Last night I got home and sent the following email to every Obama listserve group in Indiana. I am active on all of them. While I was working in the office today, the thought came to mind that your situation in Ohio is geographically identical to ours here in Indiana.
The John Edwards endorsement has dramatically improved the dynamics here in KY. The direct result is that we now have a far larger pool of undecided and swing voters. These are the voters who ultimately decide an election. Or I should say, getting these particular voters to actually go to the polls and vote for Obama is what will decide the KY primary.
The most effective means of "delivering the vote" is called a GOTV drive or Get Out The Vote drive. The success of a GOTV drive is determined primarily by two factors.
The first difficult challenge is to find and mobilize enough supporters/volunteers to knock on the door of every potential voter for our candidate and then to find a way to get these individuals to actually vote.
This is where the second difficult challenge comes into play. It is at this point that the campaign staff has to face a total logistic nightmare. Exactly how can the campaign staff effectively get this onslaught of new volunteers to the exact geographic areas where they will do the most good? Is this even possible?
This brings us to the crux of the dilemma. Traditionally, out-of-town volunteers simply pack up and head out to whatever place suits their fancy. Now, while this is an excellent strategy for planning a vacation, but for a political campaign it is a Category 5 disaster. Historically, it was simply an inevitable reality of the process. Not any more.
This success of the Obama campaign in using internet based information processing to mobilize and coordinate grass roots campaigning is already well known. Unfortunately, what most people do not know is that for the first time in political campaign history the Obama staff now has the same technological ability to process information and then to immediately deploy its personnel in response to this input as does the military. Here in the Obama HQ alone there are 3 floors of professional FOs armed with computers who are highly trained to do nothing else.
The only remaining problem is for the Obama campaign staff to somehow get their out-of-town volunteers to understand that the first and most important thing that they need to do is to simply to plug into the system. Our computer programs are fully capable of matching each and every volunteer to that one specific location where their hard work will do the most good for the campaign.
It does not matter if you are staying in KY for a couple of days, or shuttling back and forth from your home into Louisville every day. We must all make it a point to plug into the system as early as possible.
If we do not plug into the system how does the system know that we are even here? If the staff knows you are coming, not only can they direct you to the best location but they can also help you to find accommodations, hook up with your group and arrange transportation. This convenience will not only make your trip a great deal more pleasurable, it will also help you to use your time doing volunteer activities and not just wasting your precious time driving around a town you do not know.
Sometimes, this unregulated volunteer flow can even end up causing more harm than good.
So here is your portal into the Obama volunteer campaign world.
Sol Villarreal
Out-of-state volunteer coordinator
Obama for America, Louisville office
Please be advised that the volunteer process in Louisville has changed. The main office on Market St. is no longer "the staging area." Fully manned regional field offices have been set up throughout KY and are now completely operational. Volunteers are being given specific instructions on an individual basis that tells them how to locate their most compatible and useful field office.
It looks like we may just make a race out of this one after all.
G
Kentuckiana for Obama
I hope that some of you neighbors will be willing to help us give Hillary the down-home welcome that she deserves. ;-)
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