Jack & Jill Politics

My peoples! This is so exciting. Here is the first of what I hope will be many dispatches from our network of folks on the ground in South Carolina.

First up, a short dispatch from Greenville

I’m in Greenville, SC. I am scheduled to do some door canvasing on Saturday with fellow supporters from the Obama office here in Greenville. I have a co-worker headed to the Obama rally at Furman University today. I will definitely follow up with any interesting events. President Clinton will also be in the area today. Still, the only campaigns that are vocal in the area are Obama and Edwards. I have heard little from any Clinton supporters or sympathizers.

Next one comes courtesy of an Obama campaign volunteer offering some concerns about the campaign’s approach, potentially record breaking get out the vote (GOTV) efforts and a look ahead to Super Tuesday.

so my basic concern with the campaign message — this was true for NH as well — is that it’s been assuming that voters are already on Obama’s side, when he’s still got a lot of convincing to do. In NH he kept hitting the “do what Iowa did” message which was a guaranteed turnoff, and he was giving stump speeches to fire up the base rather than expanding that base. Well, Hillary is the one with the base, not O. So he’s got to re-tune his message.

As for what’s going on on the ground, some blog just publicized our election law hotline and we’ve been hammered — about 65% legit calls, and 35% who just want to yak. But there’s a lot of confusion about polling locations, a lot of stuff having to do with the counties consolidating precincts so that many of them are voting at the same location as another precinct. This is apparently new so even inside we’re struggling to keep up, esp. with some apparently last-minute changes. We’re trying to doorknock without perfect info on where thees folks should vote.

The big thing is that right before we arrived they made the decision to expand the GOTV universe to include all identified supporters PLUS every known African-American in the state. This quadrupled our outreach effort. Strategically this seems a bit shaky to me — see first para about assuming that everyone is already on your side — but in the big picture of electoral politics, I bet it’s been decades that anything like this has ever been attempted to bring out a disenfranchised community. In fact, it may be flat-out historic. Hugely inspiring.

The Nevada results seem to have no effect on morale here. I’m sure if they had been reversed we’d be revved up on a totally different plane, so I can’t say the results made no difference, but for whatever reason Iowa and NH are still embedded in our psyches, so as far as we’re concerned, we’re tied.

I’m already looking ahead to Super Tuesday and I’m worried but excited… we need a huge, huge win here to carry us through. Let’s say we do — what will it take to win CA, GA, MA, hells, even a big chunk of NY? What are folks doing in the ST states to make this for real?

Remember you’re getting this from JJP!