America Votes hopes to get it right this time
Two years ago, America Votes, a nationwide coalition of labor, environmentalists and other Democrat-leaning groups, tried to match the Republicans vote-for-vote in their get-out-the-vote efforts and failed.
America Votes and its members learned their lesson, according to Greg Haegele, a Sierra Club official who is coordinating America Votes' Cincinnati get-out-the-vote effort.
Haegele and other staff and volunteers were at the Laborers Hall on Montgomery Road in Evanston early Sunday morning, preparing canvassing lists for the 70 or so volunteers expected to show up later in the morning.
Micro-targeting - a common marketing technique - has allowed America Vote to identify voters by their associations and their interests so that if you are a labor union member, it will be another labor union member knocking on your door to ask you to vote, and if you are an environmentalist, you'll get a visit and a phone call from a Sierra Club member or another environmental organization.
"People of different interests contacting voters of similar interests,'' Haegele said. "That's the key."
America Votes has over 400 volunteers making phone calls from a Blue Ash phone bank and going door-to-door this weekend, and will keep up the effort through Tuesday.
6 Comments:
at 1:12 PM, November 05, 2006 
Anonymous said...
-
-
at 1:26 PM, November 05, 2006 
Anonymous said...
-
-
at 1:27 PM, November 05, 2006 
Anonymous said...
-
-
at 3:27 PM, November 05, 2006 
Anonymous said...
-
-
at 3:46 PM, November 05, 2006 
Anonymous said...
-
-
at 11:58 PM, November 05, 2006 
Anonymous said...
-
-
Post a Comment*You can also call from home with moveon.org:
This week, we asked our volunteers why they signed up to turn out voters through Call for Change. We were especially struck by Ginmar's story and asked her to share it with you. Ginmar (who asked us not to use her real name) is a reservist in the Army, but she's writing now only as a private citizen. If her message moves you, too, please sign up to call voters at:
http://pol.moveon.org/phone/volunteer/fp.html?id=9434-3440043-vO8A77UoWPT5KEu0xK7sPg&t=2
Sign-up Here !
Dear fellow MoveOn member,
I believed the lie. As an Army reservist, I went to Iraq to protect America from weapons of mass destruction. But when I got there, I soon discovered there were no WMDs and no plan for us to succeed. I endured 12 months of combat and barely made it out alive.
We can't change the past. But in two days, we can change the future. This Republican Congress must be fired because they are still putting their own egos above the truth—and above human lives.
This election is our last chance to show what happens when politicians use fear and lies to start a war. If they get away with it this time, they'll do it again. But if it costs them their power, we can send a message to future politicians in the only language they understand—and stop the next unnecessary war before it begins. The choice is ours.
I'm calling voters today from home. Will you join me?
http://pol.moveon.org/phone/volunteer/fp.html?id=9434-3440043-vO8A77UoWPT5KEu0xK7sPg&t=3
Sign-up Here !
On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I watched the attack on the World Trade Center with a special horror because the people killed were all civilians without training, arms, or defense. I called my unit that afternoon and begged, "Wherever this came from, send me there."
But that's not where they sent me. They sent me to Iraq.
Around a month into my tour, my small unit was ambushed by hundreds of insurgent fighters at a Coalition Provisional Authority base. The local security force (hired by corporate mercenaries) deserted immediately, taking guns and radios with them.
We were besieged for 22 straight hours under a steady stream of small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades. Forces from multiple nations attempted rescues throughout the night. At dawn, when morning prayers created a pause in the attack, we managed to escape with our lives.
I spent the next 11 months doing convoys, writing reports, and getting to know the real Iraq. I talked to hundreds of Iraqis; many became true friends. I saw the rage after Abu Ghraib. And I saw way too many innocent civilians die as the country slipped further and further over the edge.
The troops I served with suffered from limited ammunition, armor, resources, and staff. While we brushed our teeth in dirty water recycled from the showers, Halliburton reps got rich off contracts handed to them by their Republican friends back in Washington.
Reservists like me risk our lives when Congress says we must—and we need citizens like you to hold them accountable when they betray that trust.
This Tuesday is our very last chance to do that. It's the last chance for Americans to stand up and say we will not forget, we will not excuse, and we will not let this betrayal happen again.
For my fellow troops still in the field, for the thousands who have yet to put on the uniform, and for the hopes we all have for a peaceful world—it's time to Call for Change.
Respectfully,
–Ginmar, concerned citizen
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
P.S. You can sign up to make turnout calls from home by clicking here:
Sign -up here !
They didn't fail to get out the vote. Blackwell failed to count all the votes and to act as a non-partisan official. Blackwell disenfranchised unprecedented numbers of African Americans by not distributing voting machines in a fair and equal way. Up to 8 hour lines in African American districts and other tactics all over the state.
republicans have been doing this for the last 2 weeks. good try, though.
Just got back from doing GOTV in my ward. Everyone I speak to has an issue uppermost in their mind and the GOP should be worried here in SW Ohio because it is Iraq. And it is the dismantling of unions. And it is the politization of science. Because everyone knows someone who has been effected by these issues. But most important of all it seems that there is a general sense that the GOP has not shown competence. They cannot govern.
That being said I can report that their is no person to person GOP GOTV in my ward.
Unfortunately for the GOP, the top of their Ohio ticket (Blackwell) is so universally disliked and the state candidates are reeling from scandal. Plus Ney/Abramhoff.
Scandals + the bungled foreign policy debacle called the Iraq War = Earthquake.
Look for the editorials tromorrow in Army Times regarding Rumsfeld. Bush is possibly the worst CEO to call himself a commander in chief.
Advance Copy of Military Times Editorial Calling for Rumsfeld Resignation
Fri, 2006-11-03 21:38.
Advanced copies of the Military Times editorial to be published on Monday have been sent out to several media sources. Here is a snippet:
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go.
More on Monday's editorial in the Army Times on Rumsfeld from Editor & Publisher.
4 Leading Military Papers: 'Rumsfeld Must Go'
Donald Rumsfeld
By E&P Staff
Published: November 03, 2006 11:00 PM ET
NEW YORK An editorial set to appear on Monday -- election eve -- in the four leading newspapers for the military calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The papers are the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. President Bush said this week that he wanted Rumsfeld to serve out the next two years.
"We say that Rumsfeld must be replaced,” Alex Neill, the managing editor of the Army Times, told The Virginian-Pilot Friday night. “Given the state of affairs with Iraq and the military right now, we think it’s a good time for new leadership there.”
The editorial was based on a decision of the publications’ editorial board, Neill told the paper.
The timing of the editorial was coincidental, Neill said.
But he added, "President Bush came out and said that Donald Rumsfeld is in for the duration &hellip so it’s just a timely issue for us. And our position is that it is not the best course for the military” for Rumsfeld to remain the Pentagon chief.
Neill said he was uncertain how troops will react. “I think we’ll hear from both sides,” he said. “It will be interesting to find out if it swings significantly one way or the other."
The Ross Report at the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle posted the advance text of the editorial tonight, and this was cited by MSNBC. Andrew S. Ross is executive foreign and national editor of the paper. Here is the text, as posted, under the heading, "Time for Rumsfeld to go."
*
"So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth."
That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.
But until recently, the "hard bruising" truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "mission accomplished," the insurgency is "in its last throes," and "back off," we know what we're doing, are a few choice examples.
Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.
Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war's planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war."
Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on "critical" and has been sliding toward "chaos" for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.
But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.
For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don't show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.
And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.
Now, the president says he'll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.
This is a mistake.
It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation's current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.
And although that tradition, and the officers' deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go.
***
E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's column on a U.S. soldier who killed herself in Iraq after protesting interrogation methods can be found here:Revealed: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
One party rule must end.
Limiting the Damage
By PAUL KRUGMAN
President Bush isn’t on the ballot tomorrow. But this election is, nonetheless, all about him. The question is whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office.
There are still some people urging Mr. Bush to change course. For example, a scathing editorial published today by The Military Times, which calls on Mr. Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld, declares that “this is not about the midterm elections.” But the editorial’s authors surely know better than that. Mr. Bush won’t fire Mr. Rumsfeld; he won’t change strategy in Iraq; he won’t change course at all, unless Congress forces him to.
At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood — and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all of his officials are doing a heckuva job. Just last week he declared himself “pleased with the progress we’re making” in Iraq.
In other words, he’s the sort of man who should never have been put in a position of authority, let alone been given the kind of unquestioned power, free from normal checks and balances, that he was granted after 9/11. But he was, alas, given that power, as well as a prolonged free ride from much of the news media.
The results have been predictably disastrous. The nightmare in Iraq is only part of the story. In time, the degradation of the federal government by rampant cronyism — almost every part of the executive branch I know anything about, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been FEMAfied — may come to be seen as an equally serious blow to America’s future.
And it should be a matter of intense national shame that Mr. Bush has quietly abandoned his fine promises to New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast.
The public, which rallied around Mr. Bush after 9/11 and was still prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt two years ago, seems to have figured most of this out. It’s too late to vote Mr. Bush out of office, but most Americans seem prepared to punish Mr. Bush’s party for his personal failings. This is in spite of a vicious campaign in which Mr. Bush has gone further than any previous president — even Richard Nixon — in attacking the patriotism of anyone who criticizes him or his policies.
That said, it’s still possible that the Republicans will hold on to both houses of Congress. The feeding frenzy over John Kerry’s botched joke showed that many people in the news media are still willing to be played like a fiddle. And if you think the timing of the Saddam verdict was coincidental, I’ve got a terrorist plot against the Brooklyn Bridge to sell you.
Moreover, the potential for vote suppression and/or outright electoral fraud remains substantial. And it will be very hard for the Democrats to take the Senate for the very simple reason that only one-third of Senate seats are on this ballot.
What if the Democrats do win? That doesn’t guarantee a change in policy.
The Constitution says that Congress and the White House are co-equal branches of government, but Mr. Bush and his people aren’t big on constitutional niceties. Even with a docile Republican majority controlling Congress, Mr. Bush has been in the habit of declaring that he has the right to disobey the law he has just signed, whether it’s a law prohibiting torture or a law requiring that he hire qualified people to run FEMA.
Just imagine, then, what he’ll do if faced with demands for information from, say, Congressional Democrats investigating war profiteering, which seems to have been rampant. Actually, we don’t have to imagine: a White House strategist has already told Time magazine that the administration plans a “cataclysmic fight to the death” if Democrats in Congress try to exercise their right to issue subpoenas — which is one heck of a metaphor, given Mr. Bush’s history of getting American service members trapped in cataclysmic fights where the deaths are anything but metaphors.
But here’s the thing: no matter how hard the Bush administration may try to ignore the constitutional division of power, Mr. Bush’s ability to make deadly mistakes has rested in part on G.O.P. control of Congress. That’s why many Americans, myself included, will breathe a lot easier if one-party rule ends tomorrow.
* Our online blogs currently are hosted and operated by a third party, namely, Blogger.com. You are now leaving the Cincinnati.Com website and will be linked to Blogger.com's registration page. The Blogger.com site and its associated services are not controlled by Cincinnati.Com and different terms of use and privacy policy will apply to your use of the Blogger.com site and services.
By proceeding and/or registering with Blogger.com you agree and understand that Cincinnati.Com is not responsible for the Blogger.com site you are about to access or for any service you may use while on the Blogger.com site.
<< Home