When local field organizer Christian Lund took the stage just prior to Joe Biden's appearance on Tuesday night in Marietta, he asked those in the attendant crowd of about 4,000 to look at the sheets in their hands. Each sheet held four names, and each name had a phone number and a bar code for later data scanning. Lund asked the people in the crowd to make four phone calls to this targeted group, and then he demonstrated.
Lund got voicemail. Over the microphone, he left a message informing his phonee about where and when to early vote, as well as where and when the Obama volunteer office was located in town and what it's hours were. After he was finished, it was the crowd's turn. "We even got extra cell tower juice just for tonight" Lund told the crowd, so go ahead and make four quick calls on Barack Obama's behalf. They did.
The other day at Obama's rally in Toledo, the local organizer asked everyone in attendance to (1) early vote; (2) make 40 phone calls or knock 40 doors; and (3) take Election Day off to help the volunteering effort. This is routine practice at every single event the campaign holds, even at Denver's Invesco Field acceptance night speech. The largely Democratic crowd is given concrete, practical and manageable field tasks to accomplish.
The goal is gathering a larger and larger volunteer base. A whole night's shift of phone calls may seem intimidating to a lot of people, particularly introverts, but it's pretty hard to say no to four calls. Cleverly, Obama's campaign reasons that the most difficult part of volunteering is the first four calls or knocks. The first part is always the hardest, particularly for volunteers who've never worked for a campaign before. Once over the comfort threshold, a potential shift volunteer now feels invested in the work.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-marietta-ohio.htmlObama is re-writing the book on GOTV. This is why we are going to win an EPIC LANDSLIDE.
Obama has field offices in every nook and crany in the country in all 50 states. He has paid operatives that are well trained and they are getting volunteers in droves everywhere!!!
I am not worried about resting on out big lead because the Obama campaign is a well oiled, well financed machine the likes of which has never been seen before!!!