Georgia Obama organizers have "a wistful, gravitational pull" to keep working

By GottaLaff

The Obama Georgia campaign organizers are at it again:

If Barack Obama isn't coming to rain-soaked Georgia, his ground organization is very much here. In addition to the existing Georgia organizing infrastructure that has stayed on board, at least fifty outside organizers showed up in Georgia within a few days of November 4. The mission: to help Democrat Jim Martin in his U.S. Senate runoff against incumbent Saxby Chambliss. More organizers arrive each day. They're young -- but they're veterans -- and they've jumped right in.

In other parts of the country, including northern and southern California, Obama organizers run phone banks into Georgia on Martin's behalf.

This is what we wanted to hear. Thank you, Sean Quinn of 538.

At the human level, there is almost a wistful, gravitational pull for many of these organizers in returning to a race. To work on the Obama campaign, these folks had to disconnect from their previous lives. [...]

While the pride is evident, conversations with many of these organizers reveals a strange sense of feeling lost, untethered from an all-consuming routine. So when organizers hear other organizers are coming to Georgia, it's a form of therapeutic reunion for many, much like a reunion of military veterans. Unless you've been through it, it's hard to explain.

I love these people. I want to marry them. All of them.

The Martin campaign has 25 field offices in the state, which is the same number of offices Chambliss has. We visited the Savannah offices Friday night and yesterday, and the organizing edge goes to Martin. On Friday night, the Chambliss office was open but empty, and a couple of dialers worked on Saturday around noon.

So what's the latest on the early voting?

Whatever turns out to be the case, at the close of early voting Wednesday, according to the Secretary of State's office 345,564 had voted, and 22.5% of those votes were African-American, an ominous dropoff from the 34.5% of black early voters for the general election.

Still, according to Georgia Democratic Party spokesman Martin Matheny, thousands of volunteers were hard at work across the state knocking doors in the rain and making phone calls on Jim Martin's behalf. The lines on Election Day will be much shorter than during the general election, given the much shorter ballot, and Democrats here think that most of its voters are going to turn out on Runoff Day itself.

Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.

Young Republicans organize on the Interwebs

By GottaLaff

Cyber community organizing? By Republicans? They must be socialists, and from the looks of their message, scared ones who are adopting some of Obama's strategies:

Tonight, they're launching a website, www.rebuildtheparty.com, and will ask RNC chairman candidates to support their platform, which puts a premium on Internet organizing and technology. [...]

All of them are under 40; they have affiliations with different prospective 2012 presidential candidates; they had different opinions of Sarah Palin; they're interested in building a permanent grassroots volunteer infrastructure (apart from state parties if necessary) and candidate recruitment.

The challenge is daunting, but if we adopt a strongly anti-Washington message and charge hard against Obama and the Democrats, we will energize our grassroots base. Among other benefits, this will create real demand for new ways to organize and route around existing power structures that favor the Democrats. And, you will soon discover, online organizing is by far the most efficient way to transform our party structures to be able to compete against what is likely to be a $1 billion Obama re-election campaign in 2012.

Our near loss in the 2000 election sparked the 72 Hour program, after a brutal realization that we were being out-hustled in GOTV activities in the final days. Our partial success in the 2000 election didn't blind us to the need for change, and our eyes must be wide open now. Barack Obama and the Democrats' ability to build their entire fundraising, GOTV, and communications machine from the Internet is the #1 existential challenge to our existing party model.[...]

This goal seems daunting, but it forces us to think creatively about creating the sharpest, most compelling messages that will make people want to join us by the millions. If Newt Gingrich and T. Boone Pickens could each build an army of 1.4 million activists around energy, and Barack Obama could recruit 3 million to receive his VP selection by text message, then we know this is possible. If anything, given where the Internet will be in 2 or 4 years, we are low-balling the potential to create a new Republican online army.

Hold campaigns and local parties accountable. As important as it is that we invest in new technology at the national level, we must remember that the RNC's primary objective is to win races state by state and district by district, not build up its own brand.

[...]As much high-level attention must be paid to candidates' online strategy as with the number of voter contacts made into a particular district or if the right media strategist is working the race. We must end a sense of dependence on the RNC at all levels -- in which the RNC simply turns over its lists -- and set goals that the campaigns must find creative and aggressive ways to meet:

In target 2010 Congressional races, we recommend setting a standard of at least 5,000 in-district online activists recruited, and a minimum of $100,000 raised online.

Would that be anything like spreading the wealth?

BFCE: "He has placed this election in our hands ...It's up to us now."

By GottaLaff

Via FiveThirtyEight, this made me tear up (in a good way). BFCE. E. E. E. How can you be in love with... a campaign? This is how:

By our observation, the Falls Church, Virginia Obama office is as impressive an operation as we have seen in the dozens and dozens of offices we've seen across the nation. In one of Al Giordano's reports from the field in North Carolina, he included a note that one of that state's RFDs (regional field directors) had sent her organizers:

Stay calm - and BE RELENTLESS today. Get everyone motivated, educated, and into the field as quickly and as often as possible...

GET THEM COMFORTABLE WITH A BREAK-NECK PACE. They need to be the cool heads by the time GOTV rolls around...

Report your numbers like clock-work. Call me if you need me. Don't stop until your last shift is confirmed for Sunday...

Barack really is expecting a lot out us - and there isn't much else for him to do. He has placed this election in our hands at this point. It's up to us now. We may never again have our hands on history quite like this again for as long as we live. That makes each hour so so precious. We can slack off, sleep in, and make excuses for the rest of our lives. But today - and for the next 3 weeks... whether we knew what we were getting into or not... we have ended up with people's lives, livelihoods, and dreams for their children - all dependent on our performance day in and day out. This is our one chance at history... our one chance at perfection. Our one chance to live forever. So today - breathe this in... realize that your grandkids will be reading about you... realize that you will miss this feeling very very soon... and win every single hour.

Proud of you in advance for a big day...

"Win every single hour."

Nothing better summarizes the feeling we got in the Falls Church, Virginia office of Senator Barack Obama's Campaign for Change.

If this is what Northern Virginia communism looks like, then count me in.