What Can I to help turn the house blue (besides giving money)?
In particular, I am looking for ways to volunteer remotely. During the primaries, I was able to call people in far away states and work for my candidate as their primary approached. If anyone has information on how to do this for House candidates that would be greatly appreciated. I contacted several campaigns, and did not get very far. Most told me that they are not set up yet or that I could really help out by “liking” things on their Facebook page.
A couple of people I know would also be interested in remote volunteerism. If there were a few campaigns that had jobs that could be done from afar, I am sure I could scare up a small group. In fact, I would take on the role of trying to recruit as many people as possible and provide organizational support to get those people doing useful things as quickly as possible.
Also, before I go too far out in figuring out to make this work, if anybody out there knows of any clearinghouse or inter-webs rally point, let me know.
There are a couple of ways I can envision people safely in blue districts helping you out. If you have thought of others, shout ‘em out.
Phonebanking — that inglorious task of providing good information about voters. If it’s not too expensive to set up a system like Bernie (and I’m guessing Hillary) had during the primaries that allowed me to call into a dialing service which then autodialed people in your district, I think you could get a lot of people to help do this job and keep your local people on the streets with good walking sheets. If it is a little to pricey to take on for a single campaign, might there be a way to share the expenses with other campaigns or the national party? Some of this work requires almost no local knowledge. In cases where you would want to go over talking points, there are several ways to make that happen.
Specific electronic tasks — A buddy of mine who isn’t into phone banking asked if there was data entry that could be done. Imagine walking into the office in the morning and having some clerical work already done overnight by someone 1000 miles away? Tasks that are not time critical, require strong local knowledge or prone to sabotage could be posted on a bulletin board by campaigns and then claimed by more casual volunteers. More sensitive tasks could be given to volunteers that are committed to one campaign that they are more closely involved with.
There are a lot of people with skills and energy that do not have a local race to fight for. Put us to good use in race that will help deliver the House. A deep blue sea of potential, if you will.