Harlem4Obama Election Day Volunteer Bootcamp
Saturday Morning at 10AM - October 25 at the H4O Headquarters

Bring Your Cell and Charger
WE MUST MAKE CONTACTS IN BATTLEGROUND STATES FOR BARACK TO WIN!
Cell Phone Banking and Postcard Writing (Phone Bank)
Please come to the Harlem4Obama office for a convenient, friendly place for cell phone banking or postcard-writing.
(If you get tired of doing either activity, we also have some data entry.)

Postcard writers will be writing short, personal messages to voters in North-Central Florida. This postcard campaign has already made an impact on voters there, and in Ohio and Washington State.

Phone bankers will be calling Indiana and North-Central Florida, reaching out to undecided and unmotivated voters, getting much-needed votes at the polls on Election Day.

Harlem4Obama trip to Philadelphia! (Drive for Change) Come join us on our trip to Philadelphia to GET OUT THE VOTE, Saturday Oct 25. We have a bus reserved that will leave from our office, at the corner of 133rd and 8th Ave, 7 AM and return in the evening between 9 and 10 PM.

It's coming down to the wire. We have only a few more weeks to make history and to restore hope to an America bogged down in an economic crisis, the Iraq Quagmire, and an energy crisis. A few hours or a few days of your time could be critical in determining the course of the next decade. We must elect Barack Obama and make gains in the Senate and House to really effect change. Here are things you can do, either by phone at home or by taking a road trip.

Right wing terrorism is alive and well in America and being ignored. On 9/11/2006 there was a terrorist attack on a woman's health center in Davenport, Iowa. There was the Delaware Pogrom where Jewish and Muslim families were driven out of a small town for not being Christian. The list goes on. And mostly it is just ignored by the media, but Homeland Security...by everyone.

The latest attack is a chemical attack on children in a mosque in Ohio. From Daily Kos:

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

I have been pushing two special elections, one in Ohio and one in Virginia. Both were in traditionally DEEP red districts. The very fact that we seemed to have a shot at EITHER of them was a big surprise.

What happened in the end was the Republicans held their own. They performed pretty much as expected in both districts easily winning both. But what did happen was the strength of the Democratic challenge forced them to fight harder than they ever had to for these two districts. They had to fight harder than ever to stay where they were.

In and of itself this would be meaningless. But as part of a broader strategy (an extension of Howard Dean's contest every district philosophy) the Democrats did something pretty smart. The DCCC has far more money these days than the NRCC. This is unusual. Generally the NRCC does far better at fundraising. But people are so fed up with Bush that the Republicans are having a really hard time fundraising while the Dems are doing great.

There are two special Congressional elections coming up Dec. 11th. Both are seats that once were considered perfectly safe Republican, but suddenly are competitive. I'm telling you, there are fewer and fewer "safe Republican" Congressional disticts. I already brought up the race for VA-1 along with ways you can help. In that race, Philip Forgit, an Iraq War vet is running as a Democrat and needs our help. That race is a good one for those who recognize the slow but certain trend turning Virginia Blue. This trend started in 2005 and has progressed year by year. This trend, coupled with Bush's abyssmal approval ratings and a deepening Iraq quagmire, is what has made VA-1 no longer safe for Republicans.

That said, VA-1 remains a long shot. NOT impossible, but a long shot. Never forget that we WON many long shots in 2006 and we could wake up Dec. 12th with VA-1 flipped to blue. But the race that is more winnable is OH-5 where Robin Weirauch is running for an unexpected open seat. To quote from Daliy Kos: