As many of you may remember, I traveled out to Nevada for the Obama/Clinton primary. My documentation of the results of that trip turned out to be somewhat controversial, but eventually everything blew over. Now we're a unified party with a single goal: the election of 60 Senators to help Barack Obama pass a progressive agenda for America.
While in Nevada, I struck up a friendship with my field organizer, a passionate, dedicated individual named Max Stahl. Max worked for Obama in no less than 10 states (NH, NV, AZ, TX, MS, PA, NC, IN, MO, and finally GA, spending most of his time after NV in MO, where he worked tirelessly to deliver the no-longer-bellwether state for Obama.) Today he's in Georgia, and he needs your help to send a volunteer army to help elect Jim Martin the next Senator from Georgia.
To give you a little background, the California College Democrats represent everything we should be proud of as progressive Democrats, and be excited to help.
15 of them have taken the entire week off to help Jim Martin. They paid for their own plane flights. They missed Thanksgiving. They are missing the critical week before finals. They are giving everything they can in terms of time away from their studies and families to help elect another Democratic Senator.
And there are more who want go, but they don't have the money. Students raised over $3,000 in the past two weeks to send 10 students to Georgia and the campaign has bought five tickets. But many more want the opportunity to do everything they can for Jim Martin. All they need is your help. And helping raise that money is more effective than money given directly to the Martin campaign. Here's why:
- The secretary of state is only projecting a 15% turnout statewide. Just 15%. Martin is getting severely outspent by Chambliss on the air, but in such a low turnout environment, we will either win or lose based on our ability to educate Obama supporters to get back out there and vote again for Jim Martin by knocking doors and making phone calls. As Markos keeps saying on the frontpage, this one is all about turnout. Dedicated volunteers with a massive ground effort can and will win this for Martin.
- They'll be put to good use. Over 100 trained Obama field organizers have come down to Georgia after running the most insane and tiring GOTV in modern history. My sources inside the campaign tell me that GOTV alone beat the polls and swung the vote our way in no less than 9 battleground states. We can do it again. The volunteers came down to Georgia for a 250 dollar stipend because they know that the job is not complete until we get all our Senators elected. All they're asking for is help in finishing the job they started.
- They'll be sent to the most effective area. My friend Max is currently GOTV lead in the Northeast suburbus of Atlanta, where this race will be largely won or lost. The biggest county there is Gwinnett County. Gwinnett is the primary source of Republican votes, but also 4th largest source of Democratic votes. According to Max, we improved from 33% in 2004 to 45% in 2008; in a low turnout election, we can get out enough of our voters that we can actually win the county. If we do that, we probably win the election. But we will need to have a great GOTV operation, as Gwinnett is obsessed with the fair tax and the hardcore republicans will come out for Saxby on that issue alone; Mike Huckabee just did a fair tax rally there a week ago. Still, in a low-turnout election, we can win this with our ground game. And If we win Gwinnett, Chambliss has almost no path to victory.
All we need is the money to send dedicated volunteers his way.
Please donate to the CA College Dems today via their ActBlue page. Help get some dedicated volunteers out pounding the Gwinett pavement for our 60th Senator (including Joe...I know...) It's the best money you can spend for Jim Martin right now. It's like targeting a laser directly into the heart of enemy territory, and the most bang for your donation buck you'll have gotten this entire electoral cycle.
Please help sponsor an organizer, and help us win Georgia for Jim Martin!
p.s. I never ask for recommends. I consider it very bad protocol. But I'm breaking that protocol in this case. Please rec this up: just a little help from the netroots community could go a very long way in this critical race. Thank you from all my heart.
p.p.s. See also DawnT's diary on this subject earlier today.