Driving Votes: Yarrow's Blog

Playing Dirty

Again and again, this campaign season has brought home for me a central difference between the left and the right: The right is willing to go to any lengths, even to directly contradict their explicit principles, to win elections.
Look: Both sides are engaged in constant spin, there is little denying that. But how many Democrat election officials are trying to reduce the number of votes counted?
Again and again?
Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in Ohio is trying to eliminate ballots not on the right paperstock, including tens of thousands of voters who registered online or with registration forms in newspapers--why? What could possibly justify this attempt? You can sign a petition to stop him:
http://www.act04.org/paperstock

Down in Florida, we ran into Kathy Dent, county election official for the region that includes Sarasota. Her plans? Sending out welcome notices to new voters that is essentially party propaganda, citing the need to remember low taxes, belief in God, and a strong military when voting. And better still, passing out 'register to vote' pens in blue ink, especially in low income neighborhoods, when Florida law requires registration forms to be filled out in black ink.

These are just two recent examples of Republican dirty tricks. But these are rear-guard actions against a trend they cannot stop, the hundreds of thousands of new voters, strongly democratic, that groups like DrivingVotes have put on the rolls. They know they have to play dirty, to suppress the Black vote, throw away ballots, strike voters from the rolls, if they want to win--as we well know, that's the only reason they control the White House now.

These activities are so deeply enfuriating it's easy to get caught up in the negative. But we can turn that anger into energy, and make sure we impress upon everyone we know the importance of this election, and the importance of spending as much time as humanly possible in swing states on up until November 2nd. And then we'll be able to blow all this angry steam into a huge crossnational victory party!

DV in High Gear!

THE WORD:

September has been an incredible month.

The RV Caravan made it all the way to Florida, where we registered
well over our goal of 538 new non-Republican Florida voters; Tracy
Chapman announced a tour to benefit DV; USA Today, the Village Voice
and Mother Jones all ran articles on Driving Votes, Chuck D
interviewed our founder and director on Air America; and America
Coming Together partnered with Driving Votes for last weekend's
National Election Action Day.

Here are the details:

THE RV CARAVAN COMPLETES ITS CROSS-COUNTRY TOUR
3 weeks, 5 swing states, and 1000s of new voters. We can't stop
reading the amazing blogs with stories from people we met along the
way. Bet you can't stop either:
http://www.drivingvotes.org/caravan/

AMERICA COMING TOGETHER PARTNERS WITH DRIVING VOTES
This past weekend, ACT sponsored 5 Driving Votes bus trips to swing states
around the country! We delivered almost 200 DV volunteers to ACT's
National Election Action Day! Check out the trip blog:
http://www.drivingvotes.org/action/blog.php?date=09182004

TRACY CHAPMAN BENEFIT TOUR FOR DRIVING VOTES!
That's right--the woman who brought us hits about fast cars is doing a
West Coast benefit tour for Driving Votes! This is incredibly
exciting--mostly because she approached Driving Votes! The word is
out--visiting a swing state with Driving Votes is the most effective
way to get Bush out ofoffice. More on the tour at:
http://drivingvotes.org/tracy/index.shtml

MOTHER JONES MAGAZINE PROFILES DRIVING VOTES
On September 10th, Mother Jones ran an article on Driving Votes--check
it out at:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/09/09_407.html.

For a complete list of recent Driving Votes press, go to:
http://drivingvotes.org/buzz/index.shtml

CHUCK D OF PUBLIC ENEMY FAME INTERVIEWS DV
Listen to our founder, Matt Lerner, and our director, Leighton
Woodhouse, on Air America by downloading the MP3 at:
http://www.drivingvotes.org/media/DVAirAmerica.mp3

Official confirmation: Dems party harder

With the DNC taking over Boston, and having the chance to attend several events, I've had an interesting firsthand look at the world of electoral politics.
Everyone is all networking all of the time--lots of stock being placed on whether you get to the right party, meet the right people, have the right color on your convention pass.
At the same time, the sense of united purpose and camraderie, and the willingness to share ideas and networks, is inspiring. And last night hanging out with some of the operations people who've worked republican conventions, I got the official word: Democrats party harder. Republicans, I'm told, have better food (read: more money), but never shake it at an official function.

Anyway! It's been exciting to talk up DV, get encouragement, ideas, contacts, and even occasional promises of financial support. Tomorrow everyone leaves, Boston returns to normal, and our hard work has to continue. We're in the homestretch, and it's time to kick it up to a sprint til November!

DNC Madness

Boston strangely quiet this afternoon, calm before the storm. But DV is buzzing here--we have our first fundraising bash tonight at the Davis Square VFW (371 Summer St, kicking off at 9pm, Boston peeps!), and then we're all over town during the convention trying to drum up volunteers, donations, and general solidarity--
Often these mega-events cause me to turn off, recede from the mad rush of people. I'm hoping the greater degree of my involvement this time around will allow me instead to feed off the energy, the commitment of all the thousands descending on Boston. And each of those attendees is a potential DV seed, heading back home after the convention to start something up or get involved with our existing efforts--
all this is overwhelming, but exciting too. And a little dangerous--the thought of a loss in November is painful to a degree directly propotional the effort I put in; the more you invest, the more you can lose. I've already crossed a threshhold though; I have to keep pushing as far as I can, and hope it will all be capped off with the party of the century on Nov 2!

Europe's on our side

Just back from a conference in Belgium, and it was amazing to see firsthand the unrelenting oppostion to Bush and his administration that is dominating France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. From anti-Bush graffitti to conversations overheard in cafes to the first words out of most mouths when I said I was American, an End to Bush is on everyone's minds.
It was inspiring, and reinvigorating--I came back ready to be doubly active w/ Driving Votes, the Dem convention, etc.
But I also wonder if there are ways to use that energy, channel some of it into efforts that will help turn the tide in November? How can we build cross-Atlantic bridges?