[Cwgrad-announcements] Fwd: Poets for Obama: Seeking volunteers for weekly phonebanks at the PRB.

[Gabriela Jauregui]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andrew Maxwell <maxwell at poeticresearch.com>
FYI...


Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 11:45 PM
Subject: Poets for Obama: Seeking volunteers for weekly phonebanks at the
PRB.
To: directors at poeticresearch.com

In 1999, John McCain was only 16 senators to vote for the Smith-Ashcroft
amendment <http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/1999/08/18/25830.html> to
eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. In explanation of his vote,
he claimed that Americans were outraged at the "obscene and inappropriate
projects this organization has supported." Sarah Palin, in her first gig as
Wasilla mayor, sought to have creationism taught in science classes, and
hounded the local librarian to resign because, among other things, she would
purge the library of books with "offensive"
language<http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1117009&srvc=2008campaign&position=15>in
them. She also canned the city museum and public works directors.

The stakes simply could not be higher for poets, writers and educators in
this election.

So it shouldn't surprise you that a few of us are going all in for the next
two months at the PRB: *Poets for Obama, 2008*.

It's a very competitive race, and Ara and I have been discussing getting
interested poets and artists together to do some weekly phonebanking for
Obama out of the Bureau offices in Atwater. This is likely to be a very sour
week for Obama in the polls, as the week after the GOP convention
traditionally results in a 5-10 point bump for the nominee. The bounce can
often be felt through to the first television debate, but the best way to
counter it is with voter outreach and education.

I was a precinct captain for CD31 in the Atwater and Echo Park neighborhoods
during the Democratic primary, and have access to voter lists, phone scripts
and Obama policy papers. The targets for California phone banking efforts
for the general election are Nevada and Colorado residents, and phone
banking can be done from personal cellphones.

If you are interested in helping, please respond to this email and let us
know. We're exploring Saturdays in the 12 to 3pm range and Monday evenings
from 6 to 9pm as initial phonebanking times, and we'll open up the Bureau
and provide resources from Obama headquarters. If there's a lot of interest,
we'll likely begin this Saturday.

If you're not interested in election-year politics, or Obama isn't your
candidate, just ignore this email. After getting initial responses, we'll
put together a separate email list for those interested in election work,
and use that going forward next week.

Thanks for your time,
Andrew (co-director, PRB)
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