Reg new voters

Whether you support Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, beating John McCain in November has to be our most important goal. That's why we're integrating our successful 2004 neighbor-to-neighbor door-knocking campaign and our 2006 volunteer phonebanking program, Call for Change. We're working hard now on perfecting the plan to contact voters who'll need a push to vote in November. A national effort to get voters registered is starting on May 10th in Houston where one can be trained as a voter registrar. Folks will be working on an on-going basis with voter registration until before the General Election. Although this event is being organized by the Obama campaign, it is a public service because registering voters is a non-partisan activity.

We're also deciding how best to talk to voters who are on the fence and persuade them to vote for the Democratic nominee. And we're talking to coalition partners daily to make sure we coordinate our efforts, not to mention the formation of a new partnership with SEIU—the nation's fastest-growing union—to turn out voters together.

We also have a historic opportunity in the fall to change the makeup of the Senate by winning as many as 10 new seats. It would be no small feat to achieve, but it's an important and winnable goal:

With 60 votes in the Senate, Democrats would have a filibuster-proof majority—which means that Republicans could no longer block a vote to end the war, or any other progressive piece of legislation.
A powerful majority in the Senate and a Democratic president could right the wrongs of the Bush years and begin a new era of progressive reform in our country.
The odds are in our favor: Republicans are defending 23 seats in competitive races—almost two-thirds of the races up for grabs—which means we'll have an edge as we attempt to build a progressive majority.

Many of the most competitive Senate races, like the open Senate seat Democrat Tom Udall is trying to win in New Mexico, or Jeanne Shaheen's campaign against a conservative Republican in New Hampshire, happen to be in states that we'll also focus on for the presidential race, so we'll be talking to voters about both.

Questions???

Please email Sharon Washington (sharonforobama@yahoo.com)
or Sue Deigaard (sue.houstonforobama@gmail.com)