PULL YOURSELVES TOGETHER!
Seriously, stop all the self-defeating bellyachin' about our chances in November. We have 57 days left to make this happen. 57 DAYS. There is no time to waste.
We thought the 2004 election was dire (and it was), but it is nothing compared to this one. We need to elect Obama and Biden, PERIOD.
Can we do it? YES WE CAN, but we can't sit back and be complacent. We need to act NOW.
Here's the reality:
Our candidate is black. (Surprise!) Actually, he's bi-racial, which is even less desirable in some people's racists' opinions. This works against us (duh). There is a revoltingly ugly faction of our population that will not vote for a non-white candidate, no matter what.
In an election season where the stakes have never been higher (at least not in modern history), there has been an astonishingly high number of "undecided" voters. What no one wants to acknowledge is that a portion of those "undecideds" has been looking for an excuse -- any excuse -- to not vote for Obama because he's black. Period. All of those lame excuses we've heard -- "He's so exotic" or "I don't know, his middle name is Hussein" or "I heard he's Muslim" -- they all translate to: "I'm a xenophobic racist bigot".
Get real. They would never have voted for Obama anyway. Their lame excuses reveal morally repugnant prejudices, but we've gotta move on. There are plenty of people out there who can still be won over, and we have to focus on them.
The latest polls that are coming out in McCain's favor are partly due to a post-convention bump, and partly due to some racist "undecideds" moving over to McCain. Keep in mind that Sarah Palin wasn't picked to pick up disgruntled Hillary supporters as the McCain campaign claims -- no, she was selected to energize The Base: the lukewarm conservative evangelical Republicans who have only been half-heartedly supporting McCain until now.
Polls are showing that Palin is not attracting independents and moderates. She isn't winning over a substantial amount of voters to the McCain ticket. That was never the campaign's intention. She exists to solidify and rally the True Believers. This is the McCain campaign's desperate attempt to win the election -- follow the Rovian strategy of electrifying the religious fundamentalists, just like Bush did in 2000 and 2004.
Chances are good that it won't work this time. Registered Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans nationwide, and the independent voters who will decide this election likely will not flock to such an obviously conservative (read: conservative evangelical) ticket.
However, we can't take any chances.
Here's what YOU need to do:
1. Volunteer.
I don't care how you do it, but DO IT. Get out there. DO SOMETHING. The Obama campaign has about a bajillion different ways you can do something to win this election. Go to their website, sign up for a profile, and get immediately connected with the campaign office network in your area. Once you are logged in, you can access canvassing lists in your immediate neighborhood (door-to-door), and you can also get phone banking lists for voters in your area.
Neighborhood canvassing and phone banking are the two biggest difference-makers in campaigns. I recently read that for every 25 voters contacted by phone, 1 vote is gained, and 5 more are motivated to actually show up at the polls come Election Day. The gains are even higher for canvassing.
Why is this? Simple -- you establish a personal connection with a voter.
I know it's a foreign concept to many reading this blog (it's certainly something I can't comprehend), but there are WAAAAAY too many voters who aren't paying attention to this election. They don't seek out information on their own. If they happen to catch something on the news every now and then, that's all well and good (assuming it's not FOX), but they don't take initiative to learn about the issues.
So where do these so-called "low information voters" get their information? WORD OF MOUTH. That's where YOU come in.
2. Make your voice heard.
I know it sounds trite, but write letters. Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper, write letters to news magazines, write letters to your local news stations, write letters (OK, emails) to political websites. Write emails to cable news shows that read viewer comments on the air. Call radio shows, call TV shows, call whomever will listen. Post comments on blogs, even -- just do something. Speak up!
3. Donate.
Give till it hurts. Put your money where your mouth is. I don't care which cliche motivates you more -- just suck it up and donate something.
Even $5 makes a difference. Don't you have $5 that you can contribute to saving our democracy? Isn't this campaign worth giving up a latte or a lunch at McDonalds? Can you give more? How about $10? Or $20? Whatever it is that you can give, do it -- and do it again and again until Election Day. The campaign needs your donations to fund TV ads in swing states (like my dear home state of Ohio), to pay for the travel expenses incurred while campaigning, to pay for the campaign materials used in lit drops, etc. Unlike the McCain-Palin campaign, the Obama-Biden campaign does NOT accept money from PACs or lobbyists -- instead, it relies heavily on small contributions from LOTS of people. If you can afford it, don't let them down.
(It's almost 1am and I've got to get some sleep . . . I will write more tomorrow about this. TO BE CONTINUED . . . .)
