Obama Campaigners Work the Switchboards

[babylonsister]

Obama Campaigners Work the Switchboards

Posted on Nov 18, 2007

Working the mike is one way Obama gets his message out; his team of supporters hitting the switchboards gives him an added boost.

By Bill Boyarsky

If Barack Obama beats Hillary Clinton and the others for the Democratic presidential nomination, a good portion of credit will go to the volunteers now making phone calls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, California and other places along the campaign trail.

Such a volunteer effort seems old-fashioned, a leftover from the 1960s and ’70s. The speed of the Internet, the power of bloggers and the constant presence of 24-hour television news are supposed to determine elections today. The judgment of the media horde at a televised debate is considered more important than volunteers in a Los Angeles suburb.

If such judgments were the only measure of a campaign’s success, last weekend would have been grim for Obama. The horde panned him for his performance Thursday night at the Las Vegas Democratic debate. Clinton, ridiculed the week before, was reborn as the star. Such media judgments are fed by the polls. Pollster.com’s compilation of surveys has Clinton leading nationally at 44 percent compared with Obama’s 22 percent. In New Hampshire, where the primary will be held Jan. 8, Clinton is leading Obama 34 percent to 24 percent, with John Edwards receiving 15 percent. In Iowa, which holds its caucuses Jan. 3, Clinton is leading only slightly.

The Obama campaign hopes to counter this with volunteerism, and nowhere is the effort more intense than in California, which holds its presidential primary Feb. 5. There, winning candidates always favor mass advertising rather than grass-roots campaigning to reach a sprawling and diverse electorate.

Other campaigns have volunteers. But none of the other candidates are as firmly rooted as Obama in the volunteer experience. In Chicago, he worked for a group trying to restore the economy of neighborhoods battered by steel plant closings. America’s prototype community organizer, the late Saul Alinsky, was from Chicago, and the city is famous for its contributions to the art of bringing together poor and working-class people for political action.

In California, the effort to organize Obama volunteers is headed by Buffy Wicks, a veteran of anti-Wal-Mart and anti-war campaigns and Howard Dean’s run for the presidency. The overall national organizing chief is Marshall Ganz, who was with Cesar Chavez in the farm workers’ union for many years and is something of a guru to young community organizers. The goal is to contact likely Obama voters, mostly by telephone.


more...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071118_obama_campaigners_work_the_switchboards/

[Adelante]

1. Obama's grassroots operation is very impressive

I've heard from a number of people very involved who are just thrilled with the way it's going around the country.

[babylonsister]

2. A DUer has a thread up about their canvassing efforts; looks promising! Here's

the link if you haven't seen it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3737764

[flpoljunkie]

3. Very impressive! Buffy Wicks has 100,000 activists in Calilfornia working on the Obama campaign!

In California, the effort to organize Obama volunteers is headed by Buffy Wicks, a veteran of anti-Wal-Mart and anti-war campaigns and Howard Dean’s run for the presidency. The overall national organizing chief is Marshall Ganz, who was with Cesar Chavez in the farm workers’ union for many years and is something of a guru to young community organizers. The goal is to contact likely Obama voters, mostly by telephone.

Wicks told me that teams of eight or nine have been organized in each of the state’s 53 congressional districts. Each team has someone in charge of volunteers, data and technical matters. The congressional district teams are also putting together neighborhood teams. “We have 100,000 activists in California, and this is our strength,” she said. Wicks and six to eight other paid staff members have trained volunteers in three-day “Camp Obama” sessions, where they learn how to make the phone calls. “You do this by training,” Wicks said, “train them to talk on message.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071118_obama_campaigners_work_the_switchboards/

[Imagevision]

4. All the media-hype last week over Hillary hitting a home run making a comeback in

Vegas debates and this week she loses footing in Iowa.

[killbotfactory]

5. People are underestimating Obama

Big time.