhood who are Obama supporters. But if she has that level of detail in her relationships with her neighbors that she (a) knows who they will vote for and (b) hates them enough to do this stunt, then - why would any of these neighbors send their kids to the door? After seeing the "No Obama kids" sign? Makes no fucking sense.

Numbers

Day 1 of GOTV: 1,119,422 GOTV shifts worked.

Since voter contact effort started on 8/29, 13.3 million voters contacted. That's not phonecalls or doorknocks, that's times we talked to the voter.

We have registered 1,900,000 new voters this year.

There are 20,000 people on this conference call.

Barack is on now, saying thanks.
Update: All numbers above are from Jon Carson, national field director.

I helped run the phonebank at my office today. Total of 6,000 calls made, and 1,000 voters reached.

Obama GOTV: Saturation

People are tired. And people are tired of us. Too many of us are trying to reach the same voters. Not as bad as four years ago, but it's still happening.

Obama GOTV: Philly Chinatown Office

Hundreds of volunteers streaming in to knock on doors in Ward 5. A bus from New York just disgorged 50 Catonese-speaking canvassers, all pre-equipped with match hats.

Three Days Left

 It's November 1 at 7 a.m. In 30 minutes, I leave in order to pick up my poll watcher's certificate and Obama voter protection credentials for election day. Then I go to the office getting ready for the volunteers to come in from everywhere to help canvass my ward. At 10 a.m., we head out, carrying walklists like the ones in the picture. Last canvassing shift ends at 7 p.m. Throughout the day, the canvassing results are run back to Obama Philly headquarters where they are data-entered. After we're done tonight, new walklists are printed and we do it again tomorrow. And then again on Monday.

If you can, volunteer in a swing state tomorrow. Or make phone calls from home. Or if neither of those things appeals, just sign up and find out where your nearest office is, and go there. They'll put you to work.

You have something better to do?