The untold story from February 5th is how volunteers won 93 of the 232 New York delegates for Barack Obama. It’s the story of how regular people can do the hard work and go toe-to-toe with the most powerful political machine in the state (and in the Democratic Party).
THE RESULTS
We're very proud of what we achieved in New York.
Statewide, Hillary won 57% of the vote to Obama's 40%. In Illinois, Obama beat Hillary 65% to 33%. We aimed to do better in New York against Hillary than she did in Illinois, and we met that goal.
We also had local wins across the state. We beat Hillary in one district in Queens and another in Brooklyn. We won in the cities of Rochester, Buffalo and Ithaca and tied (an al mot perfect tie, I'm told) in Syracuse. We won Tompkins Country (where Ithaca is located). We won delegates in every single one of the state's 29 Congressional Districts.
This is Hillary's home state, right?
But one might expect Obama to made inroads here; with his professional and well-funded campaign, it wouldn't be surprising that he could compete against Hillary on her home turf. But the thing is, our gains in New York were not the result of campaign money and staff.
It might surprise you to learn that there were only two paid campaign staff in New York.
It might also surprise you to learn that we had practically NO budget for materials, transportation, communications, PR, canvassing, and the like.
THE PEOPLE-POWERED NEW YORK CAMPAIGN
The New York gains were the result of a grassroots, people-powered movement.
People from all walks of life, all races, all ages, signed up and gave what time they could. Some took leaves from work or school or put long-planned trips on hold. We understood the campaign strategy to focus it's resources on other states. It was reasonable to assume that Hillary would win big in New York. After all, she had all the institutional support here: the state party, elected officials, unions, and Democratic clubs, as well as the endorsement of The New York Time.
Hillary had the institutional support and home-field advantage, but Barack had US.
Months before I became involved with the campaign in New York, local groups had formed across the state, organizing through the mybarackobama.com website. When I first signed up for the group in my area, I was amazed at all the activity going on. There were fundraising events, house parties, tabling, voter registration drives -- People were already out there working hard for Obama.
These local groups were, and continued to be, the heart, soul and nerve center of the New York campaign.
New York City supporters faced a few big challenges in the fall. With no real campaign infrastructure -- no office and no staff -- volunteers organized a 3000+ person rally in Brooklyn, a 24,000-person rally in Washington Square Park, and a last-minute "Night at the Apollo with Barack Obama." There was little advance notice for any of these events, which meant that we needed to organize and mobilize large numbers of volunteers quickly and efficiently. We created fliers and set up flyering events, we sent out mass-email announcements, we put posters in store windows, and made each event a huge success.
Our biggest logistical hurdle in the fall was gathering enough signatures to get Obama on the ballot. In New York City, volunteers stood on street corners asking their fellow New Yorkers to sign. We organized dozens of petitioning events each week. In other areas of the state, house-to-house canvassing efforts were organized. In the end, we secured enough signatures to put Barack on the ballot in EVERY one of New York's 29 congressional districts. Of the eight Democratic candidates running at the time, only Obama and Clinton qualified in every district.
Starting in December, we began focusing more of our time on visibility, voter registration, canvassing, phonebanking and GOTV. Our volunteer pool kept growing and the biggest challenge became how to engage everyone quickly. After Obama's big win in Iowa the six NYC headquarters phone lines began ringing constantly with people who wanted to help.
The numbers of volunteers continued to swell after each primary, and by late January there was a line out the door of NY headquarters of people wanting to volunteer. My husband stopped by one day last week to drop off some flyers and couldn't get in the door.
In New York City, Obama supporters fanned out in all five boroughs -- giving out stickers at subway stations, talking to voters in front of churches, doing visibility "walks" up Broadway and holding house parties and fundraisers. Everyone I know kept telling me they saw Obama people out in their neighborhoods. We were everywhere. We had 12 phonebank centers filled with callers and hundreds of people making calls from home.
In Buffalo, 500 active volunteers worked tirelessly at phonebanking, canvassing, putting up yard signs, distributing leaflets and other GOTV efforts. On Feb 2 they organized a rally with local elected officials and delegates that attracted several hundred people. All this hard work lead to a 52% to 45% win for Obama in Buffalo!
Princess Photography, copyright 2008, all rights reserved
Princess Photography, copyright 2008, all rights reserved
Rochester also had hundreds of volunteers, many of whom had been active since Obama announced his candidacy. On February 2 they organized Rochester's largest political rally in 30 years, bringing out 500 supporters. For the final weeks of GOTV, volunteers opened and manned two offices and trained dozens of people to do phonebanking.
photo courtesy Ken Preston
Ithaca's volunteers managed to win their entire county for Obama. In addition to all their GOTV efforts, the Ithaca crew dominated the local news by submitting 30 Op-ed pieces to local newspapers, and getting interviews with local radio stations. A "Barack the Vote" rally at the state theater on February 1st brought over 1000 people out in bad weather conditions to listen to really speeches and music.
Here are a couple of stories from the field (or the sidewalks) in New York City:
Meeting the opposing side
After we had organized several successful visibility events in the city we noticed that Hillary supporters started to organize some of their own (often in the same spots where we had events scheduled). On the day of the Nevada caucus, a group of Obama supporters showed up for visibility at Union Square and found a Hillary contingent already occupying the prime real estate. Someone in our group had the idea to move down toward the street and spread out all the way down the block. This allowed them to be visible to more people, including those in passing vehicles. Our group cheered and waved signs. People walked by and cheered back, car horns honked; the energy was great.
photo by Ryan Scott
Needless to say, our group upstaged the Hillary group. Before the Obama folks departed for the caucus-watch party (they were going to do a visibility walk up to the watch location), Lamont, everyone's favorite visibility leader, had a brilliant idea. He brought their extra hot chocolate and snacks to the Hillary group, and had his entire team go up and shake hands with them. Then he got the two groups together to cheer, "Dem-o-crats! Dem-o-crats!" How brilliant is that?!
Unexpected volunteers
On Monday before the primary, Howard, one of our most valuable and knowledgeable volunteers, organized a visibility event in NYC's East Village. At some point in the afternoon, he heard "Fired Up! Ready to Go" from across the street. It was a gaggle of girls from a local school, carrying signs they had made that day and shouting chants they had just learned. The teacher who accompanied them said they would be out there helping out for a half an hour. Howard gave them literature and they proceeded to do visibility on the other side of the street, chanting and handing out fliers to smiling passersby. They giggled every time they finished a cheer. They took literature with them to use to write their reports back in the classroom.
New Yorkers have proven that PEOPLE can make a big difference in politics. Sure, it would have been great to have some of Hillary's institutional support. But a campaign relying almost exclusively on institutional support can find itself up against a serious force when the opposing campaign's supporters are FIRED UP!
Take a listen to this clip from local NYC radio, where it is admitted that the Clinton campaign has some regrets about not doing more on the ground in New York (It's a minute or two into the show). Apparently they feel that if they had gotten more volunteers activated, they could have won a few more delegates.
CLOSING UP SHOP IN NEW YORK?
The big push is over; it's time for all the hard-working volunteers to get some rest and get back to their families, work, and life as it used to be. The problem is, no one wants to stop!
New York volunteers have a lot of skills and experience to offer Obama supporters in other states. Our groups are coordinating efforts with upcoming primary states: sharing information, organizing out-of-state phonebanking efforts and setting up trips. This weekend groups of New Yorkers are in Maine and in the DC/VA area; People I know are planning trips to Ohio (I'm hoping to get to Texas).
The people-powered Obama movement in New York is STUCK ON GO.
Give it up for the volunteers in New York! Those of you whose efforts I didn't mention (New York is a BIG state with people working their butts off everywhere), my apologies. I encourage you to add a comment about your local group and what you accomplished. I'm so proud of all of us!
WANT TO JOIN THE PEOPLE-POWERED OBAMA MOVEMENT?
You can get involved right now. The upcoming races are critical, and there are plenty of things you can do to help. If you're in a state that hasn't voted yet, find out how you can get involved. Find out if your state has an office and if so, call to offer your assistance. Look for a mybarackobama group that is active and sign up. If there isn't one near you, start your own.
You can phonebank RIGHT NOW to voters in this week's primary and caucus states. If you're in a state whose primary is over, you can arrange to send leftover signs, literature, stickers, etc. to a state that needs them. The Obama Store can't keep this stuff in stock! Can you travel to another state? Can you afford to make another donation to the campaign? Have you written an OpEd to your local paper or emailed your friends and family explaining why you support Obama? Are you wearing an Obama button everywhere you go (you can be doing visibility every day!)
It's now or never, folks! Let's MAKE HISTORY!