As you may remember from earlier posts, I’m signed up with the Obama database as living in Alexandria, VA (where I volunteered on the campaign).  On Monday, I got an email from Mitch Stewart, Director of Organizing for America, which took over the mantle of Obama for America after the election.  Here’s the text:

“Keith –

President Obama launched the most ambitious effort to stimulate the economy in our nation’s history when he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Tuesday.

Your representatives need to hear from you when they vote for the change you mandated in November. Doing what’s right can be thankless when the culture of Washington tries to make political games out of the issues that matter to everyday Americans.

You’re part of a powerful grassroots movement that can change that dynamic. According to our records, you live in Virginia’s 8th district.

Rep. James Moran, Sen. James Webb, and Sen. Mark Warner‘s votes were crucial to passing the bill and creating and saving jobs in Virginia.

Can you pick up the phone right now to thank Rep. Moran, Sen. Webb, and Sen. Warner?

Rep. James Moran
202-225-4376

Sen. James Webb
202-224-4024

Sen. Mark Warner
202-224-2023

Report your call. (link)

Here are some suggested talking points for your call:

- I’m calling to thank [Congress member's name] for supporting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
- I’ll be watching closely online and in the news how taxpayers’ money is spent in the implementation of this Act.
- I encourage [Congress member's name] to continue working with President Obama to lift America out of this economic crisis.

After your call, please record your feedback here:

http://my.barackobama.com/stimulusthanks

We still have a long way to go, but working together we were able to take this important first step.

With the plan in place, more than 2 million people will be lifted out of poverty, 20 million at risk of losing their health care will be protected, and 3.5 million jobs will be created or saved.

There will be plenty more ways for you to contribute in the weeks and months ahead.

Thank you for your continued support,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

This is the carrot.  Senators and Congressmen who behave themselves will get praise, and of course the opportunity to open a dialogue with their own constituents too.

As for the stick?  Wait until we get the emails telling us that the local Congressman (of whatever party) is blocking Obama’s new health policy, and that it would be helpful for his constituents to let him know their opinion…

(Aside: Senator Mark Warner, D-VA, mentioned above, is a regular Twitterer – good communications channel for those interested in knowing what their Senator is doing)

Just $20!

At €15, that’s pretty cheap too!  You can only imagine what an Irish shop would charge for that.

In other news, Steve is going to be standing beside Barack when he takes the oath of office.  The bastard (Steve, not Barack – we’ll give Barack the benefit of the doubt for a few months!)

Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher here in southern California , was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Harry (senator (D) fromNevada ) Reid’s great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory.

On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription:

‘Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.’

So Judy recently e-mailed Senator Harry Reid for information about their mutual great-great uncle.

Harry Reid’s staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:

‘Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.’

Hours of fun – presuming they keep posting them.  And a great example of public interest broadcasting (at least for political hacks like me!).

Who gets this vote?

Lizard People?

Update (2008-11-21):

They’ve now got more ballots up from the second day of recounts.

Apart from the standard quantitative questions about issue interests, willingness to help on future work (be it for other Democratic candidates, grassroots pressure for legislation, etc), they’re also taking qualitative responses on a few key questions:

• How would you like to see this organization move forward in the months and years ahead? And how would you like to be engaged as a volunteer and organizer?
• What first inspired you to join this campaign?
• What was the best part of your volunteer experience?
• What could have been improved about your volunteer experience?
• What was your greatest achievement as a volunteer? What was your greatest challenge?
• Did you meet a fellow volunteer or field organizer who inspired you? How did they inspire you?

All good questions – both for improving the campaign for the inevitable second term election, and, because they take zip codes, for analysing why there were failures in particular areas where the vote didn’t stack up as it should have.  Perhaps it was a poor Field Organiser, or perhaps it was insufficiently clear instruction from above, or, as I’ve said before, a slight lack of autonomy at times.

It’s clear from the wording that they’re not going to let the huge organisation they’ve built up just fall by the wayside.  Hopefully, they’ll be able to harness that power for the better.

The survey, for anyone who worked on the campaign but didn’t get it, is at http://my.barackobama.com/whatsnext

The Obama campaign was, overall, a masterclass in grassroots activism.  The sheer numbers of people contributing to the campaign – be it money or time – was amazing.  This meant that the money and staff required to operate the campaign were there all the time.

The Bad

Despite the hype, however, this was not a wonder of grassroots decision making.  Decisions were made way above the field office level, and pushed down.  There was no pushing back up.  All literature and messaging was being delivered at state level, and was customised no more locally than congressional districts.

This occasionally led to a lack of autonomy/flexibility on the ground.  Alexandria could have done some things better given the human resources we had, but directions were being sent down to deal with all Virginia field offices, and had to take into account the fact that some didn’t have the same local resources.  There was no flexibility, particularly in the last few days, for individual offices to do more than the required.

The Good

The list of things they did well is far longer, though:

• Voter Registration: In Alexandria, VA for example, McCain got almost exactly the same vote as George W Bush did in 2004.  However, Obama got 10,000 more votes than John Kerry.  Those were the newly registered voters and first time voters – people who previously weren’t engaged with politics.
• ‘Ownership’: Everyone was given ownership of the campaign, and this was echoed through messaging, management style and fundraising.  Getting people to donate a small amount of time or money meant they felt more involved in Obama’s candidacy.  That meant they were likely to give more time or money, but also that they were more likely to spend time convincing family, friends and colleagues to vote for Obama too.  The development of this personal ownership of the campaign was, in my opinion, probably its greatest strategy.
• Data: Working on the Data Team in the Alexandria Field Office, I got to see just what they had on file for volunteers and voters.  And it was a hell of a lot.  Looking back through old callsheets and canvass packs when we were tidying up the office this week, it was clear that a lot of time and effort was expended earlier in the campaign getting that data in place.  What that meant was that efforts in the final weeks could be focussed very tightly on getting out the voters likely to support Obama, or likely to be winnable.  Rather than trying to call to every house, only confirmed Obama supporters or those who had given an indication (through demographics, registration or otherwise) that they were possible supporters were contacted.  Data is probably the least transferable of their powers to Europe/Ireland.  Data Protection laws limit the amount of information you can collect, and, almost as importantly, how it can be shared between organisational units.
• Staff & Training: While there weren’t as many paid staff in the field as you might be lead to believe, each Field Office did have one full time staffer.  This person had generally been doing that job since February.  They were allocated to territory about the size of a Dáil constituency.  They were additional to, rather than instead of, the local Democratic Committee staff & offices and local politicians’ staff & offices.  Their sole task was running the Obama campaign – not running Senate or Congressional campaigns at the same time.  If the Senate/Congress candidate happened to get carried on the wave, great.  But it wasn’t the aim.  These staffers were given lots of training.   There was also extensive training for the team of full time volunteers who worked on the campaign without pay for months.
  

  Obama for America Phonebank in Alexandria VA

• Inspiration: On the topic of full time volunteers, by the time I arrived in Alexandria, there were already at least eight full time volunteers in the office.  That’s not including those who were spending “only” six to eight hours a day working on the campaign.  Many weren’t even American – in the last week there were three Irish people full time, two Brits, an Australian and a Frenchman (and those are just the ones I met personally).  Having a candidate who inspired people enough to give up their time, and their paid employment in some cases (or their job search in others) is a brilliant asset, although not one that can be replicated on demand.
• Volunteer Range: Despite what you might have heard, the campaign wasn’t all young people.  There was a huge range of ages volunteering – from 16 year olds to 80+ year olds in my office alone.  This has a double advantage: incoming volunteers have someone they can identify with; and voters can see someone “like me” working on the campaign.  “Someone like me” is one of the most important influencers out there (read Cialdini).  Volunteers didn’t need to have political experience, or even experience in the area they were working (e.g. phone banking).  The structures were all based on totally inexperienced volunteers, and so, as said above, training was built in from the start.  It appeared to me that a decision had been made early in the campaign that it was better to have 100 rookie volunteers and have 1 do something wrong, than to have only 10 seasoned volunteers.

Get Out The Vote

The campaign in my area (Alexandria, VA) in the last fortnight was purely a Get Out The Vote operation.  We knew that the city would go strongly for Obama, so it was simply a matter of trying to get turnout as high as possible.

This had been part of the strategy across the country for some time, and so the earlier work of the campaign had been largely focussed on gathering intelligence about which voters were likely to vote Obama.  Then, it was just a matter of getting them to the polls on election day.

Efforts were focussed on getting people to polling stations (or to early voting) and keeping them in line if there was a queue.  This was particularly evident on election day.  At 18:30, just half an hour before polls closed, there were fourteen Obama volunteers at the polling station I was at.  Fortunately, there were no queues – the huge turnout meaning almost everyone had already voted at that stage.

What Obama Must Do Now

Set expectations right.  It’s as simple as that.  As I’ve already said to those of you who I’ve been speaking to in the last few days, he has about four weeks to set expectations for the next four years.  It’s particularly important that expectations for the first two years are not only achievable, but exceedable.  Obama has been put on such a pedestal by his supporters (and his campaign) that only meeting expectations could be seen as failure.

Not only must he set expectations, but he should do it sooner rather than later.  A vacuum of expectation-setting will simply allow the TV networks to set the bar, and you certainly don’t want that.

Charlie's Amazon Adventure - another great use of taxpayer cash

For the licence payers’ sake, lads.  Two posts?  How much time, effort and money was spent setting that up?

C’mon, Charlie.  Give us more, and give us comments!

(Hat tip to Suzie)

From all-you-can-eat sushi to getting thrown out of a restaurant, I’ve had a really great time here, mainly thanks to the great people I ran into.  Both Jeff’s crew, including dcomg and MDM gangs, and the Obama Alexandria, VA office team were very welcoming and great fun to be around.  Particular thanks have to go to Jeff, who originally convinced me that Virginia was the place to come to.

Nods also to 4E, Dave K, Stephen and Cledwyn, and especially to Meredith for organising the chase around the marathon course when Jeff was running.

More nods to the great Obama Alexandria team – Nate, Steve, Chris, Nippy, Elaine, Brad, Dave and so many others not possible to list in one blog post.  The best Data Team this side of the Mississippi deserve their nod too – with skydiving IT guys, Pentagon comms experts, NASA rocket scientists, firefighting organisers, and mouthy 16 year olds.

I’m on the redeye Air France back to Europe tonight.

I came here to help get Barack Obama and Mark Warner elected.  Mission accomplished, as Dubya would say.

Victory

Virginia called just seconds before the election as a whole.  It’s been some trip.

All my American friends are already unsewing the Canadian flags from their luggage.

The owner is a bollix of the highest order.

There’s a no-cursing version of this post about why you should never eat at the Stage Door Café Alexandria VA, and Nate has also blogged about the Stage Door Café, Alexandria, VA.