Funny thing about elections. As the national numbers move the battlefields shift. They don’t go away.
With Barack Obama ahead by 7-10 points in national polls, then, Georgia has become a battlefield. Recent polls show the Democrat down only 3 points. State House candidate (and former blogger) Chris Huttman notes this makes the state eminently winnable. The main DailyKos site adds this makes the execreble Saxby (the draft dodger who called a three-limb amputee a coward) Chambliss eminently beatable.
This is firing us up. Time to go back inside the Obama ground game.
I joined a steady stream of customers on the east side of Decatur,
paying $5 each for Obama-Biden yard signs. (I suggested calling them
Obama bin Biden yard signs, just to piss off the right.)
While last
month I got a list of neighbors who were found on old voter
registration lists (and mostly did not live here any more) this time I
got a list of real people. Real Democrats. I told the folks in the office this was the "good list."
I learned that my neighbor across the street has a half-dozen voters
in his home, including a 90-year old great grandma who is determined to
still file her absentee ballot and survive until November 4. I found
three of the people I sought out before (unsuccessfully) now at home.
One had an Obama yard sign, a second gave him the thumbs-up, and the
third had recently mowed the lawn of a foreclosed neighbor so he’s a
great guy whoever he votes for. Two neighbors I have yet to connect
with feature Obama signs prominently on their lawns. "Winter Avenue is
coming out strong," I reported happily.
The press says the Obama campaign abandoned Georgia a month ago, but
there are now 14 Obama offices in the Atlanta metro area, including the
state headquarters and storefronts in such Republican enclaves as
Fayetteville, Roswell and Douglasville. Back in 2004 the driver of a
car in those parts sporting a Kerry or Dean bumper sticker would fear
for their life, and there were stories of cars getting trashed for
daring to do that.
Our good Congressman John Lewis is doing his best to keep up the scare. He came out with a statement yesterday comparing John McCain to George Wallace. When you’ve got people at his rallies carrying Obama monkeys, calling our man an Arab terrorist to their man’s face, that’s not hyperbole.
A few more important points. I haven’t gotten any directions from
any office in doing any of this. I got my voter lists, and reported my
contacts, through the Web site. I also volunteered to drive voters to
the polls through the Web site. When you drive by an Obama office late
at night and see a bunch of people inside working, know that is just
the tip of a very large iceberg.
So here’s a memo to my Republican friends. We’re going to fight like
hell for every vote, in every city, village and town for the next 23
days. We are going to try to bury you, bury you so far you won’t have
anyone to blame for your decimation but yourself.
I’m doing it in hopes
a new Republican party can rise from the ashes, an honest and loyal
opposition standing for real Republican principles like balanced
budgets and individual liberty. If you still believe in those principles, if you’re not an unreconstructed racist or religious bigot, join us. Vote as though the future of your party depends upon it, because it does.
