I wasn’t a Hillary supporter before the general election. But the stakes in this election are way too high for anyone to sit on the sidelines.
I can’t believe we’re already at the debates. Hillary will rigorously prepare and I’m betting there won’t be a breakout moment in either direction. The campaign will have ads ready to back up her message after, and things will go fine despite what I’m sure will be lots of painfully bad media spin.
But it’s half of the story. She’s got her part of it and that’s out of our hands, but we have to have our part of it. The ground game is up to us.
In 2008 and 2012, the ground game was the margin of victory in many swing states. The Obama campaign understood this and invested heavily in campaign offices and organizing staff. But the organizing staff need volunteers to organize.
The race is closer this time around, and that means the ground game could be the margin of victory for the entire election. The campaign is taking this seriously, but we need to show up and meet them half way.
Here’s where you go to sign up for a volunteer event. It takes 30 seconds. I challenge everyone here to sign up for something — anything. Even if you can only show up for an hour to a phone bank, do it! If we do our part and let her do her part, things will work out well.
Here’s what not to do: don’t just sign up for “I will volunteer” on the Clinton campaign homepage — the volunteer organizers are busy and it could be a few weeks before they call you to see if you want to help. The best way to help out, and to do it with your calendar in front of you, is to go to the volunteer event link above and pick an event, sign up, and show up.
I also challenge everyone here to write a diary about a volunteer experience they’ve had in this campaign, and to help recruit more volunteers. This site needs to be filled with organizing diaries from now until election day. It’s the only way we’ll win.