Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I came to be a super-volunteer.
It’s kind of crazy really -- I’m somewhat shy, don’t like talking to strangers and have a job and career competing for my time. Yet I’ve been at it for nearly two years. Just the other night I helped organize and run a health-care phonebank where we made nearly 1,500 calls.
How the hell did I end up here?
About 5 years ago I found my way to DailyKos. I came out of desperation and anxiety as the 2004 election neared. After a few months I set up my casperr account but remained a lurker, mostly just reading, rating, and recommending.
Kerry’s loss led to a few weeks of deep depression for me, my fellow kossacks and Democrats everywhere. But before long we began dusting ourselves off and taking a hard look at what had gone wrong. We were determined to take our country back and I was ready to help make it happen.
I became more involved in the discussions on DailyKos. I went to the first YearlyKos in Las Vegas. By the fall of 2006, I was a complete political (and progressive-blog) junkie. I became obsessed with Congressional races in random districts in distant states. I sent donations and followed polls. I attended the first-ever "blograiser" in NY for kossack Brian Keeler, who was running for state senate.
But as the 2006 election approached, I knew I had to do more. This "taking our country back" business was serious, and required that I step out of my comfort zone. So in October I signed up to volunteer. I took trips to upstate NY to knock on doors for Brian and for John Hall. I made phone calls for John Hall here in the city and convinced friends to join me.
As I watched the returns on election night -- as districts across the country started turning blue -- I knew that I had played a small role in these victories. Knowing that your actions have an impact is extremely empowering.
Winning felt great and I was hooked. I spent the first half of 2007 considering the Democratic primary candidates and, at YearlyKos, found the person I wanted to see elected President – Barack Obama.
I signed up with a local Obama grassroots group as soon as I got back to New York. After a few volunteer activities, I became a co-coordinator of the group. Soon I was recruiting volunteers and organizing events. The more I did, the more there was that needed doing and the more committed I became to the candidate and the campaign. By early 2008 I was traveling to primary/caucus states, arranging day-trips to Philadelphia for canvassing and helping organize city-wide events.
I had become a super-volunteer.
My work continued through the general election; my team and I brought dozens (sometimes many dozens) of volunteers to Northeast Philly on Saturdays to knock on doors. We worked hard to convince white, working-class, conservative voters that Barack Obama was the candidate who was looking out for their interests.*
The victory on November 4 was definitely a high point in my life. Not only did America elect a great President, but I had a role in making that happen. How sweet is that?!
So why am I telling my lurker-to-super-volunteer story? Well, next week at Netroots Nation we’ll be talking about the relationship between blogging and activism on our panel: "Yes We Did? How Blogging Can (and Can’t) Support a Field Campaign" We’ll be discussing, among other things, how to get people who are active online active offline. The panel features my Dk and obama-activist friends femlaw, populista and kath25, Sean Quinn from fivethirtyeight and Jeremy Bird, National Deputy Director for Organizing for America and one of the key field people on Obama’s campaign.
I spent a lot of time and effort during the primary and general election campaigns trying to motivate people on DailyKos to volunteer. I believed that showing the excitement and energy I witnessed on the ground would inspire bloggers to get involved. But I have no idea whether it really did. There is no real way to gauge whether blogging about activism is a productive way to get people active.
But since reading blogs led me to become a super-volunteer, it must influence others to volunteer too, right? I was an unlikely offline activist but because of DailyKos, I became not only active, but hyper- active ;)
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
- Did DailyKos or another progressive blog lead you to become active offline? Do you remember what it was, specifically, that motivated you?
- Were you active offline before you came to DailyKos? Do you have thoughts on whether/how blogging can support a field campaign?
- Were you a field organizer? Do you think blogs and bloggers affected your work?
Please post a comment or two with your thoughts.
If you’re going to be in Pittsburgh next week, join us on Saturday at 1:30 pm for "Yes We Did? How Blogging Can (and Can’t) Support a Field Campaign." We’ll be asking the audience to contribute to the discussion. If you can’t make it to Pittsburgh, join the liveblog of our panel here on DailyKos. I expect it will be posted just before 1:30 Eastern). We’ll be taking a few questions from the liveblog comments and from Twitter.
Join us!
For more background on this panel, see this diary by populista, and this one from Femlaw.
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*I’ll be talking about my experiences in Northeast Philly on another panel: "Fearless Campaigning: Door-to-door and Beyond." This should be a fascinating discussion about how we persuade voters. The panel is organized and moderated by Jeffrey Feldman and includes kossacks kid oakland (Paul Delahanty) and Susan S (Susan Smith) and Elizabeth Winter, and Adam Ruff who ran Gary Trauner's 2008 campaign and now works with Blue State Digital. I hope you'll check it out if you're in Pittsburgh.