Move-On's Call for Change - Mission Accomplished !

Written by: Alexander Patrick Johnson on Nov 22, 2006 12:28 PM EST

Linked to groups: Broward County Democracy for America

People Powered Politics - What 3.2 Million Determined MoveOn Members Can Do Changing the national political landscape is a tall order. But if we build on the enormous grassroots energy we saw over the past six months, we know it?s possible. For us, for our families, for our children, for our country, the stakes could hardly be higher.

TAKING BACK THE HOUSE Volunteers made 7 million phone calls, organized 7,500 house parties, and launched 6,000 in-district events. More people volunteered in 2006 than in 2004.

In Florida District 22 Klein vs. Shaw we made 95,899 calls to voters and the margin of victory was 8713 votes.

 "Liquid" Phone Bank.Call for Change was the answer. The core idea is fairly simple: a web-based "liquid phone bank" allowing MoveOn members to pour calls from wherever they live into wherever they are needed. We could then turn to any district in the country that needed extra attention, and keep the calls flowing until we reached all of our target voters. We tested our program in April in a California House special election and it worked. A Yale University study showed that our phone bank was the most effective volunteer calling program ever studied. With the theory confirmed, we turned our attention to the larger 2006 campaign. We developed two ways for people to make calls. Individuals could call from home, using a cutting- edge online tool that walks the user through the script and records the results one call at a time. We also launched a weekly series of phone parties, where members gathered together to make calls on their cell phones. To recruit the volunteer army needed to make it work, we worked with our close partner, Grassroots Campaigns, to set up campaign offices in 40 cities. The Florida Call center was located in Fort Lauderdale.  Each night. MoveOn members called other members in their region, asking them to sign up with the campaign. By the end of the program, The Ft. Lauderdale office had over 100 volunteers in to make phone calls, and nationwide recruited over 17,000 other volunteers  to make calls fron thier own homes. Because the program was based online, we were able to use "smart targeting" to direct members' calls to where they would have the highest impact. So volunteers living in or near com petitive districts would automatically be directed to voters in their area. Volunteers in other parts of the country would be directed to whichever districts around the country needed the most urgent attention. The "liquid" internet technology we developed for the phone program made this possible. We also wanted to make sure we were turning out the right voters. So we began an ambitious "micro-targeting"  program, applying a grassroots twist to an approach Republicans have employed so successfully to get their supporters to the polls. Another great advantage was the low number of "bad" phone numbers on the call list, so that the volunteers' time was especially productive.

 Thanks for all you do

In late October, the number of competitive races increased by the day and Call for Change was exactly the tool the moment required. It enabled us to send hundreds of thousands of turnout calls into the races where they were needed most as conditions changed. On October 19th, for example we saw a poll showing Tim Walz, the Democratic challenger in Minnesota 1, closing the gap. Within a few days calls were pouring into the district,  making it a toss-up. When the dust settled, Call for Change involved more members in making more calls than even we had dared to dream. We exceeded all of our targets the night before Election Day.

Building a More Progressive America.   Two years ago the future looked bleak. President Bush won re-election and he had a Congress that would rubber-stamp his radical ideas. Most MoveOn members are pretty new to politics. I worried people would get discouraged and quit,  but folks didn't. MoveOn members knew that the Republican grip on power was less firm than it appeared. So we rolled up our sleeves and kept fighting for the things in which we all believe. All that hard work paid off. Here we are, with an important victory. It's not the end of this story. It's more of a beginning. But in 2005 and 2006, we laid the foundation on which we can finally begin to build a more progressive America.

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