Time for some social canvassing

Okay, it's getting close to the election and it's time to begin the get out the vote efforts.

Some of you are already beating the pavement canvassing for Obama. But I would also like to urge some of you to do some social canvassing. This is a very effective individual get-out-the-vote effort that will take up a small amount of your time and energy.

It goes like this:

1. Take a pen and a piece of paper (or for those of you technologically inclined people, open up a spreadsheet on your computer).

2. Get your cell phone address book, your email address book, for those of you on facebook, get your facebook contact lists, and make a list of everyone in there, and their state of residence.

3. Start contacting your friends. Ask them three questions.
a. Are they planning to vote in November?
b. Have the decided who they are going to vote for?
c. If they haven't decided, what would it take for them to make a decision.

Don't worry about putting too much effort into converting McCain supporters, or swaying the undecided. That is not the primary purpose of this excercise. The main purpose of this excercise, is to gather a reliable list of the people who will probably vote for Obama in November and make sure they actually make it to the polls in November. If you have a little more spare time, then you can work on the undecideds.

4. Once you have contacted everyone in your lists, make a list of people who have told you they intend to support Obama in November.

5. Once you have a list of people you know who are Obama supporters the next step is to:
a. Encourage the more enthusiastic supporters to get absentee ballots and vote early. This lessens the chance of them not being able to make it to the polls because of weather or because something came up at work, and frees them up to participate in GOTV efforts on election day.
b. Make a list of people you have to call, email, or text to remind to vote on election day. It's easier for you (someone they know) to convince them to get out and vote, than it would be for some random Obama campaign volunteer. Work your contact list.

More than 2 million of us have donated to the campaign so far. If each of us reaches out to as few as 10 unique contacts, that's a 20 million strong GOTV effort. Let's show the republicans the power of the Obama army! In this election, the turnout will be on OUR side.