Got Organizers? (We do.)

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Monday June 25, 2007 · 10:02 AM PDT

2007/06/25 · 10:02

If you're hiring for a campaign, or any campaigning organization, please check out the incoming class of the New Organizing Institute's 2nd annual week-long intensive campaign training.

Zack Exley

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Wednesday March 14, 2007 · 5:01 AM PDT

2007/03/14 · 05:01

I've got an article in the magazine In These Times this week. (Buy it and support In These Times, which is a non-profit. The issue hits newsstands today and includes a great article by Barbara Ehrenrich too.) You can read it online here.

The article is about a rising movement of "revolutionary" evangelical Christians. "Revolutionary" is not my word, it's theirs. George Barna--the Stan Greenberg of the Christian Right, with clients like James Dobson and Billy Graham--estimates there are 20 million of these "Revolutionaries." It's a complicated topic, and I couldn't do it justice in one short article--look for more posts here on this in the future.

Zack Exley

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Thursday November 16, 2006 · 5:45 PM PST

2006/11/16 · 17:45

Go here and send a message or make a call:

http://ufcwaction.org/...

The country's largest hog slaughter factory -- not a nice place to work, but the only job in town. The workers have just walked out after a long struggle with management for better conditions and respect on the job.

From the workers' site: Read More

Come to Roots Camp

Zack Exley

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday November 09, 2006 · 8:27 AM PST

2006/11/09 · 08:27

The big story left out of the post-election coverage is that in 2006, Democrats finally came up with an answer to Karl Rove's get-out-the-vote "72 Hour Program."

Rove built a volunteer-driven machine from the ground up, backed by the full unity of a ruling Republican Party. The Democrat's answer was was much harder to come by. But this year, finally all cylinders were firing at once -- and what an amazing sight it was to see: Read More

How to record a robo call

Zack Exley

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Monday November 06, 2006 · 8:38 PM PST

2006/11/06 · 20:38

Those robo-calls on your voice mail are important evidence of voter suppression. There's an easy way to record them on your computer and send the sound file to blogs and election protection groups. Here's how:

On a PC click:
START->PROGRAMS->ACCESSORIES->ENTERTAINMENT->SOUND RECORDER

You may not know it, but there is probably a microphone built into your laptop or even desktop PC. Try recording your voice and see it if works. You might see a pinhole on the front or side of your laptop -- that's probably your mic. (If you have trouble recording, then try plugging in a real microphone into the mic jack. Another thing you can try is to go into the volume control and see if the mic needs to be un-muted.) Read More

Voters are doing it in their living rooms with people they've never met before

Zack Exley

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Thursday November 02, 2006 · 9:31 AM PST

2006/11/02 · 09:31

If the fundamental nature of political campaigning is turned on its head, and no journalist reports it, then does it really happen?

The following represents as big of a transformation as the arrival of TV in politics half a century ago: This weekend, an army of more than 100,000 ordinary voters, spread across every state in the nation, will work together as single disciplined team as they conduct a sophisticated GOTV operation to reach "drop off" Democratic voters in competitive House and Senate races.

MoveOn.org's "Call for Change" program (motto: "It's too close NOT to call") provides its volunteers the same kind of high-tech online console that tele-marketers use to contact micro-targeted voters as report in results. The difference is that these volunteers actually believe in what they're saying, and therefore connect with voters in a way that paid tele-marketers can never. As anger peeks at cynical and negative campaigning, putting voters directly in touch with other voters is a brilliant strategy -- one made possible only recently by new technology and new organizing techniques. Read More

This week Dems must lead or lose

Zack Exley

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 30, 2006 · 6:32 AM PST

2006/10/30 · 06:32

(Cross posted from HuffPo)

Last night, I overheard my wife talking to a college friend who lives in Virginia, the site of one of the nation's hottest Senate races. "Lisa" is a social worker and someone who cares deeply about the fate of the world. But I know she cares nothing about the fate of either political party, so I mouthed to my wife, "Ask her how she'll vote!"

Lisa reported that she has no idea how to vote this year. She has heard vaguely about the Virgina Senate campaign's "macaca" scandal, but doesn't know which party was responsible or why it should effect her vote. She said she wants to be a responsible citizen and to cast a thoughtful ballot, but she just can't tell which party or which candidates are truly devoted to making America better. Read More

UK Politician Makes Podcasting History

Zack Exley

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 02, 2006 · 12:30 PM PDT

2006/10/02 · 12:30

Webcameron update! I just watched Tory leader David Cameron's latest video. And I have to say -- while the first several videos of Dave doing dishes and bouncing around in a "green tuk-tuk" are begging to be parodied -- these new ones are pretty solid. There's no question he's on to something amazing here. Read More

Some progress in the pursuit of campaign VIRAL

Zack Exley

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday September 22, 2006 · 1:12 PM PDT

2006/09/22 · 13:12

Recently, many political consultants and communications people have developed a small obsession with producing "viral" animations for their campaigns. One shouted despairingly at members of the Kerry Internet team after 2004, "If you had done a JibJab you would have won!!" He was referring to the truly hilarious animation featuring a smart parody of "This Land is Your Land" with, among other clever things, Kerry, Bush and Dean dancing in leather bondage outfits. Millions watched, and since then many a consultant -- with the best of intentions -- has uttered the fateful words, "Give me $16,000 and I will give you JibJab!"

Of course, campaigns can't get away with making their opponents dance in scandalous outfits to controversial rewritings of patriotic songs. As a result, they make deathly-boring, poorly-produced crap that no one will ever watch, like this GOP production:

http://www.faroutbrown.com Read More

Read FDR's War Speeches and Weep

Zack Exley

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Wednesday September 20, 2006 · 5:28 PM PDT

2006/09/20 · 17:28

It just occured to me to go back and look at Roosevelt's SOTUs durring WWII to compare with the current Bush/GOP framing of war, terrorism, fear, etc...

Here's a selection from 1942, delivered just weeks after Pearl Habor.

This speaks for itself, and reading it will give you chills...

If any of our enemies, from Europe or from Asia, attempt long-range raids by "suicide" squadrons of bombing planes, they will do so only in the hope of terrorizing our people and disrupting our morale. Our people are not afraid of that. We know that we may have to pay a heavy price for freedom. We will pay this price with a will. Whatever the price, it is a thousand times worth it. No matter what our enemies, in their desperation, may attempt to do to us--we will say, as the people of London have said, "We can take it."...

Zack Exley

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Friday September 15, 2006 · 1:33 PM PDT

2006/09/15 · 13:33

Democrats too often see campaigning as a zero-sum game -- if an activist volunteers for another candidate, he's not working for me; if a donor is giving to someone else, then she's not giving to me. The experience of the '04 cycle should have shown everyone that it doesn't work that way. But the misperception persists.

That's why I was really happy to get this email from Maria Cantwell fundraising not for her own very tough re-election campaign, but for Congressional candidate Darcy Burner, whose opponent is getting a fundraising visit from Karl Rove today. Read More

Avoid the classic tortured nerd freakout (and other important considerations for 2006 campaigning)

Zack Exley

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday September 08, 2006 · 5:24 AM PDT

2006/09/08 · 05:24

[My latest at HuffPo - let me know what you think.]

Too many Democrats at all levels are making a critical error in the final stretch of the fight for Congress. This is the same mistake that lost the Kerry campaign and that has plagued Democrats for more than a decade. It's not the fault of any one committee or consultant -- this is a cultural problem that afflicts almost every Democratic and progressive entity.

The problem is that we don't fight. Three psychological barriers have overtaken our subculture and left us defenseless against the schoolyard bully: 1) Fear of the ball, 2) self-doubt, and 3) meanness. Read More

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Got Organizers? (We do.)

Preaching Revolution

A chance to show the Netroots cares about workers

Come to Roots Camp

How to record a robo call

Voters are doing it in their living rooms with people they've never met before

This week Dems must lead or lose

UK Politician Makes Podcasting History

Some progress in the pursuit of campaign VIRAL

Read FDR's War Speeches and Weep

Reward a Dem for doing it right

Avoid the classic tortured nerd freakout (and other important considerations for 2006 campaigning)