When the chips were down in the fight to defeat Richard Pombo in California's 11th Congressional district in 2006, there was one woman who stood up and counted more.
Her name is Martha Gamez and I wrote about what she did at that decisive moment in Tracy, California here.
Tracy is Richard Pombo's home town. Martha and her band of canvassers (of which I was a part) defeated Richard Pombo right there, on the doorsteps of voters who wanted a change but just needed a fellow citizen to help them on that path. Martha turned Tracy, California blue.
Taking it to Tracy has come to represent for me the idea of defeating your opponent on their home turf, where they are strong, one voter at a time at their front doors.
I think the Democratic nomination will be determined by who takes it to Tracy in the remaining contests for pledged delegates to our convention in Denver....
Now, Barack Obama lost CA-11. At the current count of the provisional returns he lost by a margin of 15%, an even greater spread than the CNN reports of the overall CA returns of 52% to 42%. But those numbers are going to change. Enormous numbers of votes have yet to be counted in California, as in other primary states. You can read more about this in dday's essay at Calitics here.
Regardless, I'm not going to sugar coat this story. I hate to lose. My candidate, Senator Barack Obama, lost the state of California overall on Super Tuesday, including, in all likelihood, the battle for Tracy, California. Senator Hillary Clinton won California on the strength of Latino voters (including tens of thousands of Latinos under 30...whose turnout is simply a great story for our party and California), Asian-American voters, women and seniors. Whatever the final delegate and popular vote count, and I have reason to believe it will be closer than what the CA Secretary of State website currently indicates, that is a clear victory for Hillary Clinton in the nation's largest state. Despite winning the votes of whites and African-Americans, Barack Obama lost the Golden State. Hillary Clinton "took it to Tracy" in my home state, she won the youth vote, Obama's forte, and for that I salute her.
I remain resolute, however, in support of Barack Obama. Super Tuesday may not have given him California, but Super Tuesday did give Barack Obama the overall victory where it counts, in the battle for pledged delegates across the United States.
Because the delegate counting is so complicated, that story has not really been given the attention it deserves. In my view, that's a travesty; the "perception game" is no way to pick the next President of the United States, especially when the perception covered in the press is dead wrong.
Here are some underreported stories from Super Tuesday: Barack Obama won Connecticut. Barack Obama won Georgia. Barack Obama won Illinois. Barack Obama won Missouri. Barack Obama won Minnesota. Barack Obama won Colorado. In fact, when all is said and done and certified Barack Obama will have won the majority of states and the majority of pledged delegates on Super Tuesday (as well as the votes of the majority of the voters if you count, as you should, caucus participants)...and for those who poo-poo some of those smaller state victories, take heed...Obama netted a 12 delegate advantage from the contest in Idaho alone. (That's the 50 State Strategy in action, take that Terry McAuliffe!)
The race for the nomination is not over, far from it, and one candidate has held a pledged delegate lead from day one, Senator Barack Obama. I'd like to reflect for one second on what's passed and start a conversation about what's next.
::
I walked till I had blisters in West Oakland. Along with hundreds of other volunteers, we won California's 9th Congressional District for Senator Obama. As it stands now, we will net 4 delegates out of 6 and gain a 2 delegate advantage for Barack Obama from the Congressional district of Barbara Lee.
That's fitting. In the race for the Democratic nomination, the largest share of the pledged delegates come from battles in each of the 435 Congressional districts in the 50 States. That's the real battleground; it's like 435 separate basketball games for delegates, and the "blowouts" either way are as or more important as the close calls. It's the percentages that win the delegates that matter.
We learned some lessons in the process of winning CA-09. Volunteer power, as we learned with the Dean campaign, is powerful, but not sufficient. We needed, frankly, more professional political support in Oakland. More lawn signs. More experienced canvassers. We needed, in my opinion, the organizational experience that comes from political professionals being fully integrated into the campaign. That would have meant thousands more votes.
I'll never forget when five canvassers showed up from DC in Tracy. They were congressional staffers. They knew how to canvass cold. No training. No exuberance. No doubts or hesitation. Just solid door knocking ability. For as much as the Obama campaign rightly focuses on the power and enthusiasm of its volunteers, I think the campaign needs more synergy, more input from paid, experienced professionals going forward especially in the crucial states of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. We need both volunteers and experienced hands. And we need to be working together with one goal in mind, winning Senator Obama delegates by paying close attention to 'the individual basketball games' in district after district.
::
There was a crucial moment in my door knocking experience when a voter asked me a very simple question:
"I like Senator Obama and want to vote for him, but what will he do for poor people, what will he do for me? Why should I give him my vote?"
In my view that is a crucial question that every candidate for elected office must be able to answer in clear, simple declarative sentences: what will the voters get when they vote for you?
My honest assessment is that Senator Obama has gone as far as he can with the imagery and demographics associated with his campaign: youthful voters lined up around the block to demand change and express hope, and, as Lakshmi Chaudhry writes in the Nation, the politics of transcendence.
It's time to add another approach. Barack Obama needs to practice retail politics. He needs to understand that some of his weakest demographics are those where a message of change will not resonate, will not win votes.
Senior citizens on fixed incomes have strong reasons to fear change. They didn't see themselves in Barack Obama's Super Bowl advertisement. Has anyone told senior voters (pdf) that Barack Obama is for ending income taxes for seniors who make less than $50,000 a year? That fact alone "will provide an immediate tax cut averaging $1,400 to 7 million seniors and relieve millions from the burden of filing tax returns." That's a simple declarative sentence that tells a story about Barack Obama that in my view has yet to be fully told. (If you are web savvy, print out that pdf on Obama's senior policy and pass it on in an email to friends over 60. That's the kind of stuff we need to do.)
Women voters were told a contradictory message about Barack Obama in New Hampshire. They were told by the Clinton campaign that Obama was "wobbly" on the issue of choice. That was a lie. Barack Obama was a leader in the fight to turn back the anti-choice law in South Dakota and the only candidate to raise money to do so. Barack Obama is resolutely pro-choice and always has been.
Latino voters know and love Bill and Hillary Clinton. There's nothing surprising about that; it's a point of pride for Senator Clinton. But does the Latino community know that Barack Obama has pledged to pass comprehensive immigration reform in his first year in office, including driver's license reform and that Senator Clinton has said that immigration reform will have to wait and driver's licenses are off the table? More importantly, do Latino voters know about Obama's broad-based health care and education proposals that will help all working families in America send their children to college, whatever their background?
That's retail politics. That's taking it to Tracy.
How did I respond to that question about what would Barack Obama do for poor people, for people like the woman at the doorway? I mentioned Michelle Obama's recent speech and how she talked about the school around the corner from direct experience of growing up on the South Side of Chicago. Barack Obama will fight to improve all our nations schools and is committed to community schooling and early childhood education. I asked her if the local schools in West Oakland had improved in the last years or not? I mentioned wages and how people have made less money in America over the last 20 years even as the rich make more. Barack Obama will fight poverty with innovative policy, fight for good jobs, fight to see companies penalized for shipping jobs overseas, and will pay civil servants like teachers more. I also mentioned how Barack Obama would make health care more affordable for every last American, rich and poor alike. I talked about how Senator Obama would create a national health insurance program available to everyone and subsidized for low income Americans.
I won Barack Obama a vote at that doorstep. I hope that conversation represented taking it to Tracy.
In my view, if Barack Obama wants to win the nomination and the states of Ohio and Texas and Pennsylvania that's exactly what he and countless voluteers will have to do on doorstep after doorstep. There will have to be an improved synergy between the paid staff and the volunteers who work the ground of his campaign. And Senator Obama himself will have to take it to Tracy with his message.
From the looks of it, that's what he's already started to do.
::
I want to finish this diary in a somewhat new fashion for me lately. I don't want to leave you "up"...I want to leave you informed and empowered about how you can be most effective as a Barack Obama supporter.
Here are a couple simple things you can do to take it to Tracy and help Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination.
Sign up at MyBarackObama.com. That simple gesture will connect you to the Obama camapign and allow you be plugged into the most effective way you as a volunteer can synergize with the professionals and fellow volunteers working in Obama's campaign. Further, the more volunteers Obama signs up, the stronger his case with super delegates for the nomination.
Make a small netroots branded donation to Barack Obama if you haven't already. The more donors Senator Obama has, the more persuasive the case he can make to the super delegates. Further, your donation buys lawn signs, pays the salaries of political professionals and feeds thousands of hungry volunteers. That's no small thing. The money you give today is what will help Barack take it to Tracy in Ohio and Texas and Pennsylvania.
Maximize your effectiveness and help get ready for Ohio and Texas. If there is a way you can help with the campaign in Ohio or Texas, do so now. It could be as simple as collecting Obama lawn signs and recycling them in other states. Or as web-friendly as joining a netroots Obama email group. It could be that you have relatives or friends in those states whom you can contact. Further, you can best help Barack Obama in this battle for pledged delegates by learning the retail aspects of his policy platforms and practicing answers to have in and when a voter asks you that critical question: What will Barack Obama do for me?
Over the next weeks many of you will have a chance to call into Texas and Ohio and answer those kinds of questions. (Read this diary by Mindoca for more on this effort.) Your participation could well swing the outcome in a crucial state.
For supporters of Barack Obama's campaign for president, it's time to take it to Tracy in 2008.