50 days.
That's the amount of time we have until the Democratic National Convention - when Sen. Obama gets officially nominated and the election goes into a crazy free-fall until the election.
After that, we have less than 40 days to register new voters before the October 6th voter registration deadline in critical states like Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Let's use the energy of this weekend's celebration to kick-start our own local on-the-ground action. Take a chance on something you might not have otherwise.
In this diary are some ideas and ways you can get started today. Please sign up for something, and let everyone else what you've found worked well and what didn't. Obama has inspired the next generation - let's do our part to pass on a better country to them.
There are two other breakthroughs that have just come to maturity in the United States that were not inevitable, that required a perfect storm of factors - and the right catalyst or leader at the right time - in confluence.
The first is that the Obama campaign is the first mass multi-racial collaboration in the United States since the Southern Civil Rights movement.
For many of the millions that volunteered, donated and attended campaign events, this was the first time they worked hand in hand with people that did not look like them.
...
The second breakthrough is that a critical mass of progressive Americans are learning political discipline again: the disciplines that had been carried like rare seeds through a decades-long desert by the few and the proud that had continued the study and practice of community organizing.
The Field: No More Drama
Different ways you can get involved.
- Register voters in your neighborhood. There are plenty of events in almost every corner of this country. It's really simple: just click on your state and sign up. In addition, can also pass on this voter registration link to your friends to help them get registered from the ease of their home.
You can register voters at naturalization ceremonies, grocery stores, local colleges and high schools, malls, courthouses, apartment buildings, etc.
- Make phone calls to locate new volunteers.
There are plenty of folks on the rolls that would happily volunteer in their local neighborhood, but haven't been asked yet. You can complete that last step by making the call.
- Pass on basic information about Obama. You can get flyers about Obama at the official resource center. (Here are a few 1-page flyers I made as well.) Let them know about Iraq. Also, pass on the Obama Blueprint for Change.
You and I know both know the media is going to do its best to focus on process stories and never focus on the issues; they're not going to inform the public on what Obama wants to do. We have to do it ourselves.
- Set up a personal fundraising page. Then contact your friends and family and ask them to join the campaign, even it's with only $5 a piece.
Finally, let's close with some tough words of wisdom from Al Giordano from The Field:
There are people out there that think change is about attending meetings, engaging in endless group process discussions, treating political activity as a way to inflict their own personal traumas and "statements" upon others, and this has drawn a class of individuals that, in some cases, don't feel they get enough attention in other realms of life.
When I recruit journalists, filmmakers and communicators of talent for specific projects, the most common thing I hear is "sure, as long as I don't have to attend meetings or engage in group process." I grab onto those folks and - as it's known in some circles - will do everything, including their laundry, to hang onto them. People who are focused on the work, and committed to doing it better and always striving to be more effective at those tasks don't end up with the same kind of constant whine that we hear from some sectors of activists, because the act of doing productive work is very cleansing to the mind and soul!