field organizing

I normally don't like to do two quick hits posts so close together, but three items came to my attention today that you should know about.

• First, Matt Singer of Forward Montana wrote to me last night saying that the GOP in Montana is withdrawing their challenges to voters in the state. Meanwhile, ABC News reports that more dirty tricks to keep students from the polls are ramping up - this time at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Zack Exley has a must-read piece in the Huffington Post outlining the scope and methods of the Obama field program. Here's a taste:
  

  The Ohio campaign is attempting to build teams in 1,231 campaign-defined "neighborhoods," each covering eight to ten precincts. They are targeting virtually every inhabited square mile of the state. The campaign claimed to have teams in 65% of neighborhoods when I visited in early September. That's risen to 85% coverage at press time—and they are shooting for 100%. In contrast, the Kerry campaign effectively wrote off rural counties, and completely abandoned them in the final few weeks of the campaign in a last minute all-in shift to the cities.

  It was a huge risk for the national field program to have paid staff take the time to methodically build volunteer teams instead of rushing directly to spend all their time running voter contact activities themselves. From the point of view of the conventional wisdom of much of the pre-Obama field organizing world, the campaign is actually taking two big risks: first they are risking everything on the effectiveness of masses of volunteers, then they are risking everything again by relying on volunteer teams to lead those masses. What if teams was just a bunch of hippy nonsense? What if it turned out there just weren't that many unpaid activists capable of running high-quality canvasses?

• And one more item from the Obama campaign. Yesterday Sarah blogged about a video where kids talk to their parents about supporting Sen. Obama. Today, the campaign launched an entire micro-site backing up that video, The Talk. The site has tips on how to broach the subject, talking points on various issues, and good ideas on how to keep the conversation going and "win the news cycle" in your parents house, including emailing blog posts and news articles to fight any misinformation the 'rents are getting in their inbox or on Fox News.