Voters for Obama is a coalition of voters calling for Democratic elected officials and other superdelegates to support Barack Obama.
Maybe because we’ve been regularly flogging it on DailyKos over the past couple weeks, you’ve visited our website – www.votersforobama.com.
And you’ve used the tools on the site to call or e-mail a superdelegate elected official in your state, asking them to back Obama. What now?
How much do you want Obama to be the Democratic nominee? Because if we wanted to badly enough, we could wrap this nomination battle up. Oh, sure, you say. Whatever. Skeptics and cynics, come one, come all – take the superdelegate challenge.
After the jump.
The longer it takes for superdelegates to weigh in and settle the nomination fight between Obama and Clinton, the greater the danger that McCain will win in the fall.
Over the past week, the Obama campaign’s superdelegate strategy has subtly shifted.
From Monday’s Washington Post:
"The recent endorsements of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign by freshmen Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Bob Casey, Jr. (D-Pa.)...represent a new stage in the protracted fight for the Democratic nomination as Obama's campaign seeks to draw out its superdelegate support in hopes of bringing an end to the race. ... His campaign is exerting ramped up pressure behind the scenes for superdelegates who are with Obama privately to be with him publicly."
So back to our question for you - How much do you want Obama to be the Democratic nominee?
Bad enough to find 10 more people to ask superdelegates in your state to support Obama?
So far, our site has sparked petition drives in six states including North Carolina, where we first organized - the others are Florida, South Carolina, Oregon, Maine, and Rhode Island.
But we understand that the idea of organizing a petition drive sounds daunting. Who’s got time to do all that?
So here’s the superdelegate challenge. Visit our site. Select an undecided superdelegate in your state to petition from our easy-to-use, state-by-state list. Then download one petition form. There's 10 signatures per page, and even if you only get 10 folks to sign one form and mail it off, it will make a difference.
Please e-mail us (votersforobama-at-gmail.com) and let us know which superdelegate you sent your petition to. If you want to share the experience you had gathering signatures from friends and neighbors, we’ll publish it as a blog post or comment.
But the way to really end this thing? The final part of the superdelegate challenge is to help this kind of voter feedback to the superdelegates go viral. Multiply your efforts by gathering signatures until you’ve found ten other people who are willing to do the exact same thing.
You can download and print out some flyers from our site to give to folks who sign on so they’ll remember the website.
Convince these ten more people to download their own petitions and continue the cycle you’ve started, and you’ll have completed the superdelegate challenge.
In 1984, Walter Mondale failed to win enough delegates to put him over the top in his campaign for the Democratic nomination, but still beat Gary Hart with an assist from the superdelegates.
Twenty-four years later, times have changed. The Democratic Party establishment is split between Obama and Clinton, unlike when the vast majority backed Mondale. Now Mondale himself is a superdelegate and this year supports Clinton.
Back then, Gary and his wife Lee Hart sat around their kitchen table dialing superdelegates, trying to win their votes. Today, the internet has made it possible for ordinary citizens to share information and organize from coast to coast.
If the superdelegates hold the key to the Democratic nomination in 2008, we the voters can take action to help determine the outcome.