I’m on a national conference call right now with Michael Moore, who dialed in from his film offices in New York City. (He’s making a film about the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.) It’s part of the Rock the House (and Senate) Caller Party I’m hosting, along with hundreds of other people across the nation, this weekend.
Speaking about the Republicans’ vaunted superiority in get-out-the-vote efforts, he told us, "They’re in for a huge surprise this Tuesday. The work you’re donig all across the country is creating a historic moment — it’s the first attempt to stop the madness coming from the White House. We have the country with us."
Our Call for Change house party here is winding down — six residents of Pleasanton and Livermore came over and made scores of calls. We were excited that the voter lists were made up of residents of California’s 11th congressional district, where Jerry McNerney is running against the Republican incumbent, Richard Pombo, who was named by a watchdog group as one of the most corrupt members of Congress. Pombo took more money from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff than anyone else in Congress (over $500,000), enriched his wife, blocked investigations of serious allegations of corruption and much more.
Here’s how it works: This morning, as the house party organizer, I downloaded a short "script" and 52 pages of voter calling lists, containing 24 contacts. No name on these, just a phone number and their voting district — all from around here. We call, say who we are and why we’re encouraging them to vote for Jerry McNerney on Tuesday, and whether they have any questions. Then we check off the results on each page (not home, planning to vote in the morning or afternoon, uncertain, take them off the list, etc.) and, when we’re done with each sheet, call the results in to MoveOn.org headquarters. They update their lists and send out a new batch to the new group of callers throughout the weekend. Looks to be pretty efficient.
The calls were generally positive, though everyone got some hang-ups and spoke with a few conservative or Republican voters. (The 11th district sprawls into the conservative Central Valley with towns like Lodi, Stockton and Manteca.)
Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action. is telling us from Seattle, already today MoveOn members have made more than 200,000 calls to voters. (Here are some Phone Party Kickoff photos on Flickr; I was so busy that I forgot to take photos today!)
It feels good to take part in the democratic process.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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