Dear DKos community,
The Nov. 3 elections are over. Those of us who care about electing better Democrats ("more and" or not) have had a chance to catch our breaths, take our measure of where we stand, and maybe concentrate on a few things. Some races will be going to runoffs and may attract attention. One race, though, is coming up on November 17, 2009. It's a race where we try to build towards a Democratic supermajority, which we almost have, in the California Assembly, which would allow us to pass a budget over a Schwarzenegger veto.
The Democrat in that race is my friend, John MacMurray, about whom I've written before. He got 45% of the vote in 2008. He needs your help today. I'm not primarily asking for money, although that would be welcome. I'm asking for time.
I'm also asking for you to help prove that we can win races like these.
What I'm asking for more than anything else today -- whether you live in Southern California or the South or Midwest or anywhere else -- is your time. I want to do the least popular thing that I ever do on this site, judging from the number of diaries with single- digit comments sections that generally crop up when I do it -- I want to ask you, this weekend, to get on the phone and call voters about this race. Given low turnout, if we just let enough Democrats know that it's happening, we can win!
I make the substantive case for John, a strong and stolid progressive, and for why you should care about this race, in this diary from yesterday.
(Is that link likely to get overlooked? Please read this diary from yesterday!)
But I do something else that I want to emphasize today: I want to promote my theory, which I decided yesterday to name "TOOP" -- target of opportunity phonebaking.
The idea of TOOP is that when a special election (or any election at a time when most of the country isn't pre-occupied with their own state and local races) comes along, we should be able to mobilize the enormous potential activist energy on this site and step into a race and divert the outcome. We, as I envision it, are the first responders, the rapid deployment force. All we have to do is to decide to spend some of our weekend making it happen. All we have to do, in this case, is to let people who have most likely already voted for John that an election is coming up -- it is not well-publicized -- and that we need them to come out.
It's easy. This is simply a matter of will and of the desire to win a race that can have our full attention.
And, in some ways, the best thing about this phonebanking effort is that /we will be able to track how many of the calls are coming from the netroots as opposed to coming from the local grassroots (the members of which would ideally spend most of its time canvassing.)
As a proponent for a long time of then-not-yet-named TOOP, I've wished that I could find a perfect experiment for the theory. It turns out that I've found one -- and it happens, thanks to a scummy incumbent representative who had to resign after shooting off his mouth about his sexual escapades with lobbyists, that that race is in my district, with a candidate who is my friend.
This is, honestly, a coincidence. But it's a happy one -- this is an important race and a chance to test what I think is an important theory that can help us in special elections down the line.
So yes, God help me, I want you to phonebank this weekend. Also, if possible, during the week, next weekend, and in the last 48 hours of the campaign. There are more voters to contact than this site will possibly be able to call -- but calling as many as we can may just be enough to turn the tide.
If we win this race in conservative Orange County, where John MacMurray has already given us a 45% head start, we will send a shock through this country that will put the teabaggers to shame. What are you doing with a few hours, or an hour, or even 15 minutes of your day today that is so important that you can't do that?
I echo John Burton, the great progressive leader of the California Democratic Party, in asking you to call. (The instructions for how to sign up are in my diary from yesterday; essentially, when you sign up please put the letters "NR" -- for Net Roots -- after your first name (whether it's pseudonymous or real) so we can keep track of who, from all over the entire country, is helping us win this race.
The phonebanking link, again, is here. Please call only between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. PACIFIC time. Thanks.