I thought I'd post a diary on this, in case anyone was unaware that the Kerry/Edwards campaign is using volunteers in red or blue states to organize volunteers in swing states. For the past week, I've been calling people who've signed up to volunteer for the Kerry campaign and asking them to canvas or deliver absentee ballots. Because I live in NY and have a job and young children, there are not many ways that I can contribute to the effort. This one is perfect for me. I make the calls after 9 p.m., when my children are in bed, and my cell phone minutes are free. The people being called have already signed up as volunteers, so they are not annoyed at being disturbed. (I made calls to voters in NM and SC for Dean, and many of them were angry at being called.)
This is how it works. If you go to:
http://calls.johnkerry.com
you will find instructions and a sample script for calling people in a swing state and asking them to participate in, e.g., a weekend canvassing event. (I never follow the script, but read it to get the information.) By clicking on the "Get Started" button, you get a list of 5 names and phone numbers, and several meeting times and locations. As you call each person, you fill out an online form with the result of the call. After the 5 calls are finished, there is an option to get 5 more. This effort seems quite well-organized. The system changes a bit each night, in response to feedback. I always log in after 9 p.m. EST, and I've always gotten states at least 2 time zones away. It's been a great way for me to contribute in a small way.
Last night I was calling NV. One of the people I spoke to said, after I'd introduced myself, "Why are you wasting time calling me?" I thought I'd reached a Republican, but he went on to say that he was a Democratic precinct captain who had already registered hundreds of voters and was working with ACT every weekend. We ended up talking for about an hour and I learned a few interesting things that gave me hope for NV. First, Democratic voter registrations have recently surpassed Republican registrations. Second, the Yucca mountain issue is apparently uppermost in the mind of citizens of NV. I've seen it mentioned here, but didn't realize how strongly people felt about it. This guy told me about a recent Las Vegas rally, where he'd met both John Kerry and Teresa Heinz; the attendance was about 15,000. Two days later, Bush came to town and held a rally that was attended by only 300. He also met Howard Dean at an ACT conference in OH. Howard said that after the election, every ACT member could take 30 days off, then they were to start running for office!
This man was confident that NV would go for Kerry.