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    Lessons from the Obama 2012 Grassroots Campaign: What Two Devoted Volunteers Learned
    Lessons from the Obama 2012 Grassroots Campaign: What Two Devoted Volunteers Learned
    Lessons from the Obama 2012 Grassroots Campaign: What Two Devoted Volunteers Learned
    Ebook83 pages47 minutes

    Lessons from the Obama 2012 Grassroots Campaign: What Two Devoted Volunteers Learned

    By Al Krause and Ruth Higgins

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    About this ebook

    Birch Bay residents Al Krause and Ruth Higgins will discuss their new book, Lessons from the Obama 2012 Grasssroots Campaign on Sunday, April 14 at 4:00 p.m., in the Readings Gallery of Village Books, 1200 11th Street, Bellingham, WA. 360-671-2626, villagebooks.com.
    To obtain a free book stub for review or to request an interview, contact Ruth Higgins or Al Krause at 360-371-5312 or email info@prudent-ventures.com.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateNov 17, 2012
    ISBN9781475959895
    Lessons from the Obama 2012 Grassroots Campaign: What Two Devoted Volunteers Learned
    Author

    Al Krause

    Al Krause and Ruth Higgins have been together since 1992. She was living in Salt Lake City and he was living in San Francisco. They met in the home of friends in Seattle and they married in the same house in 1994. Ruth, who grew up near Vancouver, BC, first worked in hospital medical records, then quality measurement and improvement. A graduate of Westminster College in Utah she earned an MBA at Fontbonne University in St. Louis, MO, she held management positions with the Veterans Administration, the University of Utah Medical Center and Chinese Hospital in San Francisco. Al, a graduate of Westminster College in Pennsylvania, served three years in the Army Security Agency, including a tour in Korea. He worked ten years in advertising in Philadelphia and over thirty years in public relations in San Francisco primarily in his own firms. Old enough to collect Social Security, but too young to retire, they moved to Birch Bay, WA in 2003, where they've written articles for local and national publications and been active in community affairs.

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      Book preview

      Lessons from the Obama 2012 Grassroots Campaign - Al Krause

      Copyright © 2012 by Al Krause / Ruth Higgins.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-5988-8 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-5989-5 (ebk)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012920809

      iUniverse rev. date: 11/13/2012

      CONTENTS

      Authors’ Notes

      Preface

      Introduction

      The Beginning Of The Northwest Whatcom Neighborhood Team

      Falling In Love With Amie

      Thriving On Parties

      Obama At The Paramount

      One On Ones In Skagit County

      Training

      Tension Between County Dems And State OFA

      Ever-Increasing Need To Recruit Volunteers

      A Particularly Good Phone Bank

      A Young Field Organizer Struggles

      Opening New Seattle Office

      Our Very Big Day

      Canvassing Together

      Last Days Of August

      Lessons Learned

      Epilogue

      Acknowledgements

      About The Authors

      Democracy is not a vicarious experience.

      Bill Bradley on Charlie Rose, May 8, 2012

      AUTHORS’ NOTES

      Without detailed notes for the first several months of our association with OFA, and with no intention of writing a book, we may have made some errors in exact times, places or sequence of events. However, we have made every effort to be as accurate and precise as our fallible memories allow.

      We have named only paid staff and public figures; we have used pseudonyms or position titles for volunteers.

      PREFACE

      Physically, this is a small book, appropriate to the nature of the material. Our story is about the experience of two people—only that. We leave it to investigative journalists and political science professors to determine if our experience is typical of others who volunteered for Organizing for America (OFA), the Obama grassroots campaign.

      People we didn’t know directed most of our activity. When our cohorts questioned directions, we often said, We’re just cogs in the system, and we need to trust the organization.

      Although our experience ended bitterly with accusations of poor communication and abuse of volunteers, this is also about great satisfaction in organizing a team that—for a time—was recognized as one of the strongest in the nation. In that process, we met many people whom we would never have met otherwise. We expect many of these people will be our friends for the remainder of our lives.

      04%20Front%20Matter%20Preface%20-%20Campaign%20Button.jpg

      We remain passionately committed to the belief that Barack Obama is the right leader for America, and we continue to work to reelect him. Moreover, we persevere in holding out hope for the promise of Organizing for… as a movement that could reinvigorate progressive politics beyond this presidential election. To that end, we worked in our community to support a national congressional candidate, a state gubernatorial candidate, and state legislative candidates in this election. This effort could build networks that would support other local candidates and campaigns—school and park levies, for example—in the future.

      We wrote this book for

      •   other campaign volunteers who could compare their experiences with ours and have their guards up in future campaigns;

      •   political science students planning to be campaign organizers who want to build strong morale for cohesive and vibrant volunteer groups; and

      •   leaders of organizations—particularly nonprofits—who want to recruit and retain quality people.

      Al Krause and Ruth Higgins

      October 2012

      INTRODUCTION

      In April, Al mailed the following letter to the widow of his only first cousin. She is a very conservative Republican:

      Dear Cousin, We are very much involved in Organizing for America,

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