Some Progressive group really should have those voter registration lists available for use. Right now, only OFA has the voter lists, so large-scale voter calling or canvassing is only being organized by OFA. Occasionally.
So far, OFA has mostly wanted us to now and then call voters and ask them to "support President Obama’s health care plan." What is President Obama’s health care plan? How can I justify supporting it? Those can be hard questions to answer. From my summer experiences talking to people on street corners, and more recently calling them, only the provisions in the early House bill appealed to anyone at all. Even a few Republicans could be convinced by the House bill's provisions and a little background data. But now the parts that people wanted seem to all be gone.
I think we need to reach out to more than our representatives in Congress and the White House. We need to be stirring up a fierce grassroots movement, and asking all the people we reach to call/write/email their representatives. We could be doing that. We could be working for exactly what we really believe in.
With phone calling and canvassing from the voter lists, we could be building up a Progressive database of supporters, and of people who are open to discussion and to information they aren’t getting from the mainstream media. We could use it to be a lot of help to Progressive candidates all over the country, too. Yes, we can!
What do you think?