Ok people...this is it. The final week. Have you activated your social network yet?
We are the political snobs, the ones people turn to for advice on how to make their voting decisions. We are the ones who convince our friends and family to volunteer for election weekend. Let's do this. Here are some suggestions on how to maximize your impact over the next week.
- Offer yourself up. Most of you belong to email listservs. Send out an email offering to point people in the right direction for making their decisions. Suggest a few non-partisan sites where they can get information, but also include some good progressive links.
For example, like most years I am adopting my rugby team. Most of them don't vote, heck some of them aren't citizens. But I want them to know that I am a resource. I have sent out a couple emails already, notifying them about the registration deadlines etc. Tomorrow they will get an email chock full of links, in particular to this one by SpeakOutCA.
- Encourage your friends and fam to volunteer No matter where you live, I am sure you either have a campaign near your or near one of your good friends/family. Have you asked them to volunteer for this weekend?
I have been bugging my parents for weeks about helping out Jason Altmire get Hart out of office. They had a ton of fun in '04 when I dragged them along on election day. I have been sending them info on Altmire and got them to donate. Today, I broached the subject of volunteering again. And much to my delight my mom announced that she wanted to walk this weekend. I got her the phone number of the office from Altmire's site. She called them and my dad said he wanted to come too.
Today my aunt called. I helped her go through her absentee ballot and at the end asked her if she had any free time this weekend. Long story short, I armed her with the Jerry McNerney office phone number and she is gonna call them tomorrow to help out on Sat.
If I can do it you can do it.
- Use your social networking site Do you have a MySpace/Facebook page? Have you pushed out information to your bulletin board? Bug them election day to get out to the polls. If you are volunteering this weekend ask if anyone wants to come along.
- Phone your friends and family Like dday has suggested in the past, work your way through your address book and make sure people are voting, and see if they want to volunteer.
We can do this, but it will take everyone and that includes your friends and family.
What have you done today to save this country? Which of your friends/family are volunteering this weekend?