A little while back the Globe published my letter about how the media prefers to gloss over electoral victories with pat little narratives rather than dig in deeper into the much more boring matter of on-the-ground organizing. Organizing guru Zack Exley has published a remarkable piece in Off the Bus / Huffington Post (Organizing Matters: [...]
It’s T-minus 13 hours, and outside, recent volunteers fresh off the bus are fanning out throughout the state. A good handful are just outside HQ with signs and stirring up the passing traffic. Not sure what it does for the vote tomorrow, but it sure feels good.
Meanwhile, inside HQ everyone is feverishly pulling data, aligning [...]
Michelle Obama is making her way through the office right now, shaking hands and pumping up the troops. Not to be star-struck, but I did get to shake the hand of our future First Spouse! She shared with us how kids call her husband, in one word: “Barackobama.”
I first saw her speak in Concord, NH, [...]
What’s been remarkable about the Obama campaign is how such a wide spectrum of people have come out in support of the candidate. Sure, this is something every campaign touts, but in this election, only Obama can make the claim honestly on the Democratic side of the ledger. (If the Republicans weren’t in the doghouse, [...]
As pollsters in New Hampshire all know by now, statistics are useless if the underlying data are bad. So everything turns on whether voters are being truthful to pollsters or not. In different parts of the country this plays out in different ways. up in the Northeast, irate voters are likely to lie to you [...]
If the debate last night had a weirdly negative focus on Obama’s 100 or so “present” votes in the Illinois Senate (100 out of about 4000, which I would consider a very high voting rate), it’s because the Clinton campaign has hatched a new code word for its one-issue supporters. “Present” is meant to imply [...]
The thing about voting, even in the 21st century United States, is that people still have to get up out of their houses, go down to a polling site, and cast a ballot. (Sure, lots of folks vote absentee, but not, in most cases, in decisive numbers). This means that the bulk of the work [...]
MLK Day was surprisingly bland here in SC — there was a parade in downtown Columbia (led by Sen. Obama) followed by some fairly typical speeches. The unusual cold put a damper on things. Or maybe it was the dozen or so protesters, wearing Confederate flags and signs that declared the NAACP “racist.”
Now, I’m fairly [...]
If the crowds tonight at the Convention Center weren’t as raucous as those who turned out at Concord HS in NH a few weeks back, they brought a different energy that comes from wisdom and experience. While I was surprised that Obama didn’t make a direct reference to MLK — especially given his rousing [...]
Volunteers went out this morning to local churches to read a message from Senator Obama. (I’ll try to find a copy if I can). Of the Democratic candidates, Obama has made the clearest, strongest, and most authentic appeal to Christian voters. It’s why I think he’s got the best chance at victory in November.
Update apropos [...]
