Politics – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Voter Outreach 2020 – Postcards To Voters

David Posnett — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 18:49:59 +0000

Turning Out The Vote In Battleground States Will Decide This Election: Learn About Handwritten Postcards To Voters (the first in a 3-part series on non in-person voter outreach)

Over the July 4^th weekend, in two speeches, Trump laid bare the blatant racism and divisiveness that are the underpinnings of his personality, his presidency and the rationale for his reelection campaign. No dog whistles, no code words, no nuance. It was deeply disturbing. He wants to bait us into a race war where, he believes, he will emerge the winner. He has no interest in uniting, no interest in soothing the frayed nerves of an anxious nation. That was left to Vice President Biden in his comments on the meaning of Independence Day in 2020. The choice between the two men could not be starker.

The weekend heightened my own sense of urgency about the 2020 election. And it reminded me of the message President Obama conveyed on the virtual fundraiser for Biden a few weeks ago: “Whatever you have done so far is not enough.”

I have been muttering this sentiment to myself since election night, 2016. I didn’t do enough to help elect Hillary. I should have done more to flip our district in 2018. And now, stuck at home, how the heck am I going to get-out-the-vote for Joe Biden this year?

Trump and the GOP know there is only one formula that leads to him winning reelection. He deployed it in 2016. Trumpism does not have the support of the majority of the country. He can only win if he suppresses the Democratic vote, through outright voter suppression and by smearing his opponent, and then he has to rile his base to such a fever pitch that nearly 100% of his 40% of the country cast their ballots. That is how he eked out an Electoral College win in 2016 and that is his plan for 2020. In 2016, he used immigration as red meat to inflame his base; this time he is using fear of our fellow Americans. It may be disgusting, but if Democrats don’t vote, then it could succeed.

In my book, The Resistance and Me: An Insider’s Account of the Two-Year Mission to Stop the Trump Agenda and Take Back the House, the reader learns, just as we learned, the incredible importance of speaking directly to voters. Across the country, in-person canvassing helped to power the blue wave. We cannot meet voters face-to-face this year, making turning out the vote just a little bit harder, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have weapons in our arsenal, other ways of reaching voters that will boost Democratic turnout. I implore each of you to learn about them and start using them because whatever you are already doing, it is not enough.

There are basically three forms of non in-person voter outreach: snail mail with letters or postcards, phone-banking and text-banking. Over the next few weeks, I will focus on each of these. Each method can be done from your own home, each is available to everyone. You can try them all and choose the method that you are most comfortable with; you can do a combination of two or three. Once you learn about these initiatives, my hope is you will be ready to get started. None of us want to wake up on November 4^th and have any regrets, or say to ourselves, as we did in 2016, if only I had gotten more involved. Because the truth about Trump, the truth that was there for us all to see in 2016, is he is unfit for this job and the combination of incompetence and corruption that mark his administration is literally killing us. We will not survive a second term.

To begin, this blog post will take a look at handwritten postcards to voters. I first got involved in mailing postcards to voters for the midterm election with my Indivisible group, East End Action Network (EEAN). We hosted a lot of activities for the midterm election, including one-on-one interviews and debate forums with the primary candidates as well as get-out-the-vote door-knocking weekends. But probably our most popular general election events were a series of postcard-writing parties, in conjunction with the campaign of our Democratic congressional nominee, Perry Gershon. They provided the postcards and the mailing lists of Democratic voters’ names and addresses and together with other grassroots groups who did the same, thousands of handwritten postcards were mailed out to voters in CD#1 right before the election. The idea is that when a voter receives a handwritten message about voting that it cuts through all the noise and clutter to make an impression. The goal is to create a card so engaging, so colorful that it will go up on a refrigerator door.

In my book are descriptions and photos of our 2018 postcard parties. People who wanted to get involved but were not comfortable going door-to-door or even phone-banking, were thrilled to participate and really enjoyed the experience. EEAN provided all the markers and stickers to make the cards creative and colorful, and everyone brought food and drinks to make it a party. Our master at organizing these events is leadership member Sharon Adams, a retired elementary school teacher.

Already this year, Sharon has organized two postcard-writing events for EEAN, both of them virtual. The first was for Common Cause to alert New York voters about their options to vote in the primary and the second was our first event reaching outside of New York, to voters in a battleground state. We have known that 2020 would be very different than 2018 because we would be adding involvement with the presidential election along with the congressional. Unlike our congressional race, the presidential race will not be decided by who gets the most votes, but by who reaches 270 electoral votes. Trump lost the popular vote, but won the presidency by small margins across a few states. Most states, including New York, are already in the red or blue column which means that voters in a handful of states, called swing states or battleground states will decide the outcome of this election. Given that, it is crucial that we reach these voters and encourage them to vote for Biden.

In researching the different groups that are involved in sending postcards to battleground states, we chose Postcards To Voters (PTV), https://postcardstovoters.org/. This was an easy decision since Sharon was already very familiar with how PTV works because she has been involved with PTV from its inception. Alongside all of the activities she is involved in for our district, she explained why being an active volunteer with PTV has been important to her.

“Volunteers feel that the stakes are so high that they have to do something to assure that our democracy will survive,” she said. “Volunteering to write friendly handwritten reminders to targeted voters has become a movement thanks to Tony McMullin, who founded Postcards to Voters in 2017. I’m proud to have been a part of this grassroots group of volunteers since its start.”

Founder Tony McMullin goes by the nickname Tony the Democrat. The website has a photo of Tony, along with an explanation of how his background led him to create PTV:

Since March 2017, many people have called me Tony The Democrat.

I have a career in business process and technology project management for specialized insurance and financial services companies. Since 2003, I have had the privilege to work on numerous municipal and state campaigns coordinating volunteers, field operations, and data-driven decisions.

While in Dallas, Texas, I was a founding member of a grassroots group that turned a red house district blue, and served as both a Precinct Chair and House District Coordinator responsible for recruiting, training, and mentoring Precinct Captains. This experience with campaigns and volunteer coordination are the foundation for my new initiative.

I live in Metro Atlanta with two rescue Miniature Schnauzers, Lex and Pierce.

Tony was first bitten by the campaign bug when he quit his job to volunteer full-time for Howard Dean’s campaign in the 2004 presidential election. There is a great profile of Tony on the website New Faces of Democracy, a group that spotlights many of the grassroots activists who are part of the anti-Trump Resistance. https://newfacesofdemocracy.org/spotlight-tony-the-democrat/.

You can also read about Tony and PTV in a 2018 article in The New York Times entitled, “Writing Postcards Brings Voters Back From the Edge: ‘It’s Sharpie Therapy’.” According to the article, “In the big data era of politics, where campaigns are betting millions on software that can harvest hundreds of pieces of information about a single voter, Tony McMullin is making a decidedly different wager. He is trying to show that elections can be won through the persuasive power of a plaintive handwritten postcard. It is a battle of quaint vs. quant.”

The home page on the PTV website is warm and welcoming and filled with photos of colorful and creative postcards. Here is the description on the PTV site of how it works:

Postcards to Voters are friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast.

What started on March 11, 2017 with sharing 5 addresses apiece to 5 volunteers on Facebook so that they could mail postcards to voters in Jon Ossoff’s race grew in one month to 1,200+ volunteers nationwide and over 51,000 postcards mailed.

Now, we consist of over 75,000+ volunteers in every state (including Alaska and Hawaii) who have written over 9 million postcards to voters in over 200 key, close elections.

We use an interactive texting service (Abby The Address Bot) to assign addresses to our trusted, returning volunteers. For new volunteers and those organizing postcard parties around the country, we use a commercial Help Desk system to streamline and automate email requests.

Another commercial business intelligence package crunches the numbers so we always know who our top volunteers are by campaign, a heat-map showing where the postcards are being written by zip code around the country, and other essential dashboards to manage an operation that now averages 15,000 voter addresses assigned daily.

How It Works

1. Sign Up

o We’ll send you an email with instructions

2. Become an Approved Writer

o Write a practice postcard and email us a photo following instructions in the email

3. Approval

o Approved -We’ll send you addresses and information on how to obtain additional addresses

o Not Approved – You will receive an email detailing why and how to fix it

4. Request Addresses

5. Keep up with Current Campaigns

o Facebook

o Twitter

We felt this group was perfect for our postcard action and we were eager to write to voters in a battleground state. Because all our meetings and events have been virtual since March, we could not provide tables of volunteers with materials as we did in 2018, but our founder, Rebecca Dolber, explained in our weekly newsletter how a virtual postcard party would work. Members were asked to RSVP with Sharon if they were interested. Sharon then followed-up in an email to those members who signed up:

Thank you for being the first group to volunteer this week to write Postcards To Voters. (PTV)

I started writing with this awesome organization when it started in 2017. There are now over 75,000 volunteers in every state that have written close to 8 million postcards to voters. (Now you’re really excited to be part of this movement!).

Postcards To Voters are friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast. After you become an approved writer you may be able to choose the target group you want to write to (depends on the addresses available) and you choose how many cards you want to write (you are usually given 3 days to complete/send). I like to do 5 or 10 at a time. Aside from that, you are given everything you need. There are only 3 MUST HAVES for each card, tons of extra ideas, background information and of course the addresses.

I’m going to give you the link to get SIGNED UP and then you’ll receive an email with exact instructions. On the website, https://postcardstovoters.org/, go to JOIN in the menu. After you’ve sent the photo of your practice postcard and been approved, you’ll receive additional instructions on how to request addresses whenever you feel the urge to write. I am here to help with any questions. The website is awesome! It’s very complete, so take some time to explore the site.

Please let me know when you’ve been approved and are ready to start writing. Keep a tally of how many cards you write please.

Facebook and Twitter have PTV accounts that are fun to follow. There is a whole community of writers across the country that share on social media. (I even get excited when followers like my postcard designs) #PostcardsToVoters

So…you will need postcards, postcard stamps and art supplies. As you will see on the website, it’s supposed to also be a fun activity. We can share our creative designs, sources for preprinted cards and fun new stickers or markers. I am fond of using colorful 81/2″ x 11″ card stock that is cut to 4 pieces. This is the cheaper way to go, but I also have a variety of printed cards. If you need ANYthing, please just ask me. The PTV website has great options for buying postcards, 100 for $15.

Due to the pandemic, most of the writing groups that formed across the country are not meeting in person. We would like to have a virtual writing party on June 25^th if everyone is approved and ready. We are flexible. Again let me know when you’re approved and we’ll plan from there.

One last note…a postcard writer from Colorado commented on a photo I recently posted on twitter of my completed cards. He commented that his goal is “to ensure that the cards he sends will be looked at.” Let’s get our cards on those refrigerators, my friends!!!!

If you go to the PTV website and click on the tab for “results” you will see the list of campaigns that PTV has been involved in. The action that we participated in was postcards to registered Democrats in specific Florida counties with information on how to enroll in vote-by-mail. Turns out, much to my surprise, that Florida has a wonderful vote-by-mail system that enables a voter to enroll and for two federal election cycles, they will automatically be sent a mail-in ballot for every election. I wish New York had that. Given the pandemic and the fear that people will not feel safe going to the polls for in-person voting or, like in several primaries around the country, many polling places were closed due to staff shortages, all of this confusion in November can be avoided if people have signed up for vote-by-mail. Our cards gave Democratic voters all the information they needed to enroll in this program and ended with the tag line, “When FL Dems vote-by-mail, Dems win!” And needless to say, few battleground states are as important as Florida.

We all ordered postcards and stamps, signed up on the PTV website, created our sample cards and got approved and started working on our address lists. Our virtual Zoom Postcard-Writing Party on Thursday, June 25^th would be a social gathering to schmooze together while we all worked on our cards. Some folks had already finished several lists and others were just starting. Some members preferred to finish and mail their postcards without joining the Zoom, which was fine, while others looked forward to the group interaction.

For those of us on the virtual party, the event was a lot of fun and it was wonderful to catch up and share the time together. It was also gratifying to have younger women with kids at home join us. It is one of the ironies of this pandemic that being forced to go virtual has opened up our meetings to more members, particularly younger members with children at home.

“The pandemic has actually affected my activism in mostly positive ways,” said leadership member Lisa Marrin. “Stay-At-Home orders have given me much more time for postcard writing, Zooming and learning more about the history of party politics in the nation. Since so many of my children’s activities were cancelled and I am working from home on my own schedule, I have been able to meet more often with the EEAN leadership committee and we have developed a great framework for our upcoming actions. I have committed to three different postcard projects and have just finished training on phone-banking. I am excited to engage in this way. The downside of political action during a pandemic is the lack of face-to-face contact with like-minded individuals and my reluctance to join in-person protests. As I try to put the health of myself and my family first, I just have not been able to bring myself to attend. Luckily, I can take satisfaction in my virtual activism and the fact that I am able to participate in those ways on a larger scale.”

Lisa’s friend, Stacie Coppola, is a new member who also has children at home and was able to join the postcard party Zoom. It was so uplifting to watch them participate and to hear how Stacie turned it into a teachable moment for her son and daughter, who are 12-year-old fraternal twins.

“I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to help out and to use it as a way to teach my children about the importance of participation,” said Stacie. “My children and I ended up having a really great discussion about the struggle that women and African Americans have had in getting the right to vote and how important it is not to squander that right. COVID-19 has really driven home the fear I have that my children will be facing a very different world than we all have. My husband usually expresses hesitancy about introducing them to the heaviness that comes with political topics but we both realize that this next generation will be facing challenges that will make it impossible for them not to be ‘political.’ Working on the postcards allowed them to see that participation, even on small levels, can be fun and comforting. The women at East End Action Network have a kindness of spirit that is very motivating and has encouraged me to take the edge off of my anger at where our country is and just get to work.”

At the end of the Zoom, everyone held up their cards so we could see all the amazing designs. I was blown away by the creativity of some of the designs and there was no doubt in my mind that Florida voters receiving these will take notice of them. Here are a few examples:

Postcards by Stacie Coppola and her children; Sharon Adams’ postcards; and Patricia Callan’s postcards.

It is our hope that members will continue on their own requesting lists and mailing more postcards to Florida voters since no group activity is necessary to get more address lists. Once approved, when you finish a list, all you have to do is text the word “hello” to the mobile number and another address list with instructions for what to write on the card is emailed to you. Even once we start writing postcards for our Democratic nominee in CD#1, we plan on continuing our work with PTV. (Due to the large number of absentee ballots that needed counting, we have only just gotten the results that Stony Brook University Chemistry Chair Nancy Goroff has won the primary and will be the Democratic candidate to take on GOP Trump-clone Congressman Lee Zeldin in the fall).

The PTV system is user-friendly, interactive and fun. I was so intrigued by PTV that I reached out to Mr. McMullin to learn more about him and about PTV. He was open and friendly, exactly what one would expect from someone called “Tony the Democrat.” My first question was about the vote-by-mail action to Florida. I had assumed it was because of COVID. Turns out it wasn’t. They started this action with Florida voters in 2018.

“I don’t remember how it came to my attention,” he said, “but in Florida, you can enroll in vote-by- mail simply by making a phone call, only one phone call needed, and you are locked into automatically receiving a ballot by mail for every election. This is a powerful incentive for a volunteer trying to figure out how to spend their time and postage, because with an enrollment process as easy as a phone call, the likelihood of a positive outcome is much higher than with a different state where you have to request a ballot application, fill it out and mail it back, then fill out the ballot and mail that. All those steps reduce the number of people who will complete that enrollment. When I pitch to volunteers that I need their help to do this action, I want to give them an action that has the biggest chance of success. I hear from people why don’t we do this in Michigan or Arizona and the answer comes down to the ease of enrollment and the length of the term which can’t be matched by any other state. I can’t in good conscience ask our volunteers to spend the same kind of postage when there is a much lower success rate of enrollment.”

Tony also explained that having worked on this initiative over several years, it helps the county supervisors process these vote-by-mail requests. “This way they are not inundated, not flooded with requests which would happen if we held onto the postcards and mailed them all at once, then they would get swamped with new enrollments and their office staff would be beleaguered. That also would not serve the voter as well. By our volunteers writing and mailing them along the way, we are good partners and give the county supervisors an easier time.”

It is serendipitous that Florida has an excellent vote-by-mail system that makes it worthwhile for the time and expense of his volunteers and at the same time is arguably the most important of the battleground states. “We have known for a long time,” said Tony, “that Florida can be the firewall because there is no path for reelection for Trump without Florida. If Florida turns blue, that is all we need to stop Trump.”

There is another added benefit of vote-by-mail that extends beyond the presidential race. “Once Democrats are enrolled, they then get ballots for every election. Every study proves that if you are mailed a ballot automatically rather than relying just on voting in person, that this increases turnout throughout the state at every level of government.”

This connects so nicely to what Dr. Lara Putnam, historian at the University of Pittsburgh, talks about in my book, which is the need to create an ongoing progressive ecosystem that begins at the local level. I mentioned Dr. Putnam’s analysis to Tony. “I have goose bumps listening to you describe focusing on local elections. This is what I tell our volunteers, that their efforts with the postcards will help change behavior and strengthen the voting habit. It is hard to make voting a habit, we are talking about people with two jobs, single parents, people burdened with elder care issues and so they could be forgiven for missing a special election for county commissioner. But now, if they can get the ballot in the mail, it is just inevitable that they will participate at a higher rate.”

As good as Florida’s vote-by-mail system is, Tony explained to me that it used to be even better. No surprise, the change came once Republicans took over the state legislature. “Florida has a lot of pride in their vote-by-mail program, which used to be permanent. You would always get a ballot as long as you lived at the same address. Then when the GOP took over, they modified it to make it expire after two federal election cycles, generally four years. But to show that they really have no fundamental problem with voting by mail, they really just want to make it harder for everyone to vote, they grandfathered in those already enrolled so that they would still be permanent. At that point, the GOP had an advantage in vote-by-mail enrollments. It was an insidious way to game the system.”

But thanks to all the efforts to enroll Democrats in vote-by-mail, that GOP advantage is gone. According to a recent article in Politico, entitled, “Florida Democrats Gain Vote By Mail Advantage,” Democrats now hold a significant lead in vote-by-mail enrollments. “Democrats have opened up a 302,000-voter advantage over Republicans in vote-by-mail enrollment, an edge that could pay big dividends in President Donald Trump’s newly adopted must-win state.”

Helping Florida turn blue is so crucial, that Tony told me PTV will continue to focus on vote-by-mail this summer. “We are going to continue for the next couple of months, hopefully with another 600,000 postcards,” he said. After that, they will point their army of volunteers towards helping candidate campaigns. Right now, he can’t say which campaigns they will be helping. “I can’t know in the beginning of July which campaigns we are going to be writing for. I have some guesses based on conversations with people leading multiple candidate efforts in different states, such as Ohio and Texas, but it is a fluid situation and different campaigns sign up every week.” There is a web form on the PTV site that campaigns can fill out. “But the more volunteers we have, the more campaigns we can help. People are signing up and writing over 15,000 postcards a day, which is terrific. We try to forecast our writing capacity and I have a spreadsheet of different campaigns. We have 76,000 volunteers; think what we could do if we could double that size by November. And we are ready for that. We have the technology and the infrastructure to do that. In 2018, we did 1.9 million postcards in September and October. I think we could do 4-5 million this year if we have enough people involved. Really, I have to thank our volunteer writers, they are the backbone of this work and they recruit their friends and family. We don’t have a marketing budget. When we grow, it is because the volunteers are happy.”

I asked if the Republicans had a similar operation. “I have seen a handful of specific GOP campaign postcard activities, but nothing close to our volunteer base or to broad campaigns, that is one of the things that we have an advantage,” he said. “Imagine what it would take for another group to start what we do and build that volunteer base. If another group is just starting up, they will have a long road to get to where we are.”

I thanked Tony for taking the time to speak with me and for all he is doing to reach voters. I only had one last question. I was curious to know if any of the sample postcards ever get turned down. “It doesn’t happen often,” he said. “When it does, it might be because the writer didn’t pay close enough attention to the rules and then we tell them what they need to do to fix it which most people are happy to do. Unfortunately, we do occasionally hear back from people that this is too picky for them and it’s not a volunteer activity that suits them. But that is pretty rare.”

PTV was an activity that ideally suited our group. Our virtual event was a success and our members had enjoyed participating. And we were especially pleased that members were continuing to ask for more lists on their own and continued to mail more postcards. We will be planning more PTV parties this summer, virtual and possibly in-person with social distancing. And just maybe PTV could help us in our fight to unseat Zeldin.

For Sharon, who started with PTV on her own in 2017, she said it has been gratifying watching PTV grow. She also said it has taken on an even more meaning for the volunteer writers after watching Trump double down on his divisive and racist messages.

“I’m very impressed by the incredible amount of volunteers, all across the country, who are so seriously invested in Postcards To Voters,” she said. “On this fourth of July weekend, one volunteer shared on social media that they’re using their postcard writing as ‘a distraction from the horrible speeches being made about America.’ Another writer felt ‘this is the most patriotic thing I could accomplish today.’ Volunteers stated they will save their celebrations for November. As the holiday weekend unwinds, I’ve just completed another ten postcards which are headed to Broward County to encourage vote-by-mail. I’m looking forward to our next virtual writing party or possibly an outdoor writing party with masks and social distancing guidelines a key factor. “

Go to the PTV website and give it a try. If you are part of a grassroots group or a book club, you can add a virtual event to your postcard-writing. But it is also an easy action you can do by yourself. I like writing and designing my cards at the end of the day while I sit and watch television, a good antidote to the news. You will find the time of the day that works best for you. And if you need a guidebook to show you how to integrate grassroots volunteerism into your daily life, read my book and meet the women who did exactly that. The book is available on Amazon.com and at Canio’s Books (631) 725-4926. A book talk hosted by Canio’s Books can be found on the following link: https://www.facebook.com/caniosbooks/videos/983767798721737/

Speaking of my book, I have set up a fundraiser with the book as a way to say thank you to Tony for all he is doing for voters. PTV stays afloat from donations and to help them in that effort, I will be sending a signed copy of the book, free of charge, to the first 20 people who donate to PTV in response to this blog post. To help PTV track those donations, please add $.46 (46 cents) – in honor of the 46^th President we are all working hard to elect – to whatever amount you would like to donate. Here is the link for the donate tab on the PTV website: https://postcardstovoters.org/donate/. Follow the instructions to donate either with Paypal or by mailing a check. And don’t forget to add the 46 cents so that I know to mail you a copy of the book. Let’s grow their army of volunteers and make 5 million postcards for November happen.

In my next blog post, I will focus on phone-banking. There are many opportunities to phone-bank. Every candidate and campaign has phone-banking for volunteers. You can go right now to the Biden campaign’s website at https://joebiden.com/take-action/ and become a volunteer. You can also go to the campaign of any candidate in your district. All campaigns will set you up to phone-bank.

But like PTV, there are also groups conducting phone-banking to battleground states for vote-by-mail. The Florida Democratic advantage in vote-by-mail enrollments is being created not just by the postcards but by phone-banking as well. There are some advantages and disadvantages of each. With postcards, you have the advantage of working on them at any time of the day that is convenient for you. Your whole family can get involved and designing and coloring the postcards is fun. By contrast, phone-banking is a solitary experience and setting it up is a little more complicated than mailing postcards. But phone-banking offers one big advantage, the ability to directly interact with the voter, enabling us to answer their questions and help them get enrolled in vote-by-mail. For this reason, at EEAN, we decided to do both.

To get us started, EEAN leadership member Alex Margolis who is a powerhouse when it comes to voter outreach, both with postcards and with phone-banking, offered to give us a presentation about the phone-banking she has been doing. She has been working with a Florida Democratic group, FL Dems, who have organized a phone-banking outreach to enroll registered Democratic voters in Palm Beach County (PBC) in vote-by-mail. The action is called PBC VBM. They have a Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/GrassrootsPalmBeach/

Alex, who is a corporate attorney, told us about PBC VBM on the postcard party Zoom, explaining how this initiative works.

“There’s really a unique opportunity in Palm Beach County, because the election supervisor though a Republican, seems to be pretty good and is working with the Democratic Party to facilitate enrolling voters in vote-by-mail. These calling list are all Democrats and it’s a very easy phone call. You’re not asking for money. You’re not asking for support for a candidate. You’re just asking if they’re enrolled in vote-by-mail and stating that we want to help them enroll if they are not signed up for it. If they say ‘yes’, you enter that and it is automatically communicated and the supervisor will follow up with this voter to get them enrolled in vote-by-mail. I’m doing postcards also but with the phone calls, you’re actually signing them up.”

We discussed that many of us are still a bit squeamish about talking to voters on the phone. But, as Rebecca pointed out, the nature of these calls should make it easier.

“What I find so alluring about this is that you’re not asking people for money. You’re not asking them to give you information that maybe they don’t want to talk to you about. You’re calling to provide a service for them, which in these times of everything being so confusing, I could see people really appreciating it,” said Rebecca on our Zoom call. “I also keep saying to myself, if I’m not going to do it now for this election, I’m never going to do it. This is the election to do it.”

We all agreed that if ever we were going to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and commit to phone-banking, this is the time to do it. And Alex said it is true that, in her experience, many voters she spoke with were appreciative. “This one guy, after I asked him if we can count on him to vote for Democrats this year, he said, ‘I’d vote for a tuna fish sandwich before I’d ever vote for Republican again.’ This other call was with a veteran and he was great. He said, ‘All women should be elected. Women should run the world. It would be so much better.’ Then on another call I spoke with some younger voters who really want to volunteer to help out. Some of these conversations have been really uplifting.”

Many of us signed up with PBC VBM as well as a training session with Alex who will take us through the process step-by-step. In my next blog post, I will be able to bring you this hands-on information about how it works. Hopefully that will help you get past your own reservations about phone-banking. Then, for the last blog post on voter outreach methods, I will focus on text-banking. In the meantime, sign up with PTV and get started on your postcards!

To read this blog post on theresistanceandme.com click here.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Dear Earth, #LoveOurPlanetNotPollution

David Posnett — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 19:04:37 +0000

Some of us have been meeting at the Southampton library to discuss ways we can scale up existing efforts that draw down carbon from the atmosphere, based on the top 100 solutions outlined in the New York Times bestseller Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.

The book’s 100 best practices and technologies measure and model ways we are already substituting fossil fuels with renewable clean energy, being more efficient, conserving, and even sequestering CO2 emissions. It is a matter of scale. The science reveals if we scale up our best practices, big-time, we can roll back greenhouse gas emissions — reverse the buildup of CO2 — reverse global warming by 2050.

There is much laughter at the meetings, and sometimes I tear up. So, we can actually cut the gloom and doom, and see our reality as an invitation to build, innovate and effect change? A pathway for creativity, an opportunity for an economy humming with innovation, for a renewable energy future with cleaner air, better health, more involved communities?

I share this 3 minute video, a positive hi-tech and low-tech overview.

Reading Drawdown I was surprised to learn that top solutions (#3 and #4) have to do with food —what we eat, what we throw away, where we buy our food. Individually, in our families, and as a community, we can make choices that have huge impacts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

Food waste alone is big (#3), generating 4.4 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year (8% of GHG emissions). Food waste from farm to fork generates emissions at every stage. We Americans throw out 1/3 of our food. If 50% of food waste is reduced by 2050, 26.2 gigaton emissions could be avoided, also avoiding deforestation needed for additional farmland. How? Willful food waste dominates at the consumer level. So then, eat what you buy, make delicious “leftover” soups, buy “ugly” produce, enjoy kitchen creativity — all big CO2 reducers and money savers. I can do that.

On a community level, buying locally and encouraging markets and restaurants to reallocate unpurchased food for reuse by farmers, entrepreneurs, food banks, even business or community composting efforts will reduce GHG. Can’t we do that?

Composting, by the way, is the CO2-smart way to handle any food waste. From backyard bins to commercial operations, composting creates an incredibly valuable fertilizer. Allowing your organic waste to end up in a landfill, absent oxygen, produces the potent GHG methane (34x more powerful than CO2). Note: Copenhagen has not sent any organic waste to landfills in 25 years, reaping savings, fertilizer production and carbon mitigation. Can’t we do that too?

Perhaps the healthiest lifestyle change you can make is not-doing something — what I call the Fish+Farmstand Diet, or Once A Week Red Meat. Surprise: beef cattle are 1/5 of global emissions. Eating the Mediterranean diet, more fish, fruit, veggies, grains, will keep you from heart disease, stroke, diabetes and you will feel great. Source your red meat from silvopasture farms, which reduce methane emissions 10x more than treeless farms (storing carbon in the trees and soil and 0 fertilizer use). From enriching a pasture with trees for shade to grazing in relatively dense wooded areas, Cornell Extensions across the state are helping expand silvopasturing to economically benefit farmers — a win, win, win. Why not silvopasture here?

Finally, the big accelerator for drawing down carbon from the atmosphere, the top #1 solution, is a national effort. Rather than have government subsidize oil companies as we do now, a 2019 bi-partisan bill would provide an economic incentive to substitute fossil fuels with clean renewable energy. Wouldn’t that jump-start be terrific?

Updating here from a previous blog, the bill’s full name is H.R.763 – To create a Carbon Dividend Trust Fund for the American people in order to encourage market-driven innovation of clean energy technologies and market efficiencies which will reduce harmful pollution and leave a healthier, more stable and more prosperous nation for future generations. It is sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), and co-sponsored by Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) and 11 Democrats, including most recently Yvette Clarke of New York.

Carbon emissions would reduce 90% by 2050 exceeding the Paris Climate goals and the Clean Power plan. American households would receive monthly dividend checks increasing from $600, $1,400, and $2,600 for each household in the first, fourth, and ninth years of policy implementation. Yes, gas would go up 19 cents a gallon, and a Yale study found that seniors, lower and mid-income and small towns benefit the most financially. The bill is transparent, market-based, does not enlarge government, leaves energy decisions to individual choices, provides thousands of clean energy jobs, cleans the air, and gives us a dividend check, each month, for 30 years. A healthier you chooses how you spend it.

Interestingly, the Green New Deal does not include carbon pricing. As Josh Siegel of the Washington Examiner, noted in “Republican lawmakers face pressure to propose ‘Green New Deal’ alternative” this leaves an opening for Republicans like Mr. Rooney and other Floridians who have taken the lead in co-sponsoring carbon tax legislation.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/republican-lawmakers-face-pressure-to-propose-green-new-deal-alternative

More movement is taking place in Washington, as Madame Speaker Pelosi has reconstituted the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which she had created as speaker in 2007-2011.

H.R. 763 is a well-researched bi-partisan jump-start to reverse global warming and importantly gets our economy humming with innovation. The timing is good now to make it happen and Senators/Congressman needs to hear from you. Call. Write a post card. Write a letter to the editor.

More information on our local Drawdown East End effort to be posted soon!

Mary Foster Morgan

Co-Leader

Citizens Climate Lobby NYS – LI East

The Trumpist from Suffolk County

David Posnett — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 13:44:49 +0000

Perry Gershon, Democratic Candidate for New York’s First Congressional District

Published by Medium.com March 7th 2018

Traveling across Suffolk County, I’ve seen how disappointed and frustrated people are with Congressman Lee Zeldin. I’m hearing how they want someone in Washington who fights to grow the middle class on Long Island, make our communities safer, and ensure everyone has access to affordable health care — someone who fights for what’s right. But that’s not what Rep. Zeldin is focused on. He’s backing an agenda that’s out of touch with of Suffolk county, beyond that of even a “regular” Republican representative.

Zeldin’s 9% grade from the League of Conservation Voters, his opposition to consumer protection, and his radical anti-choice views are not representative of our community. But Zeldin’s frightening extremism, however, is on display in his politicized attacks on the Mueller Investigation, the DOJ, and FBI, and his unconditional alliance with the NRA. And he bears responsibility for the Trump tax plan and its destructive effects on Long Islanders. Luckily, we can defeat him in November.

The Mueller Probe:

Zeldin has led the effort to delegitimize the country’s law enforcement — simply because Mueller’s investigation is going after the truth. Zeldin has joined with Rep. Devin Nunes leading the criticism of the FISA warrant process and even holds the absurd position that we need a special counsel to investigate the special counsel. Mueller’s probe is doing the job and has already led to 22 indictments against Russians and other conspirators for meddling in the US elections in 2016. And the investigation is nowhere close to finished!

In the face of these indictments, Zeldin has not called for congressional efforts to combat the threat Russia poses to our elections. He has not taken any affirmative steps to protect the 2018 and future elections. And he fails to even recognize that Russian hacking was an effort to discredit US elections and played a role in Donald Trump’s victory. Simply put, our Congressman has refused to acknowledge that our democracy is under attack because he is putting Party over Country.

Zeldin’s crusade culminated on Feb. 28 when he issued a formal letter to Attorney General Sessions requesting appointment of a new Special Counsel to investigate the FBI and DOJ. Co-signed by 12 other far-right congressmen, the letter was so extreme that even Devin Nunes, himself, did not co-sign it. A week later, he even claimed that: “Donald Trump & family being investigated for winning election w/no evidence they committed any crime to win the election. Sick, crazy & wrong!” Seriously? Zeldin has become a conspiracy theorist, using the words “transparency” and “accountability” to describe an effort to politicize law enforcement and undermine the rule of law in the defense of a potentially corrupt president.

The Tax Plan:

Republicans in Congress pushed a tax plan that’s good for corporations and special interests and devastating for Long Island families. Their plan benefits the richest one percent of Americans, at the expense of Brookhaven, Smithtown, Westhampton, and all our other communities. The tax plan eliminated the State and Local Tax deduction(SALT), which will hit Long Islanders hard by raising taxes and causing property values to decline.

Zeldin’s claim that he stood up for Long Island by opposing the final version of the tax plan simply is not good enough. He voted to empower Paul Ryan, who, in his role as Speaker of the House, led the tax fight. He hasdoing nothing to restore the SALT deduction that Suffolk County relies on. He has repeatedly supported and defended Donald Trump, who has prided himself on the bill. Worse yet, Zeldin stated that his objection to the bill was not its elimination of SALT, but to the limits being imposed all at once. Zeldin even claimed he would fully support a phase in of all of the injurious provisions if they occurred over 3–4 years. It’s clear that for Zeldin, it is ideology first and Long Island last.

Gun Control and the NRA:

Zeldin’s reaction to the Parkland shooting is shameful. He has resisted all calls for common sense gun safety laws, has refused to back a ban on weapons of war, and even thinks its smart to arm teachers.

Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise. He is not only proud of his A rating from the NRA but has taken more money from the NRA than any other congressperson from New York. He has a long history of supporting fringe positions that threaten New York residents’ safety. In 2015, he co-sponsored a bill that allows the transportation of firearms in locked containers across state lines, effectively facilitating gun-trafficking into New York State. Just last year, he co-sponsored another bill that would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines. Both bills would essentially render New York State’s gun safety laws null and void.

We deserve a Congressman who will protect the Mueller probe and support our law enforcement agencies, do everything in his or her power to restore the full deductibility of state and local income taxes, and fight for effective and commonsense gun safety. Long Islanders are fed up with Donald Trump and his enablers in Congress like Rep. Zeldin. People are looking for bold ideas and real solutions. It’s time Long Island had a strong voice to fight for high-paying jobs, affordable health care, and safer communities. If we’re going to change Washington, we’ve got to change the people we send there. Come November, let’s fight, together, and make sure Rep. Zeldin doesn’t have another term in Congress.

Perry Gershon

The All-important Numbers for NY CD-1

David Posnett — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 05:23:45 +0000

Let’s look at the important numbers in NY CD-1.

Demographics:

Table I (Source: Ballotpedia, based on 2010 census)

Population	720,071
Gender	49.6% Male, 50.4% Female
Race	87.7% White, 4.6% Black, 3.5% Asian
Ethnicity	12.8% Hispanic
Unemployment	6.60%
Median household income	$83,144

Nearly 20% are minorities (Black, Asian, or Hispanic). Some Hispanics will call themselves “racially” white, but claim hispanic ethnicity.

Lesson: Don’t count on a huge minority vote because of disgust in Trump’s racial bigotry and Zeldin’s backing of Trump.

Party Affiliation:

Source: https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/enrollment/congress/congress_nov12.pdf

Table II

	raw numbers	percentages
Dems	143,917	30.4
Reps	162,212	34.3
Cons	11,806	2.5
Ind	23,215	4.9
Blank	125,516	26.6
Other	5,985	1.3

Total	472,651	100

Assuming equal voter turn out for each party, and assuming that ‘Independants’, ‘Blanks’ and ‘Other’ break out 50/50 for the Dem versus Rep candidate, Dems can not win.

Assuming all Dems vote Dem and all Reps vote Rep, we still need about 30,000 votes from the Ind, Blanks, Other. And perhaps those 30,000 votes could include some from the Rep/Cons group.

Lesson: This has long been the main point of Tim Bishop whenever he speaks: Dems cannot win in CD-1 with out help from those registered in the red, purple or blank parties.

Voter Turnout

Many are quick to claim that we can win with a high Dem turn out. The so called blue wave expected for 2018. But let’s look seriously at the data. It is the data from prior elections. Ofcourse you can claim that in the Trump era nothing from the past applies. But this is all we have got. So lets look at it.

Table III (Source: Ballotpedia )

Column 1 lists the races going back to 2008.

Column 2 tallies the vote numbers for the Dem candidate

Column 3 tallies the vote numbers for the Rep candidate

Column 4 tallies the total votes cast (some voters did not vote for either R or D candidate): notice the much lower numbers for midterm elections in 2010 and 2014.

Column 5 lists the difference between the total votes for D and R candidates: notice the trend from positive numbers (Dem majority) to negative numbers (Rep majority). Our district is becoming more and more red.

Column 6 is the vote percentage of total registered voters that went to the Dem candidate*

Column 7 is the vote percentage of total registered voters that went to the Rep candidate*

* these numbers are calculated as the votes obtained by the Dem (or Rep) candidate per total number of registered voters. 472,651 is the current number of registered voters. This does not equal the turnout within the Dem party or within the Rep party, because f.ex. an undetermined number of U (unaffiliated) would also have voted for either D or R candidate.

Note also the low numbers for the Dems in 2010 and 2014, suggesting that Dem voters did not vote (low turnout) in those years.

I have made some assumptions, see ‘Assumed 2018’, in Table III:

Dem vote numbers and Rep vote numbers might be similar to 2010
Dem turnout conservatively estimated to be similar to 2010 (historically this is a high turnout for a midterm election) – however if a country wide blue wave materializes the turn out could be even better
I assumed a similar turnout of Rep voters to prior midterm elections, for example 2010. BUT this would mean that roughly half of the voters that voted for Trump/Zeldin in 2016 fail to turn out and vote in 2018. That is probably wishful thinking. National polls suggest that Trumps base is holding stead fast with 35-40% of Americans approving Trump’s performance. I would expect that to be true in CD-1 too. See also Marc Rauch’s comment below.
It is clear from these data that LZ needs his Rep. base to turn out in 2018 and this explains his current turn to the far right, his support for Trumps immigration hawks, like Chief of Staff Kelly, and Stephen Miller in the White house, and his position attacking the FBI along with Devon Nunez etc.
Here is another scenario proposed by Marc Rauch: The 2017 off-off-year elections saw a huge turnout (to some extent attributable to the Con/Con) just for a local election in an odd-numbered year. Democrats in Brookhaven Township rolled up impressive numbers (compared to 2015), but Republicans in Brookhaven Township rolled up even more impressive numbers (compared to 2015) and beat them solidly. This shows the Republican machine in Brookhaven Township is alive and well and this is where 63% of CD-1 voters are. So, 2018 may not be a sleepy off-year Congressional election. Republicans will fight tooth and nail and spend huge sums of money (remember why that tax bill had to pass) to keep control of both houses of Congress. Dems hopefully will fight just as hard or harder to grab the House or Senate and hopefully will be reasonably well-funded. An enormous amount of attention will be focused on the November elections nationally, and it will be more like a presidential election year than an off year in terms of turnout. The bottom line is, assume high turnout for both Dems and Reps. The fight will be over who can get most of those in the middle to break their way. If this scenario proves correct, we will need 30,000 crossover votes as described above (see Table II).

Bottom line: this will not be a cakewalk.