Today this guy came up to me in the campaign office and said he wanted to meet me. Turns out he was on the internet, looking up the address and phone number of our office. When he did a search, he saw my blog listed on several hits down the page, and clicked on it out of curiosity. He said that it was reading my blog that put him over the edge to come in and volunteer! Wow! Now my readership must be a total of 13! And like all the volunteers that get cycled through Sheila, Ash (that’s his name) said he was stopping in to sign up for another day, but ended up “just doing a few calls.” I’m guessing at least an hour or two later……we locked him and his girlfriend in for a canvassing shift tomorrow, as he was leaving.
In all seriousness though, we are starting to learn that all this work is paying off. We are seeing volunteers coming in to make calls who come in as a result of the recruitment calls we make. Plus people who come in because someone came and canvassed their door. And after leaving a voicemail or two with someone, a bunch of them call us back. Yesterday Dan had a guy who came in to volunteer because he said we had left him so many messages he figured that he really better just come in and volunteer after all. Of course, on the other hand, yesterday I had an angry volunteer read me the riot act because she called a few people to recruit them to volunteer, who were already regular volunteers. Ooops. Admittedly, we do have a glitch in our system, which is that some people who are already scheduled to volunteer with us, are getting cycled back into the volunteer recruitment call pool. Today I even crossed my own name off a volunteer’s call list, which I happened to notice as I was training her. But at the end of the day, the worst that can happen is that they get annoyed. Most of them still volunteer and they’ll all still vote- at least this way they won’t forget!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Dry Run GOTV Day 1 Saturday– Utter Downpour!
The entire second half of last week was spent preparing for the out-of-state volunteers to come work for us, plus the number of local volunteers we had lined up. We were still doing persuasion calls and neighborhood canvassing, as this was the last big weekend push to persuade the undecideds. But more importantly, it was our “dry run” for the big GOTV (Get out the Vote) weekend, November 1-4th, where we expect to have hundreds of volunteers, and have very specific and formal data we have to report about every hour in to the regional headquarters. So we had to get the system straight of how to manage all these people, and all the information. Basically, there are three teams being run out of Lansdale- Ben, Dan and Chad’s teams, all of which cover different portions of our part of Montgomery County. Within each team, there are canvassers and phone bankers. So it can get a bit chaotic, and it’s really important we keep all the information straight of who’s doing what and who’s already done what. So we spent a lot of time color-coding the 3 teams and everything in the office, and mapping out a floor plan and step-by-step process as to how to manage volunteers coming in and out. Each of the 3 teams identified key leadership positions as well, for this weekend and for the GOTV weekend as well. My job is Staging Location Manager, which means I’m like the conductor of the orchestra. I manage the canvass coordinator and the phone bank coordinator, and I make sure that all the numbers are correct and ready to be reported at regular intervals (almost every hour). Basically I’m managing the floor while Dan deals with his bosses and any other major fires. Thank god for Kelly, who is Ben’s Staging Location Manager, who has done this before in the primaries and knows a lot about how this really works.
So Saturday morning started with a record number of volunteers showing up for us, some from PA but many from out of state. We even had 2 dogs! Note the photo of the dog with a little sweater that says, “Bark for Obama!” And a little girl from NY who came with her mom made us a Barack gnome for the office. A bit weird, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. By 10am Dan and I were high-fiving up and down the office, realizing that our marathon phone call stretches to potential volunteers all week prior had paid off, and people were coming in droves. We had a target 56 number of “turf packets” or sections of neighborhoods, to be canvassed for the day, and with approximately 30 people arriving in the morning (assuming 1 packet per person), we figured that we could hit 56 no problem, considering most people would come back to do another packet in the afternoon, plus some local volunteers were coming in just for the afternoon.
And then the rain started coming down in droves, and everything went haywire! We finished off the day with a mere 26 or so packets complete (a far cry from our intended 56), as the rain really slowed people down. Well, that and the fact that everyone thinks canvassing is a fun thing to do with their friends and family together, but we had calculated it as one person-one shift, so that two people going out together would get two packets, with the idea that two people can go twice as fast as one. Yeah, except when both people go together to knock on every door- that’s HALF as fast! And the list goes on- we learned a lot about how our plans and calculations had been well made, but needing major tweaking in a number of areas. Oh, and we knocked our phone calling targets out of the ballpark since many of the cold, wet canvassers gave up by mid-afternoon and stayed inside to do phone calls instead. Can’t say I blame them.
What I can say is that I admire and continued to be inspired by the dedication of our volunteers. It’s hard to tell, but some of these photos are of soggy and cold canvassers who have come back to return their packets, finished. House by house, street by street, dozens and dozens of canvassers went out on Saturday to do their best at locking in any remaining undecided voters, reinforcing our reminder to vote with Obama supporters, and recruiting new volunteers like crazy. And many of them want to come back again next week! No wonder they say the Obama campaign has the best “ground game” ever. They say that Obama’s community-organizing approach to campaigning is revolutionizing presidential campaigns.
Today, Barack spoke at a rally just outside of Philadelphia. The weather here all of the sudden turned rainy and cold, an in fact we had snow flurries for a bit in the morning. Nonetheless, 9000 supporters came out for an outdoor rally for Barack and waited for hours to hear him speak. NINE THOUSAND PEOPLE! In the cold, sleeting rain! That’s just amazing. The first question is, how do we make sure they all show up to vote? And the second question, how do we keep this momentum going after the election, to capitalize on the volunteers’ enthusiasm and put other community issues at the forefront?
So Saturday morning started with a record number of volunteers showing up for us, some from PA but many from out of state. We even had 2 dogs! Note the photo of the dog with a little sweater that says, “Bark for Obama!” And a little girl from NY who came with her mom made us a Barack gnome for the office. A bit weird, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. By 10am Dan and I were high-fiving up and down the office, realizing that our marathon phone call stretches to potential volunteers all week prior had paid off, and people were coming in droves. We had a target 56 number of “turf packets” or sections of neighborhoods, to be canvassed for the day, and with approximately 30 people arriving in the morning (assuming 1 packet per person), we figured that we could hit 56 no problem, considering most people would come back to do another packet in the afternoon, plus some local volunteers were coming in just for the afternoon.
And then the rain started coming down in droves, and everything went haywire! We finished off the day with a mere 26 or so packets complete (a far cry from our intended 56), as the rain really slowed people down. Well, that and the fact that everyone thinks canvassing is a fun thing to do with their friends and family together, but we had calculated it as one person-one shift, so that two people going out together would get two packets, with the idea that two people can go twice as fast as one. Yeah, except when both people go together to knock on every door- that’s HALF as fast! And the list goes on- we learned a lot about how our plans and calculations had been well made, but needing major tweaking in a number of areas. Oh, and we knocked our phone calling targets out of the ballpark since many of the cold, wet canvassers gave up by mid-afternoon and stayed inside to do phone calls instead. Can’t say I blame them.
What I can say is that I admire and continued to be inspired by the dedication of our volunteers. It’s hard to tell, but some of these photos are of soggy and cold canvassers who have come back to return their packets, finished. House by house, street by street, dozens and dozens of canvassers went out on Saturday to do their best at locking in any remaining undecided voters, reinforcing our reminder to vote with Obama supporters, and recruiting new volunteers like crazy. And many of them want to come back again next week! No wonder they say the Obama campaign has the best “ground game” ever. They say that Obama’s community-organizing approach to campaigning is revolutionizing presidential campaigns.
Today, Barack spoke at a rally just outside of Philadelphia. The weather here all of the sudden turned rainy and cold, an in fact we had snow flurries for a bit in the morning. Nonetheless, 9000 supporters came out for an outdoor rally for Barack and waited for hours to hear him speak. NINE THOUSAND PEOPLE! In the cold, sleeting rain! That’s just amazing. The first question is, how do we make sure they all show up to vote? And the second question, how do we keep this momentum going after the election, to capitalize on the volunteers’ enthusiasm and put other community issues at the forefront?
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