On election day 2004, I was canvassing in my home state of Washington, alternating between knocking on doors for gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire and breaking to call Ohio and Florida. After three recounts, Gregoire won by 129 votes. I had no idea my state election was so close, but I did get three people who wouldn't have otherwise voted: One forgot it was election day. One needed a ride to the polls. A third didn't know how to turn in her absentee ballot. If you multiply my efforts by those of thousands of other volunteers, we clearly helped make the difference. Had more volunteered on the other side, the results would be reversed.
I'm thinking about this in terms of the election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. The Democrats have disappointed many of us. But Kennedy fought for progressive change the bulk of his life. Martha Coakley may not be a great campaigner, but she's worked and voted for the same causes, while her opponent, Scott Brown, is a right wing Republican who's opposed everything Kennedy ever stood for. If people are pissed at Obama and the Democratic Senate for not doing all they promised, electing Brown adds yet another right wing Senator for three years or longer. With turnout likely to be low, Republicans motivated, and polls showing a toss-up or even a slight Brown lead, it would be a tragedy if he slipped in on resentment backlash, and the demoralization of progressive voters and volunteers.
Many of us know that, and we're hoping Coakley will pull it out, but that's not enough. We can donate, and should. But we can also call, as so many of us did, in 2006 and 2008. And those calls do make a difference, and even more in an off-year election where turnout is likely to be low, where the positions of the candidates can be blurred, and where there's a third party, unrelated conservative Kennedy on the ballot. Imagine if we each convinced three additional voters, or one or two, and 20,000 other volunteers did the same, and the margin ended up a thousand votes, five hundred votes, or the 312 votes that elected Al Franken over the execrable Norm Coleman in 2008.
I remember calling in 2006 through MoveOn's Call for Change program, contacting voters in Virginia, Missouri, Montana, and other states with key Senate and Congressional races. Grabbing spare moments where I could, I dialed my way across the country, convincing maybe 20 people who wouldn't have otherwise to back the Democratic challengers. Some initially resisted saying, "They're all the same. They're all corrupts." Or "My vote won't matter so why bother." But I convinced them to vote, and added a few with election-day reminders. Later I read that MoveOn had 120,000 volunteers. If each had half the impact of my efforts, that meant over a million votes, in a season when US Senate seats swung on margins as close as Montana's 3,500 votes, Virginia's 9,000, Rhode Island's 29,000, or Missouri's 48,000, our common efforts tipped the balance. Many of us made a key difference calling states like Minnesota, Ohio, North Carolina and Indiana in 2008. And the Senators we elected in 2006 and in 2008 have been good ones, and by and large supported decent agendas, in contrast with ones like Lieberman, Nelson, and Baucus. They haven't been the problem.
It's easy to think of our individual election volunteering as insignificant. But when enough of us act even in small ways, we can have a powerful impact. Studies have found that if you talk to a dozen people by going door-to-door, you'll likely add at least one new voter for your candidate, a ratio that tends to hold true from local to federal elections, so long as you're working in reasonably receptive neighborhoods. Phone outreach can have a similar impact, though you need to talk with more people for a comparable result.
We all have more than enough demands on our time, but even if we just each spend a hour, it could tip the difference. I had no idea my efforts would be so critical in 2004. They may well be again.
Paul Loeb is the author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times, which St Martin's will publish April 5 in a wholly revised edition, and The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. See www.paulloeb.org To receive Paul's articles directly email sympa@lists.groundwire.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
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Coakley wouldn't have been first choice--I liked Capuano and Khazai better, but they're strongly supporting her for a reason. They all represent a progressive politics in Ted Kennedy's tradition. Brown goes in the other direction. Saying "he's for health care but not the current Democratic care plan" in case doesn't mean public option or single payer or progressive payment. He supports the general Republican line which is effectively the line of the insurance companies.
If you like the Mitch McConnell Republican Party, it's reasonable to vote for Brown. If you don't however, it's totally self-defeating.
The Democrats need a slap in the face. Maybe they'd wake up and realize that benefitting corporations at the expense of the American people is what may get them kicked out of office in November.
It's over kiddies, Kennedy's seat is lost. I wonder how Dems will fare in Arkansas and Indiana come November ahhahahha.
Forcing people to buy from monopolies who's only responsibility is to raise prices as high as they can and to pay out as little as they can to maximize shareholder profits is bad. When those monopolies are allowed to engage in price-fixing because of an anti-trust exemption, it's worse. When those monopolies will only be regulated by the same toothless state boards that don't enforce the regulations we have now, it's downright immoral. And there's more:
* Large age ratios force older consumers to pay substantially more for their premiums
* Insurers are given wide latitude in design policies and allows for the sale of very low 60% actuarial junk insurance and “catastrophic plans”
* People will be force to pay 9.8% of their income for a low value insurance plan
* The weak risk adjuster that would not stop insurers from trying to game the system and cherry pick customers
So this really is all about benefiting the insurance companies. It's worse than nothing and won't control costs. Taxes, premiums, and out-of-pocket costs will go up.
When voters don't get what they were promised by Democrats, they work harder, make calls, give money, and drag friends to polls.
Which approach works better?
Take a look at the drug reimportation amendment that died in the senate.
Sticking with Democrats, no matter how many times they've sold out doesn't make them respect voters more. Maybe this election, whether it's close or a loss, will wake Democrats so they can change course.
Because if they repeat the Great Sellout of 2009, they're toast in November.
but don't abandon the party. Set an example-take the higher road. Obama may have let people down
but show him that we have fight and spirit. and won't be forgotten. That's right-make this UNFORGETTABLE.
We can win this.
One of my favorite sayings: "If you have to go down, you might as well go down swinging." C'mon folks, get out there and volunteer.
http://my.barackobama.com/CoakleyN2N
On Tuesday, January 19th, there's a special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.
...special interests have poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars to mislead voters -- and the traditionally low turnout in special elections means this race could be very, very close.
The stakes here are incredibly high. You know how hard we've fought and how close we've come to finally passing health reform. But also know this: To get the job done, we need Martha Coakley's vote in the Senate.
No matter where you live, you can play an essential role. OFA volunteers around the country are calling key Massachusetts voters and making sure they know when and where to vote, and how important electing Martha Coakley is to the country.
Each voter we reach could be the one who tips the balance.
Can you help by calling potential voters in Massachusetts?
Making these calls could be the single most important thing you can do right now to ensure the passage of health reform.
Martha Coakley will be a vital ally to President Obama in helping our families get back to work, launching a clean-energy economy, and reining in the Wall Street abuses that still put so many Americans at risk.
But it all comes down to you. We need you to help get the word out, so please start calling today:
http://my.barackobama.com/CoakleyN2N
What do I say when they ask why President Obama is pushing for an excise tax on those with high insurance premiums to fund this bill when Candidate Obama said there would be no taxes on benefits?
What do I say when they ask where that "fierce advocate for gay rights" went as Rick Warren, a man who was a mentor to the minister who introduced legislation in Uganda to execute all homosexuals, was a speaker at the Inauguration.
What do I say when they ask why, one week before the election, Martha Coakley wasn't in Massachusetts but was at a DC fundraiser sponsored by pharma and health insurance lobbyists who managed to make the health care reform bill into little more than mandates to purchase insurance from politically connected monopolies that will only be regulated by toothless state boards that don't enforce the laws we have now?
I feel too betrayed to support the Democrats. How can I ask anyone else to do it?
Now Obama is going to a prayer breakfast with the Ugandan who wrote the proposed law calling for death for gays.
I can't support such a craven politician anymore.
The notion of sending a message by electing right wing Republicans was a disaster in 1994 and it if it happens again, it will be further disaster. Protest in the streets, for sure, but if you have a chance to elect a decent progressive Senator over right winger, you take it.
And the we'll fix it later nonsense is a big lie. If they aren't doing it now, they won't fix it later. When Democrats held their noses and voted for No Child Left Behind under Bush, they vowed they'd fix it. They took the House, nothing. The Senate, nothing. They still haven't gone back to fix NCLB. Ask any teacher and they will tell you that it has decimated education. Some reforms are worse than nothing.
This mandate to purchase insurance from politically connected monopolies that will only be regulated by toothless state boards that don't enforce the consumer protections we have now is worse than nothing.
Insurers will never let captive customers go. They have everything they want. They aren't going back to the negotiating table. They won't let the senators they bought go back either. We are the serfs of the insurers for the next generation.
I suppose now all of the establishment Democrats can see now exactly what it means to have your base mad at you. I don't care; leave me alone.
http://www.CitizenConservative.com
The similarities don't stop there. Scott Brown has ran an anti-gay crusade during an election. Martha Coakley ran a wichhunt that landed an innocent family in prison in advance of one of her campaigns. Neither of these politicians deserve the public's trust.
Alabama? Inevitable.
Texas? A foregone conclusion.
Having said that, I refuse to believe that - given all that the GOP has done to this once-great nation in the past decade - the good people of Massachusetts would be stupid enough to send a Republican to Washington at this point in our history.
I'm sorry but I just refuse to believe it.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
Progressives like me are demoralized and unethusiastic. If Coakley loses, the health care bill might die. I ask "Is that a bad thing?" It is a bad bill with plenty of goodies for the insurance industry and big pharma but very little for the average person. It doesn't do much to reform anything. The mandates will cost Democrats seats too.
Having the "60th" vote is meaningless when people like Lieberman and Nelson are in that count.