[Vision2020] "Which Way To The Egress?" Barak Obama

Tue Jan 16 18:20:04 PST 2007

Just what are you afraid of, TK?

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>From http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0930136.html

Barack Obama

U.S. Senator (D-Illinois)

Born: Aug. 4, 1961

Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to an American mother and a Kenyan
father. When he was two, his parents, who had met as students at the
University of Hawaii, divorced. Obama's Harvard-educated father then
returned to Kenya, where he worked in the economics ministry. Obama lived in
Indonesia with his mother and stepfather for part of his childhood,
returning to Hawaii to finish high school. He graduated from Columbia
University, where he majored in political science and specialized in
international relations. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduated
magna cum laude, and served as the first African-American president of the
Harvard Law Review. After law school, he worked as a community organizer and
a civil rights lawyer in Chicago. He also taught at the University of
Chicago Law School as a senior lecturer specializing in constitutional law.
Obama represented the South Side of Chicago in the Illinois State Senate
from 1996-2004 as a Democrat. In 2004, he was elected to the U.S. Senate,
winning with 70% of the vote against the conservative black Republican, Alan
Keyes. Obama became the only African-American serving in the U.S. Senate
(and the fifth in U.S. history). Obama's idealism, commitment to civil
rights, and telegenic good looks generated enormous media attention for his
Senate campaign. The eloquence of his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic
Nation Convention in Boston, Mass., confirmed his status as one of the
Democratic party's freshest and most inspirational new leaders. 

Obama published an autobiography, Dreams From My Father, in 1995; it became
a best-seller during his 2004 Senate campaign. He is married to Michelle
Obama, a Chicago native who also graduated from Harvard Law School. They
have two daughters: Malia Ann and Sasha.

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>From http://www.socialpolicy.org/index.php?id=838

Case Study: Chicago-The Barack Obama Campaign

By Toni Foulkes

ACORN's history of nonpartisan electoral work (voter registration and voter
turnout) and leadership development combined during the March, 2004 primary
season to make a big difference in the level of participation of our
communities in that important election. 

ACORN is active in experimenting with methods of increasing voter
participation in our low and moderate income communities in virtually every
election.  But in some elections we get to have our cake and eat it too:
work on nonpartisan voter registration and GOTV, which also turns out to
benefit the candidate that we hold dear.  

The March primary was not particularly important for the presidential race,
as Kerry was just in the process of clinching the Dem presidential
nomination.  But it was critical in the U.S. Senate race.  On March 16th,
State Senator Barack Obama won the right to represent the Democratic Party
in the U.S. Senate campaign.  Jack Ryan won the Republican nomination that
day, but went on to self-destruct over sex club revelations in his divorce
papers.  Sen. Obama went on to keynote the Democratic Convention in July and
was catapulted to the national stage. As Sen. Obama puts it, how did a
skinny kid with a funny name become the Democratic candidate for the U.S.
Senate, with 53% of the statewide Democratic vote in a seven-person field?

Obama started building the base years before.  For instance, ACORN noticed
him when he was organizing on the far south side of the city with the
Developing Communities Project.  He was a very good organizer.  When he
returned from law school, we asked him to help us with a lawsuit to
challenge the state of Illinois' refusal to abide by the National Voting
Rights Act, also known as motor voter.  Allied only with the state of
Mississippi, Illinois had been refusing to allow mass-based voter
registration according to the new law.  Obama took the case, known as ACORN
vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won.
Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in
1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that
year.  Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that
campaign (ACORN delivered about 5000 of them). 

Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run
the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly
developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office.  Thus, it
was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for
State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time
he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends.  And along about early March,
we started to see that the African-American community had made its move:
when Sen. Obama's name was mentioned at our Southside Summit meeting with
700 people in attendance from three southside communities, the crowd went
crazy.  With about a week to go before the election, it was very clear how
the African-American community would vote.  But would they vote in high
enough numbers?  

It seemed to us that what Obama needed in the March primary was what we
always work to deliver anyway:  increased turnout in our ACORN communities.
ACORN is active on the south and west sides of Chicago, in the south suburbs
and on the east side of Springfield, the state capital.  Most of the turf
where we organize in is African American, with a growing Latino presence in
Chicago's Little Village and the suburbs.  

ACORN members were involved in three activities around the primary: 

1) Block captains were identified, as early as the summer before the March
primary, and provided with lists of registered and unregistered voters and
voter registration materials.  We attended trainings and accountability
meetings to receive our materials and make plans to get the people
registered.  Then we came back to report on our progress. We also hired
voter registrars in the final three weeks to work the supermarkets in our
communities.  By the February 17 voter registration deadline for the
primary, ACORN had registered 12,984 new voters.  This was an organizational
best for us.  (As of this writing, we have added over 27,000 new voters). 

2) Block captains then went to work to turn out the vote.  They were all
volunteers until the last few days, when we received funding to pay some of
our block captains in some precincts of the 24th ward (North Lawndale) and
the 15th ward (West Englewood) to get out the vote on the last Saturday
before the election and on election day. 

3) In some precincts in the 15th ward, we were able to hire canvassers to
work on voter turnout for a full two weeks before the election.  Each
canvasser worked two to three precincts during that time. 

The results of this activity were very interesting, and mirror what
Professor Donald Green of Yale University has found about voter turnout
work: where we were able to run a crew of paid and supervised canvassers for
two weeks before the election, we did very well.  In those targeted ACORN
precincts in the 15th ward, voter turnout improved by an average of 50% over
the previous year's city election (the only other election since the
redistricting).  Citywide turnout increased by only 14% over the same
election. 

The way the canvassers approached each door was important. Instead of a
speech about a candidate they engaged the potential voter in a conversation
about the issues, relating their issues to the importance of voting, and
moving them to a commitment to vote in the primary.  In addition ACORN
leaders were making the rounds talking to their neighbors about the
election.  I am proud to report that the combination of a paid canvass and
my volunteer work was especially successful in turning out the vote in my
two precincts (34 and 51).  In those precincts we boosted turnout by 82%
(precinct 34) and 90% (precinct 51) over the previous year's turnout. ACORN
leader Denise Dixon again paired with an effective canvasser, increased
turnout in her precinct by 131%.  The best performing precincts were the
ones with a canvasser and a leader who worked at least Election Day and the
Saturday before.  There is a noticeable difference between these precincts
and those that only had a paid canvasser in it, who wasn't a local community
leader. 

We're not ready to prove anything yet with our data, because we have not run
a scientific test, but we believe Green's results showing that door-to-door
field work for two weeks before an election yields significant results, and
we believe that there is a correlation with strong local leaders assisting
the paid canvassing in winning even more dramatic increases.  

The 24th ward has traditionally had higher voter turnout than in the 15th.
The work leading up to the election in the 24th Ward was done by leaders who
volunteered their time.  Some were paid for two half days of door knocking,
election day and the Saturday before.  Turnout increased in ACORN precincts
in the 24th ward at a rate higher than the city average, but not at the rate
at which it increased in the 15th.  Overall turnout was still higher in our
24th ward precincts than our 15th ward precincts, but the rate of increase
was not as dramatic. 

None of this is rocket science, but it is important.  Good door-knocking by
community residents for even two half days can impact turnout.  Good
door-knocking by paid and supervised canvassers for two weeks can have
dramatic impact.  And a combination of the two, especially with experienced
community leaders working with the paid canvassers, can make a huge
difference. 

As it turned out, Obama won the primary handily, pulling white wards as well
as African American.  But no one knew that that would be the case.  In each
election we must act as if our work is critical for our communities.  That
is what we did in the primary, and we learned something in the process. 

Toni Foulkes is a Chicago ACORN leader and a member of ACORN's National
Association Board.

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Now, unless you have something a bit more tangible than a bad attitude to
substantiate your allegations . . .

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

  _____  

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Tony
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 5:08 PM
To: Ted Moffett
Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Which Way To The Egress?" Barak Obama

In the case of Barak Obama, you folks may want to be a little cautious.  He
is reputed to have been quite radical in the past, only recently moderating
his tone and posture in an attempt to disguise his far left proclivities.
It's called grooming but all it really amounts to is a polished process to
mislead the potential voter as to Barak's true nature.  Obama plays on the
apathy and laziness of a large percentage of voters who tire of spirited
discussion of the issues, preferring instead to pay too little attention and
then rely on manipulative sound bites two weeks prior to the election.
Rather than analyze the arguments of both sides over time and make an
informed decision, they prefer to bail on their responsibilities as citizens
of a constitutional republic and demand that both sides just "get along."
Obama has cynically targeted this portion of our spoiled population and
intends to get into the Whitehouse by exploiting them.  Don't be conned.
Stay involved and informed.

Best,   -T

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