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 \u201cMuslim Ban\u201d. It continued through \u201cfine people on both sides\u201d at Charlottesville, children separated from parents on our Southern border, the abandonment of America\u2019s allies throughout the world, and Trump\u2019s infatuation with \u201cstrong-men\u201d 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there was COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also learned that many of our other elected leaders turned their back on \u201cthe right thing to do\u201d. They were afraid of a \u201ctweet\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1,368 days gone, and now there\u2019s two weeks left to put it to an end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was twenty years old and having the time of my life in October of 1976. I was on the lowest rung of the \u201cpaid staff\u201d of the Carter\/Mondale Presidential campaign. Southwest Ohio was my territory, and I was the \u201ccampaign contact\u201d 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 \u201cheadquarters\u201d in a rundown office building on Main Street north of Seventh in downtown Cincinnati. It was time for the final push, and it was \u201call hands on deck\u201d in the big city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201clitt drops\u201d, groups of mostly high school kids going door-to-door leaving a full-color Jimmy Carter pamphlet. The idea was to blanket neighborhoods, another \u201ccontact\u201d from the Carter\/Mondale campaign. Those kids became expert at finding ways to make the \u201clitt\u201d stay on storm doors or doorknobs, and avoiding the inevitable dogs in the front yard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were prepared to talk, to make some key points about what Jimmy Carter could do as President. But talking wasn\u2019t really the goal \u2013 it was contact, that piece of literature, in as many doors as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last two weeks it was time to stop persuading.\u00a0\u00a0While it was satisfying to discuss, to try to \u201ctalk\u201d folks into voting for Jimmy Carter rather than Gerald Ford, with two weeks to go most had already made up their mind.\u00a0\u00a0Beside 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s the lesson:\u00a0\u00a0stop arguing.\u00a0\u00a0If someone wants to argue about \u201cthe good\u201d Donald Trump has done, then they aren\u2019t going to vote for Joe Biden.\u00a0\u00a0All the argument will do is provide more motivation for them to go out and vote for Trump, the exact opposite of the goal.\u00a0\u00a0Two weeks means energize\u00a0your own<\/strong>\u00a0voters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1976 we had giant \u201ccontinuous feed computer paper\u201d sheets of voter rolls, sorted by address and precinct.\u00a0\u00a0Beside each voter\u2019s name was a series of letters \u2013 from RRR to DDD with a scattering of I\u2019s in between.\u00a0\u00a0Those letters indicated what ballot they asked for in the last three primaries:\u00a0\u00a0Republicans were R\u2019s, Democrats were D\u2019s, Independents were I\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0A blank space meant they didn\u2019t vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we had an old fashioned \u201cphone bank\u201d, a back room with twenty \u201cnew\u201d push button phones around a table. Volunteers were handed a precinct worth of sheets, and told to call the \u201ctriple D\u2019s\u201d 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today GOTV is much more highly refined.\u00a0\u00a0The immense amounts of data from social media and former contacts allows for \u201cmicro-targeting\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Campaigns can reach specific voters with specific messages directed at their personal concerns.\u00a0\u00a0And, of course, voting now is so much more than just \u201cElection Day\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0By November 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0it\u2019s estimated that a full third of the vote will already by in.\u00a0\u00a0So GOTV started on October 4th<\/sup>, and it\u2019s in full swing with two weeks left to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But most aren\u2019t a part of the campaign: what can they do to help end the Trump nightmare? <\/p>\n\n\n\nPhone Banks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What Can You Do<\/h3>\n\n\n\n