For everyone who is afraid Bush is an 800-pound gorilla and we are a bunch of bananas, read this email from MoveOn and then get to work:
Dear MoveOn member,
After four days of the Republican convention, national polls will likely find President Bush in the lead in the race for the White House. The Bush campaign is banking on using this so-called bounce to claim an early victory.
Of course, this bounce business is a mind game. Polls measure how the nation feels at a given time, but they’re terrible at measuring who’s going to actually get out and vote in battleground states. And when you look at those numbers, this is our race to lose. (See below for a longer explanation.)
So while Karl Rove tries to psych us out with poll numbers next week, we’re going to maintain a laser focus on one critically important task: getting our people to the polls through our ambitious Leave No Voter Behind field program. And our success in that depends on you.
Just because you live outside the battleground states doesn’t mean you have to sit this election out. The best way you can help is by adopting a battleground-state neighborhood as a Precinct Partner. You can call swing state voters to talk about the issues, take day trips there to knock on doors, even spend Election Day in one of the key neighborhoods where the race will be decided, getting Kerry voters to the polls. No matter where you live, you have an important role to play. Just click here to sign up:
http://www.moveonpac.org/precinctpartners/signup.htmlHere's why the hype that Bush is winning doesn't stand up to scrutiny:
Nation-wide polls don't matter. This election will be decided in the 20 or so states that aren't firmly in Bush's camp. So while most national polls--which include voters in Texas and California--show a dead heat between Bush and Kerry, polls of the so-called "battleground states" tell a different story. A bipartisan poll from NPR1 has Kerry leading 52-43% in these states, and Fox News2 reports a 47-37% Kerry lead there.
Historically speaking, Bush is in a very weak position. Most experts agree that when a president is seeking re-election, most voters first decide whether he deserves re-election, and then look at the challenger. And most voters aren't liking what they see: Bush's approval rating is very low for an incumbent. Even more importantly, in some recent polls a large portion of voters say the country is on the wrong track, a benchmark that is extremely tough to recover from. Bush is not where he needs to be, and even a significant bounce won’t put him there.
In the swing states, the name of the game is turnout. There are literally millions of people who prefer Kerry to Bush but who are unlikely to vote at all. In fact, there are far more of these folks than there are "swing voters" who haven’t made up their minds yet. Experts on both sides agree that the winner on November 2 will be the candidate who gets his base out in the places where it matters. And it's pretty straightforward to get their attention: we'll call them on the phone, knock on their doors, and invite them to neighborhood house parties. We'll listen to their concerns and talk to them about both candidates' positions on the issues. And we'll remind them repeatedly to show up on Election Day.
We've now got 60 paid organizers on this campaign, by next week we'll have more than 100, and two weeks from tomorrow we'll have 400 more. But our ultimate success depends on you: talking to millions of voters takes tens of thousands of volunteers, and we're counting on you to be among them.
Are you ready? Click here:
http://www.moveonpac.org/precinctpartners/signup.htmlWe must not fool ourselves into thinking this race is all wrapped up. But we also can't believe the hype when the Bush team tries to claim the same. The bottom line: This race is in your hands. We hope you can help. Thank you.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
