Three weekends ago, I traveled 100 miles in a car with three friends to go canvassing for Dr. Kermit Jones, the Democratic nominee for Congress in California’s 3rd Congressional District (a swing district that runs east of the Sacramento suburbs to the Nevada border). If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, spending a weekend canvassing for Kermit is a great way to have a direct impact on helping us keep a Democratic House majority.
Today, I received this message in my kosmail from a member of our Daily Kos community:
Hi Paul - your diary about Kermit Jones inspired us to drive up there this past weekend and knock on 175 doors. Thank you. Good response - GOTV is always fun. Going up again on Thursday thru election day
[...]
I always ask Kermit's supporters if they want to volunteer because I know most of them are horrified at the thought. I tell them he has to carry their area by 10 and he's only up 5. They are horrified again. So then I tell them there is a way to help - call 1 of your friends who is being lazy about voting and get them to vote. That seems so easy they swear to do it.
Kermit has a shot. We win this one volunteer at a time.
The Kermit Jones campaign called me last week to see if I would be available to come back before the election. I regretfully said no, that we had left town the only weekend that we were otherwise available. So it is very gratifying to me that my short blog post helped inspire at least one other person to come up and canvass when I was unavailable.
Back when Donald Trump was president, we saw a huge upsurge in activism: Almost overnight, the Daily Kos email list grew from 2 million to 3 million subscribers. But in the back of our head, there was always this lingering fear that we were all going to burn out from the daily atrocity of attacks on our freedom.
A wiser person than me explained that we don’t each all have to do everything; Just like every singer in a choir must catch a breath, we all need to rely on each other’s work. And so while I can’t drive 100 miles to Roseville every weekend to go canvassing for Kermit Jones, it is gratifying to know that there are other like-minded activists who can carry on the banner and be inspired to get out the vote.
We are now ONE WEEK AWAY from an election that’s crucial to defending our freedoms: the freedom to make our own decisions about our bodies, our freedom to get decent health care, and even our freedom to vote. And there is a place for everybody to help get out the Democratic vote in this final week.
Whether it’s traveling to a nearby swing district to knock on doors, making phone calls from the comfort of your home, sending text messages to casual Democratic voters, or even fighting social media disinformation, we need you to volunteer a few hours of your time this week to help us win on Nov. 8.
Go to www.DailyKos.com/GOTV and get plugged in with a get-out-the-vote activity that works for you. Early vote turnout has been promising for Democrats, and now it’s time to bring it all home!