PA

This morning at 7am, over 1,000 students at Penn State in PA were lined up to vote for change. youtube video is below.

http://www.videothevote.org/video/615/

cross posted on CDNY blog: http://collegedemsny.com/...

Today, I traveled a good hour with members of my college democrats chapter in Binghamton, NY and we went to Obama's campaign office in Scranton, PA. Around 9am, I had left the Democratic Headquarters in Binghamton to arrive early for canvassing. Even at 9am in Binghamton, NY our democratic headquarters was packed with volunteers, waiting to be transported over the state border into the battleground. Obama has used states like NY which aren't in play to act as feeder states for volunteers into neighboring battleground states.

When we arrived at the Scranton office on Wyoming Avenue, the place was absolutely packed. About 40 people were on the phones reading scripts, with another 50 in a room hearing instructions on placing door hangers on potential Obama voters in the area. Packets of canvassing materials were lined up by the hundreds in neat stacks and canvassing data was being entered into 2 laptops. It was quite an elaborate operation under weigh. The Industrial Engineers Union was nice enough to lend the Obama campaign use of their office space.

According to the field organizer at the Obama office, the Obama PA campaign had placed door hangers on every single identified Obama voter this past Saturday, which far exceeded the campaigns goals because of the massive amount of volunteers.

There is certainly a great buzz in the area down in Scranton and locals are really excited about Obama. John McCain held a rally in Scranton today but Caroline Kennedy also held a rally in the afternoon in which over 500 people showed up. Bob Casey and Congressman Kanjorski were also at the rally. About 5 blocks away from the Obama office, the McCain headquarters had about ten people in it the entire day, with little activity appearing. John McCain is making Pennsylvania his last stand because if he loses the state, it will be very tough for him to win the election, even if he somehow manages to win every toss up state. Campaign staff in Scranton know they have McCain on the ropes in PA and they are trying to land that knockout punch to give Obama the victory he needs.

The College Democrats of NY have ramped up their efforts for Barack Obama and the Democratic ticket with less than a week left to go before the election.

Over 600 college students will be on the ground in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Hampshire for this Get Out The Vote weekend and through Election Day. A total of 140 students will be going to Virginia for five straight days, while 420 will be going to Pennsylvania and another group of students is heading to New Hampshire to campaign for Jean Shaheen for Senate and Obama for America. Even more students will be calling into swing states across the country reminding students to vote for Senator Obama.

The ambitious GOTV efforts for the upcoming week mark the culmination of student activism across the state and country among young people in the College Democrats organization. In 2004, 70 students from NY were mobilized to swing states to aid John Kerry. In 2006, 75 college democrat members helped get Michael Arcuri and Kirsten Gillibrand elected to Congress. Three weeks ago, 150 students traveled to central Pennsylvania to canvass for Obama. With 600 students participating, this also makes the College Democrats of NY one of the most active state federations in the country.

An additional hundred students will be staying in NY to retake the State Senate for the first time in 40 years and swing four key Congressional seats from red to blue in the NY-29, NY-26, NY-25, and NY-13.

This week CDNY is launching their "Text the Vote" campaign in which college democrats from across the state will be reminding their friends to vote on November 4. The idea is for each college democrat member in NY to text message 5 of their friends, reminding them to vote for Barack Obama and the Democratic ticket. The potential and reach of the project could be enormous in GOTV efforts for young people.

cross posted on the CDNY blog: http://collegedemsny.com/blog/

This is unreal. Every hour i check my inbox i literally hear and read about another college democrats chapter in NY going to a battleground state for Obama or working to retake the NY State Senate.

Here's the breakdown for this weekend:

- 60 students from NYC chapters going to Penn State
- 70-80 students from Hofstra for Obama going to Penn State
- 60 from Cornell going to Stroudsburg
- 20-30 from Bard going to Hazelton
- 10 from Binghamton? going to?

*132 people from Columbia U./ nyc area going to VA

When I informed our College Dems of America VP, his words were priceless,

"I'll let you know when my jaw lifts off the floor."

My name is Dan Levin and I'm dam proud to be President of the College Democrats of NY

Two weeks ago, the College Democrats of NY sent 150 students to PA to campaign for Obama. During that weekend trip in which students stayed in central PA, we knocked on 10,520 doors and had over 3,000 conversations with voters.

Now once again the College Democrats of NY are back in action as we are planning on sending an additional 150 people into PA this weekend.

60 Students will be coming from the general NYC area from our college democrat chapters while another 90 will be coming via Hofstra U. for Obama. Students will be sleeping in the dorm rooms of college democrat members at Penn State University.

It's going to be a packed weekend.

This past weekend, the College Democrats of NY took 151 students to Central PA where we spoke to over 3,000 people and knocked on 10,520 doors. The conversations that we had with voters in Bloomsburg, Hazelton, Wilkes- Barre, and Stroudsburg gave us a pretty good profile of the average voter in this battleground state.

Misconceptions: Unfortunately there are still some people who believe that Obama is a Muslim. I have read many articles that detailed this fact but it is still shocking to hear it after knocking on someone's door. Even after talking with this particular woman for a solid 5 minutes, explaining that Obama was in fact a devout Christian, the woman refused to believe us and so we moved on to the next house. Some people just aren't worth your time and breath.

Some voters were big Obama supporters including one Seahawks football fan who wanted to attend the Biden-Clinton rally this past Sunday but alas, watching Sunday football was more important (Cant' really blame him).

The majority of voters were undecided but leaning towards Obama. These were my favorite people to talk to since you can actually have lively discussions about issues that they care about. For women, I personally like talking to them about universal healthcare since I am a big believer in it. I enjoy telling them how worried college students like myself are b/c once we graduate, we no longer are on our parents' health care plan.

The economy is also a great subject to talk about since it is the #1 issue for voters. One woman wasnt sure if either candidate could really help the country but we made the convincing argument that with the country going down the drain the last 8 years by the Republicans, why not give a Democrat 4 years in the White House to change the country?

Obama is counting on huge numbers from Philadelphia which is very liberal but if central PA votes over 50% for Obama, he will win this battleground state easily.

Bumped. Welcome College Democrats of NY! Thanks for posting, and come back often. We'd love to keep up to speed on all that you are doing. For everyone else, be sure to also check out CDNY's posts on their election activities this year. --Mike

cross posted on the CDNY blog: http://collegedemsny.com/blog/

As President of the NY College Democrats, I am proud to say that we have a booming organization in the Empire State. A quick google search of NY College Dems yields tons of blog entries and our amazing website which our New Media Director JF has brilliantly put together with tons of pics and links to our 50+ chapters across the state. Meanwhile the NY College Republicans are nowhere to be found. It is difficult to find their webiste and they dont blog at all. They don't even get any mention in the NY media.

This past weekend we sent over 150 students from NY into central PA to canvass for Obama. We were located in 4 different offices: Bloomsburg, Hazelton, Stroudsburg and Wilkes- Barre and not a single college republican was to be found either from NY, PA or any other state.

Much has been made of an op-ed post by College Democrats of America National Council Vice Chair Lee Drake who talked about the high budget of the national college republicans and their lack of ground troops helping McCain. I couldn't agree more with him. The College Republicans do indeed have a significant fundraising advantage over us but the College Democrats have a huge advantage when it comes to mobilizing our troops for Obama on the ground across the country.

In fact, College Democrats make up much of that fundraising gap by working with the Obama campaign and the DCCC, DSCC to help pay for transportation costs for campaign invasions into battleground states and regions to get Democrats elected.

Earlier this fall I challenged the NYS College Republican chairman to a debate and they rejected the challenge, claiming that they wanted to focus on campaigning. While that's perfectly reasonable, I have yet to see or hear college republicans in NY campaigning for any race in large numbers.

Perhaps nationally they are hiding because they think McCain is a horrible candidate who doesn't adequately represent young voters.

After weeks and weeks of planning, the NY College Dems visited central PA this past weekend. More than 150 students participated in the trip, arriving late Friday night and canvassing the neighborhoods in PA all day Saturday.

I traveled to Bloomsburg, PA with a group of 39 students from NY. We stayed at a barn from Obama supporters who were nice enough to let us crash there. Other students went into Hazelton, Stroudsburg, Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia.

Our group in Bloomsburg, PA knocked on more than 2,017 doors, gathering 700 new voter IDs. In total, an estimated 2,925 names were searched through on walk lists.

View awesome pictures of the trip here: http://collegedemsny.com/media.php

Total Results from the trip are still coming in but every student had an awesome time and we definitely made a difference for Obama