BillyWimsatt's blog

By Van Jones and Billy Wimsatt

We'll give you the punch line first:

Voter guides are cheap and easy and they help win elections. The right-wing uses them better than we do. Luckily, there's a new tool that compiles local progressive voter guides: www.TheBallot.org. Everyone should go to www.TheBallot.org right now. Find one, create one, then Facebook it, Blog it, and Tweet it like mad!

Please take two minutes right now and help us reach millions of 2008 Obama voters and inspire them to vote again in the next few days.

We feel real urgency because we've seen what the other side is producing.

It looks innocent enough at first.

A plain-looking one-page sheet entitled: Nevada Voter Guide For Christians.

So far, so good.

There's Democratic Senator Harry Reid, a good practicing Christian. We learn that he is: "Anti-Free Speech" "Pro-Homosexual" "Pro-Abortion" and the kicker: "Anti-Jesus."

Yep.

It's all marked there in the little chart with a "Y" by his name.

His percentage score for "Faith Friendly?"

A big fat: 0%.

Then we look over at Nevada's other Senator, Republican John Ensign, who during the summer was involved in a major sex scandal and was found to have inappropriately funneled money to his mistress.

Senator Ensign's faith-friendly rating?

You guessed it: 100%.

According to these voter guides (which exist in all 50 states), the vast majority of Democrats in Congress are "Anti-Jesus" and have a "faith friendly" rating of zero. No matter that the majority are Christians and people of faith. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Republicans are similar to John Ensign: They get a perfect score.

The goal of this campaign, created by www.PrayInJesusName.org is to fax these voter guides to 120,000 churches, to be distributed among congregations during Sunday services.

Was this propaganda paid for by the GOP?

Part of Karl Rove's multi-million dollar war chest?

Not as far as we can tell.

The voter guides state very clearly across the top: "This voter-guide is non-partisan, and neither endorses nor opposes any candidate for office. It simply reports the actual votes of Senate or Congressional incumbents, and lists their main (challengers). You should register to vote NOW to vote on November 2nd." The donation page for www.PrayInJesusName.org says: "Your donation to this ministry is tax-deductible under the IRS code."

The total budget for the entire campaign is only $36,250. They simply fax these one page voter guides to 120,000 churches and allow local congregations to distribute them.

As the website brags: "How many millions of dollars will be wasted on ads that don't mobilize Christian voters? For just 29 cents, we can equip and mobilize an entire church of voters. For just $29, we can mobilize 100 churches. For just a few thousand dollars, we can wake the entire nation. We don't need millions, just a few thousand dollars spent wisely, and SUDDENLY WE WIN."

Nevermind that this particular website and these voter guides appear to be in violation of IRS guidelines (someone should file a formal complaint). The larger point is that the right-wing has been using local voter guides for a long time. They're incredibly effective, and they cost almost no money.

"That's a really smart idea," you say. "Why aren't we doing that?"

Well... we're starting to. A new alliance of groups recently launched www.TheBallot.org to aggregate local progressive and non-partisan voter guides. More than 200 have been posted so far, from 42 states, and dozens of organizations. The best ones are personal voter guides created by local bloggers, political junkies, and informal groups that tell you in plain English (or Spanish or another language) the real deal on races and ballot measures all the way down the ballot to the School Board level.

Instead of wasting precious time getting offended by right-wing hypocrisy -- or even worse, responding with offensive anti-Christian bigotry -- please go check out www.TheBallot.org. Think of it like Wikipedia for progressive voter guides. The more people participate, the better it gets.

Is your town represented on www.TheBallot.org?

If YES, Blog it. Tweet it, Email it. Facebook it -go crazy.

If NOT, please forward this to your local political junkie and ask 'em to make a voter guide so folks in your town know how to vote. Not just for Congress, but down ballot: Judges. County Clerks. Ballot questions. The stuff nobody knows.

The hidden benefit of local voter guides is that it actually makes people understand what's on their ballot which makes them want to vote, and get their friends to vote --especially new voters: The Obama 2008 Generation.

There's no time to waste! Get out there and do God's work! Make a progressive voter guide today, or at least download one and spread the gospel.

Can we get an Amen?

Billy Wimsatt works on www.TheBallot.org and is author of Please Don't Bomb The Suburbs.

Van Jones is the Founder and former President of Green For All.

Here's a fun project: My Jar of Pennies vs. The Supreme Court.

We're doing this because we're furious at the Supreme Court (at least the 5-4 Republican majority that decided Citizens United). And we don't want to feel powerless about the fact that corporations, even foreign corporations like BP, can now essentially spend billions of dollars to buy US elections. It's just wrong. It's morally wrong. It's un-American. And the Supreme Court 5 should be ashamed of themselves. Shame! So we're putting them on trial in front of the American people. Big Corporations have their billions. We have our jars of pennies. And we're going to fight back. We're going to collect millions of pennies and put moral heat on politicians, corporations, and the 5 Republican villains who sit on Supreme Court.

Add yourself to the facebook page here

There's going to be a small kick-off action at Noon this Monday June 21 in front of the Supreme Court. Bring your pennies and be in a video shoot. The video will promote a National Day of Action in front of every local Congressional office when Congress is home in August.

Bumped. --Mike

I was watching the Obama speech with friends the other night...

And someone said: "Let's all go to Ohio."

By many measures, Ohio's 20 electoral votes are the clearest path to victory in 2008. Obama needs 18 more electoral votes than Kerry won in 2004. There are two other likely scenarios to win: Colorado (9) plus New Mexico (5) plus Iowa (7) for a total of 21. Or Virginia (13) plus Iowa plus New Mexico for 25. I don't mean to oversimplify here --there are lot of important states and lots of ways to win. But none is more likely than Ohio.

Next thing I knew, we had created a program called Vote Today Ohio to turn out 10,000 new and unlikely voters during Ohio's new "Golden Week" when new voters can register AND vote on the same day.

Thanks to our excellent new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, Ohio recently changed its voting laws in a way that creates a 7 day window, from Sept 30 - Oct 6, where Ohio residents can register and vote early. It's the best GOTV opportunity ever created --like having seven days of Election Day Registration a month before the election.

The only problem is getting people to the polls. Unfortunately each of Ohio's 88 counties only has ONE polling place during the early voting period. So we need lots of people to take people to the polls.

Our goal with Vote Today Ohio is to recruit 100 new Ohio volunteers, and bring 100 in from out of state to bank 10,000 additional progressive votes. So far we have 30+ volunteers. We're raising money to rent vans and finding housing. Our efforts will be closely coordinated with America Votes and local progressive field organizations.

It's all hands on deck time --this election is going to be squeaky close. In 2004, Kerry lost Ohio by only 2% (119,000 votes amid massive voter suppression and dirty tricks). Meanwhile 2.3 million registered Ohioans did not cast a ballot!!

If we are able to get even 10% more progressive Ohioans to vote in 2008, Obama will likely win Ohio --and the election. We need thousands of people to help out --during Golden Vote week or whenever you're free.

Please report immediately to your nearest battleground state.

If you want to come to Ohio, write me, tell me who you are, when you want to go, and I'll hook you up: billywimsatt [at] gmail [dot] com