Saturday, September 20, 2008

Obama Voting Ground Game Produces HUGE Results In Virginia

The photo above shows the long line of people that has formed just under the awning of this shopping center.  
One thing the polls don't take into account is the massive voter registration drive and "get-out-the-vote" effort the campaign as developed.  Here's an example.  I saw this by Todd Smyth on the Obama listserv:

Just another day of canvassing and churning out good numbers for Barack Obama? Uh.... Not quite. It's Saturday morning and I went to the Mt Vernon and Lee District Obama office (Rout 1, Fairfax, VA) to drop off and pick up stuff for today's canvass. We had 7 satellite staging areas in addition to the campaign office and my crappy cell phone camera doesn't do it justice but as I was leaving to head to my assigned canvass location, I snapped the picture below of dozens and dozens of people lining up along the strip mall to sign in, pick up a canvass pack and knock on doors for Barack Obama.


I stored the picture, closed my camera and headed for my car when I saw another dozen people heading toward the long line and behind them a steady stream of cars rolling into the parking lot. I got out of there before I got boxed in and have to admit, I got a little choked up. These people were showing up on time at 10am on a beautiful Saturday morning to knock on doors for Barack Obama and to change the future for themselves and their children.


The scene at my assigned satellite canvass location was similar with 3 times the number of people expected. We had to pair people up and the canvass packs that had been printed for the entire weekend were gone by 11am. Experienced volunteers had to be called back into the office to create new canvass packs to handle the afternoon shift.


Among other amazing stories I heard today, Grace Nozaki registered 16 voters at the Fairfax Library and Holly Newry registered 45 voters at the WallMart in Kingstowne. Just an unbelievable day for Democracy.


I heard similar stories were going on all over Northern Virginia but couldn't get through to people because they are all swamped. We won't know the total numbers of doors knocked until tomorrow. Talk about being part of something bigger than yourself, Wow!

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