Nope, those who became addicted to working a phone bank couldn't stop after Nov. 4. Some got their dialing fix by starting phone banks to lobby for different dog breeds for the First Puppy. But a more immediate need was to continue the Campaign for Change, so the phoning went down to Georgia where a runoff election is set for Dec. 2 in a U.S. Senate race.
Rakhi Singh (l) and Barbara Kerckhoff manage the phone bank.
In a Palo Alto office and another location in South San Francisco, volunteers showed up Sunday to call voters in Savannah and other communities to urge them to vote for Democratic candidate Jim Martin. Martin is in a runoff with Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss, who is seeking a second term.
One of the many volunteers at the Palo Alto phone bank
About 20 people spent part of Sunday at a Palo Alto phone bank telling voters in Georgia that a vote for Martin brings the Senate closer to a 60-seat majority for Democrats and a filibuster-proof margin. The only other Senate race undecided, which could seal the deal, is in Minnesota between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken. A recount is currently underway there.
The Palo Alto phone bank was calling Georgia to drum up support for Democrat Jim Martin in a runoff US Senate election.
The phone banking followed a town hall event Thursday night at First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto, attended by more than 300 people. After a pot luck dinner, Obama campaign workers discussed how we would keep the momentum going and use the campaign infrastructure that helped get Obama elected to support his policies in office and to help other community organization efforts on the local, state and national level. To quote Bob Dylan, "The times, they are a changing!"
Google has done something really cool…again. Tuesday it launched a searchable archive of photos owned by LIFE magazine. Even though the weekly LIFE founded by Henry Luce (who also launched Time) didn't begin publication until 1936, the archive goes as far back as 1750 and many of the photos were never published. LIFE ceased being a weekly in 1972.
Google announced the availability of the LIFE archives on its own blog, stating: “This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
I spent some time perusing the archives and pulled out a few I found particularly enjoyable. You can surf the archive yourself here.
My hometown Milwaukee Braves win the World Series in 1957.
Iconic Depression-era photo by Dorothea Lange, 1936.
JFK Inauguration, 1961.
Jack and Jackie arrive at Love Field, Nov. 22, 1963.
Neil Armstrong's footprint on the moon, July 20, 1969.
Somehow this got my attention, May, 1953.
Coach Vince Lombardi bought the 1962 Green Bay Packers'
wives fur coats when their husbands won the NFL Championship.
The Times of London reports that a Sarah Palin book deal could be worth $7 million. I'd say $6.9 million of it should go to the poor sap who has to edit her writing -- if it's anything like her speaking -- to make a complete sentence.
The Onion did a hilarious take on the crushing depression of Obama supporters who have nothing to do now that the Obama campaign for president has been won. As a public service, Mullico Musings wants to help the millions of Obama volunteers make it through this difficult transition back to their normal lives with this handy 10-point guide. Mental health professionals always say the first step on the road to recovery is realizing you have a problem. With that in mind:
Top Ten Symptoms Of Obama Withdrawal:
10. No matter where you intend to go in your car, you end up at your local Obama office. 9. You urgently warn everyone you know that the midterms are only 103 weeks away. 8. You start a phone bank to promote the Corgi as First Puppy. * 7. Someone asks, "Could you send this invoice to accounting?" and you say, "Yes We Can!" 6. You have children, not for German engineering, but to name them Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha. 5. Obama wins by 364-174 electoral votes and you beat yourself up: "Dammit, I could have done MORE!" 4. Someone asks, "Could you pass the salt?" and you say, "Yes We Can!" 3. You skip work to watch SNL election skits online. 2. You only now realize just how dirty your home is. And the Number One Sign You’re Suffering Obama Withdrawal: 1. You’re wearing your Obama buttons in the shower. (*Guilty!) (From the Home Office in Santa Clara, Calif., By Robert Mullins)
It was 7:00 p.m. Tuesday Nov. 4 in the San Jose office of Obama for America and positive returns for Barack Obama were already coming in. But Karen Wark did not want us to ease up. The Obama volunteer worked with campaign headquarters in Chicago to retrieve lists of all the voters to call from our phone bank operation at 43 E. Gish Road.
Even though polls were beginning to close east to west, the campaign wanted to send us phone numbers to call in one more state to maintain the get-out-the-vote pressure: Alaska.
“Lemme at ‘em!” Karen (right in photo below) responded.
The crowd of about 50 volunteers cheered at the news that they’d get a chance to call “Palin Country.” And getting to call the state whose “maverick” governor was fairly characterized as unqualified for the VP office she sought was just one incentive. “Anybody who calls Wasilla gets all the Halloween candy we have in the office,” said Nancy Jennings (left, above), the phone bank manager.
Karen and Nancy are just two of the many volunteers in San Jose who spent countless hours working to help elect Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States. For more than a month, but most intensely since Saturday, the San Jose office was buzzing with volunteers eager to work as much as needed to ensure victory. Job One was to call voters in swing states to identify Obama supporters and, closer to Election Day, make sure they voted. Job Two was to recruit local volunteers to come into the office to make more of those swing state calls.
Sonia Sangster, an African-American woman, brought her two young sons with her so she could make calls. She wanted them to remember that they were a part of making history in helping to elect the first African-American U.S. president. It struck me that when her boys grow up, the idea of a black president will seem normal to them, expected and unremarkable. Carolyn (in photo below), a substitute teacher, told of an election held in a third grade class she taught in which all but one of the students supported Obama. I thought about how brave that one John McCain supporter must have been. Other callers told stories of voters they’d talked to who, despite being well into adulthood, had registered to vote for the first time in order to support Obama.
At times we got pushback from voters we were calling. Even those who supported Obama complained of being called multiple times, even as many as five times in one day. One voter answered with “I’m voting for Obama” and hung up. Others threatened to vote for McCain if we kept calling and one told a volunteer “I’m gonna kick your ass” if called again. Yikes! But we pressed on, not wanting to take the chance that an Obama supporter we hadn’t reached would somehow not be motivated to go to the polls. Despite Obama’s growing lead in the race, complacency was not an option.
And it paid off. Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado were the focus of most of our phone bank calling – and of personal visits by California volunteers, including myself (below). On Tuesday, each of those states, which were red in 2004, turned blue. Also turning red to blue this year were Indiana and Ohio, which we also called in recent days.
Ours was a ramshackle but nonetheless ruthlessly efficient enterprise. We occupied the third floor of a three-story walkup office building off of North First Street. I say walkup because the elevator, which had been balky for weeks, was broken altogether for the last week and a half and, unconscionably, no one who apparently owned this building sent anyone to fix it. To quiet the noise in one linoleum-tiled room used as a phone bank, someone donated sections of carpet that were laid out in a haphazard pattern on the floor. Most volunteers used their own cell phones to make calls, but the campaign had about two dozen phones to loan to those without one. They were so abused by repeated use that they seldom held much of a charge and, for a few units, Scotch tape held together the two halves of the clamshell-style phones.
But even with Scotch-taped phones, a broken elevator and offices so crowded that volunteers sat cross-legged on the floor and made calls, we achieved something amazing. From just the San Jose office, more than 38,000 calls were placed on Election Day alone. California’s 55 electoral votes were expected to go to Obama, so the candidates rarely visited here. But while California supporters didn’t need to help Californians decide, they helped in states to the East. During one week in October, 55 percent of the 1.8 million calls from Obama phone banks nationwide were placed from banks in California.
Now things are winding down at Gish Road. We third floor tenants (see above) in the Obama office will start clearing out, as will the Santa Clara County office of the Democratic Party on the second floor. Career Closet will remain on the first.
Career Closet is a charity that collects donations of women’s business attire and gives the clothes to disadvantaged women to look more professional on a job interview. Every time I passed their door on my way up or down the stairs, I’d say to whomever I was with at the moment, “This is where Sarah Palin’s clothes are going after the campaign.” It occurs to me that the clothes, and the optimism that is rising nationwide from Obama’s victory, will give those women added confidence in that job interview.
Obama’s campaign slogan has long been, “Yes We Can!” Now those who worked on the campaign can say, “Yes We Did!”
One of the most effective, and funny, viral e-mail campaigns of this election season is the "Get out the Vote" campaign of MoveOn.org. People who receive the e-mail click on a video of a fake newscast one week from today that reports John McCain beat Barack Obama by ONE VOTE, and that one vote was YOURS ! Your name is shown in the news report on the headline of a newspaper, the caption on the newscast graphics and even on graffiti identifying you as a "Loser!" It's hilarious! Once you get the e-mail you can forward it to many more people. Enter their name and e-mail address and when they click on the video, they'll be the one blamed for losing the election for Obama! MoveOn.org writes: "Studies show that by far the best way to get people out to vote is to convince them that (a) everyone else is voting, and (b) everyone will know if they don't vote. This video does both—with a smile (or smirk, in some cases)." Here's where to start.
Polls show some 5 to 6 percent of voters are undecided in the race between John McCain and Barack Obama. My only question to them would be, "How do you get dressed in the morning?" Do you stand before your closet torn between the blue shirt and the red shirt and decide, "I can't make up my mind. I'll just stay in my bath robe all day. But should I wear the blue bath robe or the red bath robe?"
I am a contract marketing writer for a network security company in Silicon Valley. I have also been a technology reporter with more than a decade of experience covering news in Silicon Valley. Before that, I was a business reporter for newspapers and started my career in public radio. On a personal note, I am the fifth of nine children of George and Mary Mullins and am one of 30 cousins on my mom's side of the family, the McCorrys. I was born and raised in Wauwatosa, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee.
Volunteers at a Palo Alto phone bank, Nov. 23.
Rakhi Singh (l) and Barbara Kerckhoff
One of the many volunteers
The Palo Alto phone bank was calling Georgia to
