Monday, November 3, 2008

GET OUT THE VOTE!! A MESSAGE FROM FLORIDA

First there is the scary video about how getting out the vote makes all the difference in the world. This could be YOU if you don't help get out the vote AND vote yourself! Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your family!!

Then, there is the message:

My name is Lara. I'm writing to you today because I don't want you to have the same feeling of regret on Wednesday that I've had for the past eight years.

I live in Florida, and was here for the 2000 election. A lifelong progressive, I knew that I'd be voting for Al Gore. But that's all I did. I didn't realize the importance of gathering my friends and working together in the final days to get out every possible vote.

It's painful to think about all the disasters that could have been prevented — the Iraq war, torture, the Bush economy, and all of Dick Cheney's constitutional violations — if only a couple dozen more Florida volunteers had been knocking on doors in the final days of 2000.

I wish I had done more in 2000. I'm not going to make the same mistake again. I'm volunteering for Barack Obama in this final stretch, and I hope you will too. You can volunteer from home, right now, by calling MoveOn members in swing states and asking them to knock on doors for the Obama campaign. MoveOn's website makes it easy — and the campaign needs the help. [Join the campaign and help get others to join it. This truly is YOUR campaign.] Sign up here.

We can't listen to the polls that tell us Obama's ahead. I thought that about Gore in 2000, too, and again about Kerry in 2004.

The simple fact is that it will all come down to voter turnout. If Obama's supporters listen to the polls and don't do everything we can to get out the vote, the polls will be wrong, and we'll lose.

If ever there were a time to do your part to help Barack Obama win the White House, it's now. Please don't make the same mistake I did in 2000, and think voting is enough. Please don't sit this one out. Every vote matters — and every volunteer matters. Obama needs each and every one of us to step up right now.

Obama needs volunteers for a massive get out the vote push NOW, and you can make a huge difference calling from home to recruit those volunteers. It's really easy! Can you join in? Click here.

Thanks so much.

–Lara Kriegel, Miami, Florida; MoveOn member