Two Weeks

Save America

It’s been 1,368 days since Donald J. Trump was inaugurated.  1,368 days that began with lying about the size of the inauguration crowd and the “Muslim Ban”. It continued through “fine people on both sides” at Charlottesville, children separated from parents on our Southern border, the abandonment of America’s allies throughout the world, and Trump’s infatuation with “strong-men” dictators.  We learned that Russia backed Trump in the 2016 election, and that Trump tried to leverage the power of the United States to attack his political rival, Joe Biden.  

And then there was COVID-19.

We also learned that many of our other elected leaders turned their back on “the right thing to do”.  They were afraid of a “tweet”, of the power of the Trump base to remove them from office.  They grew silent at the continual stream of hate and invective and at a President who tried to rule by division instead of lead by consensus.

1,368 days gone, and now there’s two weeks left to put it to an end.  

No Stone Unturned

I was twenty years old and having the time of my life in October of 1976.  I was on the lowest rung of the “paid staff” of the Carter/Mondale Presidential campaign.  Southwest Ohio was my territory, and I was the “campaign contact” for efforts in five different counties.  But Hamilton County, Cincinnati, was the prize.  At the time the City was Democratic, but the suburbs were Republican.  In the last few weeks those of us who were campaigning outside of town, in Butler, Warren, Clermont, Brown, and Clinton Counties were told to get things in order, and come back to the “headquarters” in a rundown office building on Main Street north of Seventh in downtown Cincinnati. It was time for the final push, and it was “all hands on deck” in the big city.

My boss, a guy named Michael Jackson (a former Nebraska lineman) made it very clear what our goal was.  Not a pamphlet, sign, button or bumper sticker was to be left in the office.  Everything must go out into the community.  I was running targeted “litt drops”, groups of mostly high school kids going door-to-door leaving a full-color Jimmy Carter pamphlet.  The idea was to blanket neighborhoods, another “contact” from the Carter/Mondale campaign.  Those kids became expert at finding ways to make the “litt” stay on storm doors or doorknobs, and avoiding the inevitable dogs in the front yard.

They were prepared to talk, to make some key points about what Jimmy Carter could do as President.  But talking wasn’t really the goal – it was contact, that piece of literature, in as many doors as possible. 

Get Out the Vote (GOTV)

The last two weeks it was time to stop persuading.  While it was satisfying to discuss, to try to “talk” folks into voting for Jimmy Carter rather than Gerald Ford, with two weeks to go most had already made up their mind.  Beside that, the time it took to argue kept you from reaching five or six more who just needed to be reminded to go to the polls.

There’s the lesson:  stop arguing.  If someone wants to argue about “the good” Donald Trump has done, then they aren’t going to vote for Joe Biden.  All the argument will do is provide more motivation for them to go out and vote for Trump, the exact opposite of the goal.  Two weeks means energize your own voters.  

Phone Banks

In 1976 we had giant “continuous feed computer paper” sheets of voter rolls, sorted by address and precinct.  Beside each voter’s name was a series of letters – from RRR to DDD with a scattering of I’s in between.  Those letters indicated what ballot they asked for in the last three primaries:  Republicans were R’s, Democrats were D’s, Independents were I’s.  A blank space meant they didn’t vote.

So we had an old fashioned “phone bank”, a back room with twenty “new” push button phones around a table.  Volunteers were handed a precinct worth of sheets, and told to call the “triple D’s” and remind them to vote.  Back then in an age before caller-ID, people actually answered their phones.  If they had questions, like where they voted or could they get a ride, our volunteers had the answer.  If they wanted to know an official policy, the volunteer took their name and one of us staffers called them back. 

Today GOTV is much more highly refined.  The immense amounts of data from social media and former contacts allows for “micro-targeting”.  Campaigns can reach specific voters with specific messages directed at their personal concerns.  And, of course, voting now is so much more than just “Election Day”.  By November 3^rd it’s estimated that a full third of the vote will already by in.  So GOTV started on October 4^th, and it’s in full swing with two weeks left to go.

What Can You Do

But most aren’t a part of the campaign: what can they do to help end the Trump nightmare?  

1. Make sure you non-Trump friends vote.  Find ways to make sure they get to the polls if they’re voting in person, or get their mail-in ballot in the mail TODAY!!
2. Prepare for post-election issues.  It may be days before we know who has won the Presidency, and there will be pressure from the Trump side to stop vote counting and declare a winner.  It may require marches, demonstrations, and protests to keep the mail-in vote count going.  It’s COVID world, so many cannot and should not risk participating in such public activities.  But if you can, then go.
3. And most importantly – VOTE.  The 2016 election was decided by 77,744 votes out of more than 120 million.  Every vote counts; don’t let anyone tell you different.

Let’s do everything we can so that on November 4^th or 5^th or 10^th, we can look forward to the end.  To paraphrase President Gerald Ford:  

“…our long national nightmare will be over”.