The Republicans are outorganizing us. Previous title, before the update, was a bland: "Make 30 calls this afternoon to Wisconsin")
Yep, that's right. Today you are supposed to make 30 calls, more if you can manage it, to Wisconsin.
Step 1: Realize that winning the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election, which will shift the ideological bent of the court from hard-core conservative to hard-core reasonable, will be glorious -- and that losing it will be disastrous.
Step 2: Realize that you can do something about it, no matter where you are. And many people have free cell phone minutes on weekends.
Step 3: Realize that in a low-turnout election, half of the battle is just making sure that people know that there's an election on Tuesday and that they need to vote. No long political arguments; no wheedling. There are a lot more voters than callers; if someone doesn't respond positively quickly they are trying to waste your time, so you thank them, hang up, and move on. You don't have to convince most people, you just have to let them know that their chance to change the mess in Wisconsin has come and that you hope that they'll take advantage of it.
Step 4: Realize that picking up the basic knowledge you need about Kloppenburg is easy: she's qualified, she's fair-minded, she's in no one's pocket, she has a good "judicial temperament," and popular former Governor Lucey resigned from the other guy's campaign and endorsed her. Read up on JoAnne Kloppenburg here.
Step 5: Have a snack, settle in, go to this website (the same one you can get to from the "Make Calls for JoAnne" button on her campaign site) and start dialing!
You -- you can do this. You can be part of the victory. This isn't like watching a sports event where you watch TV at home and cheer -- you actually get to play in this one! Flex that button-pushing finger and get ready to help defend collective bargaining from the Republicans. This site will be waiting for you when you get back.
Make just 30 calls this afternoon. Is that reasonable? It will add up. Call now!
CRITICAL UPDATE! (2:20 Central Time.)
When you make calls as a phone-banker, especially in the days just before an election, you want to be warm, enthusiastic, and sympathetic to the voter. That last part means that sometimes you want to be apologetic, too, about one thing: you are, after all, disturbing them. If yours was the only call, that wouldn't be so bad -- but sometimes they get a whole load of them and they get sick of them.
So, one of the tools is my bag is to be really understanding, and when I sense that I'm putting a strain on someone I may ask "Have you been getting a lot of calls? I'm sorry if so -- it's just that this is a very important election and we have less money for ads than they do and more volunteers, so sometimes people get called more than once."
In my second call today, I sensed that "overwhelmed" reaction almost immediately. The first question we ask is: "Do you know about the election on Tuesday?" She said "How can I not know, I've gotten five calls so far today!"
Thinking that this was the not-uncommon "Democrats saturating the Democratic lists" sort of problem, I went into my apology and plea for understanding, and she stopped me cold: "No, you don't understand. All of the calls have come from Prosser." She was actually glad to hear from me; she was getting worried.
Think about that: ALL OF THE CALLS HAD COME FROM THE PROSSER CAMPAIGN!
So tell me: what are you doing this afternoon and evening that is more important than this?