Maybe you haven't heard, but the 2010 midterms work begins in earnest this weekend.
Organizing for America has designated this weekend as the official kickoff for the upcoming elections, and volunteers have organized over 1,200 events around the country with more than 17,000 signing up to pariticpate.
We New Yorkers like to think we're always ahead of the curve, so we began our activities earlier in the week with a phonebanking party on Tuesday and a huge kickoff celebration last night that included special guests Senator Chuck Schumer, Rep. Tim Bishop, Rep. Caroline Maloney and OFA Executive Director Mitch Stewart.
Tomorrow the real work starts. We are holding voter registration events all across the city. If you're in NYC and are free, come out and join us!
Read on to see how our kickoff week has gone so far.
At Tuesday's party we made final preparations for tomorrow's events. We made signs...
and buttons (designed by amazing super-volunteer and kossack debojg)...
and calls to volunteers to come out and register voters tomorrow.
We even celebrated early with a cake -- more debojg creativity :)
Then last night we officially kicked off activities at a bar in Times Square. OFA-NY organized the event along with DL21C (Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century). Here are some of our amazing OFA-NY staff sporting our new (unofficial) buttons. Left to Right: Deputy Director Geoff Berman, State Director Melissa Derosa, Field Director Julia Shannon and Deputy Director Keith Kinch.
The turnout was amazing -- over 200 people came out...
filling the space to capacity.
Rep. Tim Bishop (NY-1) is one of several vulnerable NY Democrats in November and we plan to make sure he holds his seat. You might remember that Congressman Bishop was the first ones to encounter aggressive tea partiers last year.
OFA Executive Director Mitch Stewart was the first speaker. He restated what we've all heard many times by now: Democrats are likely to lose many seats in November and we need to work hard to hold on to our majorities in both houses.
He said that we would be focusing a lot of our efforts on 2008 first-time voters, emphasizing the rationale with statistics I hadn't heard before: If only the Kerry-Bush voters had voted in 2008, McCain and Obama would have tied. First-time voters in 2008 went for Obama 72% to 28%! If we can get them out in November, we'll not only win many more of the competitive races, we will have voters who are likely to be active for life.
Next two of our amazing Community Organizers, Amy and Jordan, spoke. Amy, who works with me on the Downtown East team, talked about why people should get involved, saying that the money we give is valuable, but the time we give can really make the difference of winning or losing.
Jordan (below), founder of Brooklyn for Barack, said that he doesn't believe the worst-case scenarios we keep hearing about for November because "I know the caliber of the organizers and the organization."
Rep. Maloney was up next. She reminded us of the many accomplishments the President and Democrats have made this year, saying: This is the change you helped bring to America by electing Obama. Keep the change coming! (I'm paraphrasing, but this is close to her exact words.)
Senator Schumer was on fire. First he said that the past year was the best one for legislative and presidential accomplishment since World War II. This brought some "Yes We Can" cheers from the crowd.
He then talked about the critical time right after the Coakley race, when it seemed the health reform and so much else was doomed. He told us about a meeting at the White House to discuss what to do next. Most in the room said to scale back health care, or delay it.
"But," Schumer continued, "There was one voice who said 'we can get this done.' One voice said, 'If we work together, side by side, we will get it done by Easter.'" Of course, this one voice was Barack Obama.
Senator Schumer then said he predicted that by the November elections the health care bill would be a positive factor. With each day more people are understanding how the bill benefits them and are realizing that a lot of what the opposition was telling them about reform was not true.
I have to say, I left the party feeling pretty fired up.
I wasn't one who thought change was only about electing Barack Obama. I heard and believed him when he said that change is hard, and that opposition forces will pull out all the stops to protect the status quo. I got it that I was going to have to continue to work to make things happen.
That's why I'm still involved.
That's why I'm showing up tomorrow to kick off VOTE 2010.
Won't you join us?
GET INVOLVED THIS WEEKEND Go here to find an event near you.