Okay, so my question is: "How can I help make Obama the next POTUS?"

[ralbertson]

I'm a small-d democrat and a life-long registered Democrat and I'm one of those weirdos who actually believe that it's your moral and ethical duty to vote.

I'm a blogger-type person. I sit in front of a computer and write about politics online. A lot.

I'm also an activist. I hit the streets and do stuff in person. Not anywhere near as often now as I used to. Or ought to. But I should. And I want to.

I live in Massachusetts these days. Where hitting the streets in pajamas and bunny slippers in nor'easter season has its drawbacks. (If nothing else, the snow keeps clogging up the keyboard.)

And like many other states, Massachusetts is also a place where people are thrilled to think that their vote in the Democratic primary might actually matter this year. Yay!

I've been following Barack Obama's rise from the ranks for years, and I am both pleased and determined to call myself an Obama supporter.

I want to be in Washington DC a year from now, watching Barack Obama be sworn in as the next President Of The United States.

(I also want to be in Washington a year from now, doing the inaugural-party thing for President Obama. Inaugural parties totally *rock*, and I want to be there for his next January. Not just for the free beer, either.)

So. Okay. Super-Sized Tuesday is less than three weeks away now, even as I type this. And the general election is still eight months out.

What can I -- and those like me -- do in the next 18 days, and the next 8 months, to help make sure that Barack Obama really is the next President Of The United States?

I'm fired up. Ready to go. And I'm even willing to take off the bunny slippers this time.

I want to help make Obama POTUS this year. So what's my next best Top Five things to do?

[beachmom]

1. Volunteer in Mass & help Obama win in Mass. is #1.

Help out on the blogs and donate, are two others.

[sandnsea]

2. Make telephone calls from home

I did this a lot on the Kerry campaign, haven't done it yet for Obama because I've felt like they were looking for a more youthful approach. But maybe I should reconsider. The Obama campaign has it all coordinated for you.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/contact/splash/MNID0115

[ralbertson]

3. By the way, this was not a rhetorical question.

...although, reading back through it again now, it certainly could be a model question I suppose... what I described in describing myself in the OP here probably fits a statistically over-median percentage of DU'ers as well. So it applies not just to me, but to many.

What I can do on the ground in the next couple of weeks here in Massachusetts is necessarily constrained by my day job, of course. For one thing, what I do ain't exactly a 9-to-5, 40-hours-per kinda thing. So there are heavy time constraints on my waking hours. For another, there are certain separation of church and state type issues that must be accommodated in-state here (most all of them more perceptual than literal, but relevant nonetheless).

That being said, I'm about to jump in the (yes, I know, carbon-footprint-generating) minivan and drive an hour north of where I live in Somerville to go attend an Obama field organizing meeting up in Ayer.

Why go there when there are more than enough similar meetings being held closer to home? Because I had the opportunity to meet the person leading this particular meeting last week, and she is Teh Awesum all the way, and I want to go learn at the feet of a master. She's old school, an African-American hard-core Democratic woman who has been doing this in MA for so long that she not only knows where all the bodies are buried, she even helped bury some of them.

Still when I asked this question I was hoping to hear back from some of the Obama supporters here in this group a few more suggestions about what people like me, who primarily but quite actively engage in politics online, can do to best help Obama become POTUS this time.

What have you been doing so far? What has worked for you? What talking points do you want to propagate? What avenues do you want to follow? What online tools do you have available? What online information conduits do you have you can point people to? What do you wish that other Obama supporters like me could and would jump in and do to help you now, too?

I'm serious here -- or,this being DU, maybe I should make that "OMG! I'M SERIES!11!!" instead -- and I'm looking for some advice and direction from other active TeamBama people about the next best things that I, and others who fit into the same categories as I do, can do to help Barack Obama move his stuff into in the White House next January.


(Edited to fix typos and to add in response to a previous comment -- Obama's strength is huge among young voters and,more to the point, young people who can but have never yet voted. This is great, but HRC's strength is huge among women and especially older, er, I mean, more mature women. So how can we reach out to the people that aren't already energized by Obama's appeal to youth and hope, and help them see that his platform speaks to them as well?)

[StoryTeller]

4. Here's my list

Here's some small things I'm doing:

Making a donation. It's not a lot, but I'm comforted to know that most of his funding is coming from little donations like mine.

And after reading about the confusion and mayhem in Nevada, I have volunteered to help with our state caucus.

I've signed up on Obama's website, under the "My Obama.com" section. Like someone else said, you can phone bank from home, which I haven't tried yet, but I will as I have a chance.

The biggest thing I think we can do, though, is to embody the themes he is running on: hope, integrity, positive change, etc.

To me, that means staying out of the nasty discussions on DU and other places. It means not attacking other candidates, being truthful, etc. I know that's all rather esoteric and not concrete practical stuff. But whether people know it consciously or not, this race seems to be a clash of philosophy and even world views. So people will look at Obama supporters as representative of Obama himself. We need to make sure we are giving people an accurate picture of what he is like.

I don't know if any of this will actually give us the result we want--a President Obama. But I believe it's the best way we can show our support.

[ginnyinWI]

5. I just sent my first donation thanks to your post

It made me realize that I'm committed enough to Obama now to start supporting him with contributions. Last night's debate probably helped. I really want to see him win. Thanks for being a good role model!