The local Obama organizer in Crawford county pa (yes in this red county we have our own organizer) made a great point at he last meeting. Election are won on one and one thing only: getting more people to vote on the day of the election in the right states than the opponent does.
Passion, knowledge for the issues and the biggest road sign there are will only make this Obama movement be the next Ron Paul (who still has the most signs around here and you see what that got him)
How can we give Obama the best chance to win? Not by spending hours on line pontificating about strategy, or moaning that "his commercials suck" or that he should have picked Biden over Hillary or thank God he picked Biden over Hillary. Won't help him win.
We have to win.
How:
- make sure you are registered to vote and make a point to vote come hell or high water.
- make your vote count more than once.
Number 1 is easy enough but #2? What? How?
a) Canvass in person.
b) Canvass by phone.
c) Register people to vote.
In my blood red county The Obama guy has registered hundreds of voters with our and other volunteers help. Most of these are young and in our Demographics; It is easy and simple and very gratifying. Over a 2 hr period we registered 88 people at the local campus; sure a lot of them were repubs (ugh a young republican!) but many many were not. I will take my 1/4 of those (Obama guy deserves 1/2 and my associate abbie the other 1/4 for 22 voters) maybe 2/3rds are dems so a net of 10.
And then canvassing yesterday got 2 people to change to lean obama to full obama when I explained the convoluted "aborted fetus born alive" fiasco in Illinois to her and her husband. (also reassured them that Obama was not going to take away their guns despite NRA mailing that said the opposite)
Got another woman to admit her life was a lot better when she was a Democrat and Clinton was President than when she was a Republican and Bush was (I'll give my friend nate credit for this one, rapid fire one after another but nice about it: "Do you like the economy? How about the war? How about gas prices? How about the constitution being stepped all over?") and we put her down as a "probably Obama."
And I'll take credit for the couple who went from lean mccain to undecided and promised to listen carefully to the debates and to realize that it is obama, not mccain, who is for middle class tax cuts and health insurance for all.
Finally we will take credit for the few people who simple said "we are for mccain" and did not want to talk why. Most were pleasant enough, a few were not but those are 5 or 6 more doors that no one else has to knock on, that no mailers have to be wasted on, that no one has to (or should) call on election day.
So stop your fretting and get to work. Start out by logging onto "mybarackobama.com"
You'll sleep a lot better no matter how this turns out, and its sweet getting to have your vote and voice count more than once.