Volunteer Energy and Political Tipping Points

On election day four years ago, I was canvassing in home
state of Washington, alternately knocking on
doors for gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire and breaking to call Ohio and Florida.
After three recounts, Gregoire won by 129 votes. I had no idea my state
election was so close, but I did get three people who wouldn't have
otherwise voted--one forgot it was election day, one needed a ride to the
polls, and a third didn't know how to turn in her absentee ballot. If you
multiply my efforts by those of thousands of other volunteers, we clearly helped
make the difference.

The same happened in 2006. During the election's final
weeks, I spent about 30 hours calling through MoveOn's Call for Change
program, contacting voters in Virginia, Missouri,
Montana, and
other states with key Senate and Congressional races. Grabbing spare moments where
I could, I dialed my way across the country, convincing maybe 20 people who
wouldn't have otherwise to back the Democratic challengers. Some initially
resisted saying, "They're all the same. They're all corrupts."
Or "My vote won't matter so why bother." But I convinced them
to vote, and added a few with election-day reminders. Later I read that MoveOn
had 120,000 volunteers. If each had half the impact of my efforts, that meant over
a million votes, in a season when US Senate seats swung on margins as close as Montana's
3,500 votes, Virginia's 9,000, Rhode Island's 29,000, or Missouri's
48,000. Our common efforts again tipped the balance.

It's easy to think of our individual election volunteering
as insignificant. But when enough of us act even in small ways, we can have a
powerful impact. Studies
have found that if you talk to a dozen people by going door-to-door, you'll
likely add at least one new voter for your candidate, a ratio that tends to
hold true from local to federal elections, so long as you're working in
reasonably receptive neighborhoods. Phone outreach can have a similar impact,
though you need to talk with more people for a comparable result. Imagine what
a few hundred more volunteers could have done to shift Florida's 537-vote official margin in
2,000, even with all the Republican machinations.

Individual actions can be multiplied on both sides. In 2004 a friend was overseeing
a cluster of Florida
precincts for John Kerry. He'd exceeded his target for turnout, and was feeling
guardedly hopeful. Then a couple hundred people showed up en masse, many holding
Bibles. They'd been mobilized by Los Angeles
and Omaha phone
banks, calling fundamentalist congregations. Those who called had every right
to do so, and their efforts, alas, helped reelect George Bush.

So why don't more of us participate, or participate
more? Between now and the election, far too many of us will spend plenty of
time reading political articles, blogs and polls, obsessing on the latest
twists and turns in the headlines, and rooting for our candidate as if for a favorite
sports team-while doing relatively little to change the outcome. We can
do more than be passive spectators.

Many of us live in states where the presidential race is
largely settled, although the popular vote mandate will matter in terms of
political leverage, there are numerous close Senate, Congress and
governor's races, not to mention important state ballot initiatives. Even
if you don't live in Virginia or Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina or Pennsylvania,
you can go to the campaign websites and find lists of people to call in key
swing states, scripts through which to call them, and step-by-step explanations
to walk you through the process. You really can do it from the comfort of your
home or apartment--or as part of a group phone bank, if the support makes it
easier. Getting involved is more challenging in some states than others, but
still an opportunity to affect the long arc of history at a potential key turning
point.

Even in the ground-zero battlegrounds, I've met people
who passionately follow the contest, yet hold back from actively participating.
When I was in Cleveland
last week, a woman raised her hand and said "I've been walking
neighborhoods for Obama, but my friends don't want to join me, even
though they care just as much about the election. They say they don't
like rejection."

I asked if anyone in the audience enjoyed rejection.
Surprisingly, no one did. But the woman who had canvassed said the time she
spent was actually pretty decent. She got some butterflies at first-it's
always hard approaching strangers. But once she got into the swing, she enjoyed
it. She even had some thoughtful conversations, once she left the necessary
training wheels of the script.

Many of us also hesitate due to a perfect standard where we feel
we need to be totally eloquent or our efforts will be worthless. My retired neighbor
considered calling for Obama, then worried that he wasn't as articulate
and persuasive as he used to be, so decided not to. But our efforts don't
have to be perfect, they just have to be heartfelt, and we have to keep at
them.

With Obama opening up a steadily increasing lead, it's
easy for those of us to support him to get complacent. But this is a volatile
electorate-a little over a month ago, McCain led with his Sarah Palin
bounce. So while the polls are encouraging, given economic meltdown, attack
ads, racial issues, and potential voter intimidation and suppression, we'd
be wise to view this as an election where our actions really could determine
the outcome.

Most of us reading this essay will vote. And maybe most of our
friends will as well. But in a politically divided nation, victory may well go
to the side that turns out the greatest numbers of more marginal supporters,
including those who are newly registered and uncertain about the process, or
who doubt their vote will matter. Particularly when reaching out to those who
haven't traditionally voted, getting people to the polls isn't
something that can be done by just running more ads. We have to make the phone
calls, knock on the doors, and remind people as many times as necessary of the
differences between the candidates and the impact they could make with their
vote. This election may well be won with presence and persistence. It might
just be in our hands.