More Pictures from this Semester

  

Patty Philipps Canvass

 Mike McIntyre Canvass

Deb McManus Canvass (one of many)

 

 Awesome NC Artwork

Good ole fashioned phonebanking 

 We also have an incredible debate team! (near side)

And sent our people up to DC to lobby on Capitol Hill!

Gotta get creative with advertising.

Volunteering at Michelle Obama

 Waiting on Michelle to speak

Got to meet Governor Hunt!

Held Watch Parties for all the Debates

Gotta register!

 We made some awesome literature.

 We made sure everyone saw/had one of these.

And handed out hundreds of these.

I Give Great Interviews...

Rally With Lt. Governor Dalton at Ram's Head

David Price also voted at Ram's Head!

  

Watching the Election Night results.

Our Races

As far as races we covered:

                Ellie Kinnaird- Won her reelection for state senate here in Orange County.  Knew this was gonna happen, but we still love to help out such a progressive woman as Ellie, and she’s been absolutely amazing to us over the years.

                Verla Insko- Verla was reelected to state house here in Orange County.  Similarly to Senator Kinnaird, we didn’t have to help out her campaign too much, but she’s an incredible lady and we love having her represent us.

                Deb McManus- She was able to win her election bid down in Chatham County for the state house.  This is great because it was the local campaign we were most involved with, and a good friend of mine/former YD president was her manager.  She won handily, so we’re excited to have a voice for public education going to Raleigh!

                Patty Philipps- Unfortunately, Patty Philipps did not win her race in Alamance County.  About a week after we went to canvass for her, she received a DUI which unraveled her campaign and she was not able to recover.  

                Valerie Foushee- Valerie was able to win her bid for the NC state house up in northern Orange County.  Again, a former YD member was her campaign manager, so it was great to be able to help him out and get another progressive thinker elected to Raleigh.

                Mike McIntyre- In what was the closest US House race in the nation (!), Mike McIntyre won reelection by a few hundred votes.  We knocked on a few hundred doors for him.  Therefore, we won his election.  Don’t tell me otherwise, because blahblahblahICANTHEARYOU.  This is the race we might be most proud of, simply because it shows the incredible impact even a small group of individuals can have on such an important election.

                Larry Kissell-  Unfortunately, Representative Kissell was ousted in his reelection bid.  Large points go to gerrymandering on this one, but he still ran a great campaign and we loved to go work with him.  Best of luck to him in the future.

                Walter Dalton-  Again, Unfortunately, Walter did not beat Pat McCrory for the governor’s mansion.  It was a definite Republican year at that level, and it’s hard to beat a man who has been campaigning for the past six years or so since he lost in 2008.  But it’s okay, Walter was a strong voice for our campus, and he will continue to raise issues that we truly care about.

                 Barack Obama-  Winner winner, chicken dinner.  This was great, after all of our hard work and hundreds of hours campaigning, we were able to see our man, Mr. President, get reelected in what turned out to be a pretty decisive victory. 

Election Day

So, I know it's been a while since Election Day, but I wanted to detail our activities, because it was insane.

4:00AM- Yepp, you read that right, four in the morning.  We woke up (and by we I mean 17 people, not just me and my one friend) and met at the Davis ATMs for a literature drop.  We ended up splitting up into 4 cars, with over 100 yard signs, and over 2000 pieces of literature.  We hit up pretty much every apartment complex in Chapel Hill, so if you are a student living in the area, you knew it was election day the second you walked out your door.  It was incredible.  My car alone went to every door at Townhouse Apartments, Mill Creek, Stratford, Stratford Hills, Chancellor's Square, Airport Commons, and a few other complexes whose names I can't even remember.  All total, we were done by 6:30 when the polls opened and we had distributed all 2000 pieces of literature, as well as a majority of our yard signs.

9:00AM-6:00PM- Pit-sitting time.  We had a table set up right in front of Lenior all day to give out information to folks who hadn't yet voted but wanted to.  We had flyers with directions to every single polling location that a campus address could possibly go to, as well as information on how to vote provisionally at the Center for Dramatic Arts on campus.  We even gave dozens of people a ride to the polls, so those first-years without cars were able to go vote on election day.  We gave out literature again, as well as stickers and buttons so that those who had already voted could voice their support and encourage others to do the same.  I spent every waking moment I had in the pit, except for my 11 o'clock class which took attendance.  I even registered for classes for next semester while helping someone figure out how to take the bus down Highway 54 to their polling location!

6:00PM-7:30PM- Polling location.  On my way home from the pit, I stopped by my polling location on Roberson Street to help pass out information to any last minute voters.  So much fun, but so cold!  I have so much respect for the volunteers that work the polls, they have to know absolutely everything but get no respite from the marathon that is election day.

7:30PM-bedtime- Election party at R&R Grill.  After the polls closed, hundreds of students and townspeople alike descended upon R&R for our election night party.  We all gathered in the venue to watch the live results come in. We had TVs displaying both the national results (going state by state) and the North Carolina results (showing the winners of the NC house and senate, as well as numerous ballot initiatives- yay transit tax!).  It was an absolutely incredible night, punctuated by many victories.  All in all, it was a much better watch party than in 2010, as can be expected...

Anyway, election day was absolutely exhausting but absolutely incredible.  It was a culmination of years' worth of effort and organizing, a triumph on so many levels.  It fulfilled all of our hopes, desires, and wants that had cropped up during this tumultuous election season.  I'll post again to recap many of the individual races we were involved with, but truth be said, it was one of the happiest political moments of my life.  Til next time...

Pre-Election Day Updates

So I haven't updated here in a while, so I thought I'd recap our pre-election day festivities before coming back with another post about election day. 

Early voting was insane at Carolina, with Rams Head open from Oct 18 to Nov 3, we had a total of 9500 students vote on campus.  It was amazing; we were standing outside Rams Head everyday from noon to 7pm (when the polls closed) and simply herded people into the dining hall.  That was our strategy: simple, effective, and fun.

Speaking of fun, we had many events down in the Plaza.  Candidate for governor, Walter Dalton visited us to speak to a crowd of volunteers along with his wife and election team.  A couple of days later, Congressman David Price actually came and voted at Rams Head on Nov 2.  He brought with him Lt. governor candidate Linda Coleman; they both gave impassioned speeches that truly reminded us why we were volunteering.

It was a long couple of weeks, but we made it.  We had a great turnout and informed so many students.  I'll come back in a few days with an Election Day post; because that was one hell of a day.

So when I voted early at Ram's Head I also happened to vote next to Chancellor Thorpe!  No matter what your political views are, get out and vote!

MICHELLE!

  So, the first lady came to Chapel Hill, not sure if anyone noticed....

HUGE event.  We had some practice back in April when the President came, so this time around we (the students/volunteers) knew exactly what we needed to do.  I was one of the first students to actually know about the First Lady coming to visit, which was exciting.  I found out that Thursday evening, and Friday afternoon I (along with my co-VP and Pres. of Young Dems) were in a meeting with the advance team, Carmichael arena staff, university representatives, and the US Secret Service.  Pretty cool.  That's where we learned everything we needed to know: all the details of when things were going to happen, where everyone needed to be, etc.

So we were prepared when she came.  Volunteers had to show up at 9, and we were there mainly for crowd control.  We had to help certain individuals to their seats, fill in sections, and generally answer any questions the public had.

The actual event started when our Young Dems president, Austin Gilmore, took the stage to give an introductory speech to the students, getting them ready for Michelle.  It was great getting to see a really good friend of mine up there in front of the entire auditorium, having his voice heard by everyone in attendance.  I would've given anything to get up on that stage...

After Austin, former Governor Jim Hunt said a few words, along with a representative from Organizing for America.  Finally, it came time for the First Lady to be introduced.  Again, one of my really close friends was given the opportunity to get up on stage and bring in Michelle Obama.  Lindsey Rietkerk, head of the Tar Heels for Obama organization, gave an incredible introductory speech and actually got to hug Michelle as the swapped on stage.  Afterwards, both Austin and Lindsey were able to meet and speak with Michelle backstage.  That's another perk I would have given anything to have; initially I was given the impression from OFA that myself and my co-VP were going to have the chance to meet her, but this also was taken.  You know, as a student who has been instrumental in the running of this campaign on campus, from the Young Dems perspective, it hurt not to be rewarded when you see others getting the opportunity of a lifetime.  I have a lot of issues with the way some aspects of this campaign have been run by the OFA team.  The majority of the time it seems like they care about nothing more than numbers: they forget that voters (and volunteers most importantly!!!) have feelings and needs and would like to see their effort and sacrifice rewarded.  Just saying, after putting in over a hundred hours this semester (and many times that throughout my first three years), it would have been nice to even shake the hand of the First Lady and say thank you.

Her speech itself was great.  It had a lot of crossover between her previous speech at the DNC in Charlotte several weeks ago and the visit her husband had paid Chapel Hill back in the spring.  She touched on a lot of issues concerning how her and the President were raised, the struggles they went through, the pressures on their family.  She did an incredible job showing that her and her husband could relate to the hard time students are going through.  She went on to mention the President's past accomplishments in making college more affordable and what he planned to do in a second term.

Overall, it was a great event.  Yes, I have some (read: many) regrets and sorrows from being forced to watch over a rope separating the floor from the bleachers ("you shall not pass!"- me for three hours).  But the student body loved the speech, it was extremely popular, and I think it really motivated my peers to become more involved in this election cycle.  We had many people sign up for volunteer shifts to help get out the vote.  So it's been a great week. 

I'm on fall break right now.  It's been slow the past week (except for that whole First Lady thing) but we're ramping back up on Monday when students get back.  Early voting at Ram's Head started two days ago and I'm lucky enough to say I've already voted.  Felt great getting to vote for a President for the first time ever!!!  Now I just have to get out there and help every student on this campus feel that same passion, that same fulfillment, that same accomplishment that can only come with doing your civic duty as an American citizen.

Til next time....

It's Been a While

Okay, so it's been a while, but not too much has changed.  Since I last updated, we've had more phonebanks (yay!) and tons of voter registration every day.  We've also had a few fun events though.

Last Sunday we went and canvassed for Deb McManus down in Chatham County.  Her campaign manager is Nathan Westmoreland, a former Young Democrats president, recent UNC alumnus, and one of my best friends here in Chapel Hill.  I had actually already canvassed with him for Deb back in July, so the area was familiar.  Also, we have had 2 phonebanks for Deb McManus this past month, so a lot of our volunteers already know a good bit about her.  The canvass itself was great.  We stayed in downtown Pittsboro, and Nathan gave us some very walkable turfs.  The closer we get to the election, the more people seem to be interested in actually talking to you.  Strangely enough, we're still running across A LOT of undecided voters.  I actually ran across a woman who told me she was waiting til a week before the election to even read anything about the candidates.  I just kinda stared...

But yeah, we also had a HUGE presidential debate watch party down in the Upendo Lounge in SASB North on south campus.  This event was co-sponsored by the UNC Young Dems, Tar Heels for Obama, and the Black Student Movement, and we had hundreds show up (though the free food might have helped).  Lots of fun, and even though Obama might not have had his most shining moment, it was a great rallying call for a lot of our volunteers.

Earlier this afternoon we were supposed to help out Valerie Foushee's campaign.  She is a local Democrat running for the state house in a district that encompasses all of northern Orange County and then a few strips of land down either side.  Her campaign manager is Evan Degnan, another former Young Democrats alum and friend of mine.  Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating and we had to postpone the door-knocking.  But it really is convenient having the people in charge be your friends; planning and rescheduling are so much easier.  We're hoping to get that canvass back up and scheduled for a week day afternoon later in the semester.

Other than that, not too much is happening.  This week is the last to register to vote, so we're hoping to push registration in the Pit the next several days.  Then we have a few days off before early voting at Ram's Head starts October 18th (conveniently located at the beginning of our Fall Break).  I'm looking for that change of pace, change of schedule.  Once the voting actually starts, it gets wayyyy more fun.

Til then...

Plan Your Canvasses Carefully

I love canvassing; I really do.  But sometimes it just takes a little too much out of you.  That seemed to be the case this past weekend when we went to canvass for Larry Kissell. 

It shouldn't have been bad.  I emailed the guy a week in advance, touched base, sent him another email Wednesday letting him know how many people we had and asking if he had a specific area he wanted us to cover.  His district is a good ways away, we definitely didn't want to spend the entire trip in the car simply trying to get down there.  I stated this in my emails, asking if there were any turfs closer to our district (literally anywhere up US-49 would have saved us half an hour each way).  Then: nothing.  Not a word until Sunday. freaking. morning.  Then I get an email simply asking to meet at the field office.  In Concord.

I don't want to be mad at the entire campaign; nor am I rooting against Representative Kissell.  But his campaign was definitely not one I would have been willing to work with if I had known ahead of time exactly what a hassle it would be.  We were only able to canvass for about an hour, yet spent almost four in the car.  It was ridiculous.

Rough start to the week; but it's all downhill from here.  The rest of the canvasses are really close, with local candidates that should be able to put in a lot of time working with us.  Can't wait for that.

So, until then.  Phonebank, phonebank, phonebank.  Registration, registration, registration.  Then Deb McManus next Sunday.   Fired up!...

R-E-P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N

All the days are started to roll into one another.  And it's only September 19th.  We still have a month til early voting begins.  Another three weeks til actual Election Day.  And we're already in high gear.

Ah, where'd I leave off?  Last update was Mike McIntyre's canvass.  Not even a day of rest; we went west Sunday to canvass for Patty Philipps in Alamance County.  She's absolutely amazing.  It was great to have a very strong democratic woman (loves educational funding, Lillian's List endorsed, experienced councilwoman, etc.) after knocking on doors all day for a fairly conservative Democrat in an extremely conservative area.

We met over in Graham and canvassed most of the neighborhoods adjacent to what they would call "downtown."  Really easy walks, and the rain held off; although it was really overcast all day.  But whatever, my fair skin didn't get sunburnt so it was great.  Actually, beyond great.  Pretty damn incredible.  We took six volunteers.  For only two hours.  And knocked on OVER 300 DOORS.  Afterwards, we met back up with the campaign manager, Charlie, and he was blown away.  Apparently we knocked out 1/20th of all the doors in their district.  Which is a lot.

That's why I love local and state races.  You show up for these large, national races, and it's so easy to get involved and be a part of this absolutely enormous team.  But when you compare the relative impact you, yourself, are making on the campaign, it's so much more rewarding to end a day with a local race, because you're actually able to see the difference you're making: there are numbers that change simply because you went out and volunteered a couple of hours.  And that's so rewarding to me.

Besides the weekend canvass, we also had our second general body meeting for the Young Dems on Monday.  This week's theme was local elections.  We had our lovely Lee Storrow (current town council member, UNC graduate in 2011, and former Young Dems president) swing by to speak a little on the impact Young Dems has made in the town of Chapel Hill over the past several years.  Of course we loved him.  After he finished, he introduced Bernadette Pelissier, who is running for a county position and really really involved with the transit tax up for a vote this November.  She talked to us a good bit about the pros of the transit tax (which I believe we're all on-board with) before handing over the reins to Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.  He gave an incredibly impassioned speech about the need to be active in this campaign, always referencing the impact the Young Dems had in the past.  In fact, after he was done, we had our best sign-up session yet.  We had sooooo many people put their names down for our canvasses and phone banks this week.

In fact, speaking of phone banks, I just got back from one.  It was by far our best of the year: we had 15 people make a total of OVER 300 CALLS for Deb McManus, who is running for the US House down in Chatham County in district 54.  That is an enormous boost to her campaign.  Her manager is actually Nathan Westmoreland, who not only graduated from Chapel Hill jut last year, but who I've also been great friends with since my first year here.

So yeah, it's been a great couple of days.  Hopefully the rest of the week will finish suit.

"Yeah, they're gonna be a five..."

First canvass of the school year!  Well, I might just count it as the first canvass total.  I went back on one in July with my good friends Nathan (campaign manager for Deb McManus) and Lee Storrow (CH Town Council) to knock on some doors down in Chatham County.  And while it was really really awesome and successful and fun...it was also hot as s***.  So yeah, we can count today's as numero uno.

We (6 of us from Young Dems) headed down to Clayton which is about a 45 minute drive southeast of campus.  Straight up Republican stronghold.  It was a little intimidating.  We were canvassing for Representative Mike McIntyre's campaign, a Blue Dog, socially conservative Democrat who's had to cross party lines quite often the past few years to maintain a favorable view in his district.  Never in my life would I have imagined canvassing for a candidate who was pro-life, anti-bailout, and in the midst of a major push to distance himself from the president.  But hey, his opponent is horrible.  And I'll do anything to help a Democrat keep that seat.  Even if he's not MY ideal candidate, he's been that district's ideal candidate.  And that's what it takes in the South.

So we knocked on doors for about 2 and a half hours in some absolutely beautiful weather.  Not even kidding; perfect day to start canvassing.  I got to pair up with my buddy Luke as we hit up several different neighborhoods and covered multiple walk-lists.  And yeah, like I mentioned before, it was a little intimidating.  A lot of the people we were visiting were pretty damn conservative.  Extremely nice people (rural, country raising will do that, trust me) but conservative nonetheless.  A lot of people were marked as a '5' on our checklist (aka strong opposition supporter).  Though there were a few diamonds out there in those dark Republican mines.  There were many people we engaged who were hardline conservatives but still planned to vote for Rep. McIntyre because of his stances on the issues.  And that was really comforting to see: McIntyre doesn't align perfectly with my political ideals, but he knows exactly what his constituents want and need, and he isn't afraid to make a few hard votes to make it happen.

So yeah, freaking awesome day to start off our door-knocking.  Getting some rest and staying in on this Saturday night: we're back at it tomorrow!  Visiting Patty Philipps next door in Alamance County.  Can't wait to work on a NC House race; that's where we need to elect Democrats first and foremost.

Day One: A Post About Something

Here it goes, first post of the election season, though it feels like it's been forever since all this actually started...

Work work work.  That's it.  That's been it since May.  I thought I'd have a relaxing summer: chillin' in Chapel Hill, giving some tours on campus, bartending occasionally.  Nope.  Not after Mr. Obama got a hold of me.  So it's been planning.  And more planning.  And schedules and meetings and interviews and calls and canvasses and phonebanks and so much more.

This fall, the UNC Young Democrats, in conjunction with OFANC, the NC Farm Team, and the OCDP, are sponsoring a Campus Organizing Internship meant to organize students in order to elect Democratic candidates at all levels of office.  Sounds intense, doesn't it?  Now just imagine planning it all.  That's where I've been all summer.

The first thing to plan was simple: office hours and voter registration.  That's everyday, 10am to 2pm.  No questions, no gimmicks, come pick up a clipboard and get to work.  Love it.  The phonebanks were next.  We needed an on-campus location, so having one in the YD office every Wednesday sounded like a plan.  But that's not anywhere near enough.  So I decided to coordinate with OFA to offer additional phonebanks every Tuesday and Thursday night.  There; the middle of the week is taken care of: activities every night, plenty of time for making some phone calls.

The canvasses were a bit tougher.  Contacting each campaign individually over the summer, some of whom didn't even have their websites up by the time I tried to make contact.  That happened in June.  Over the next two months, the replies started rolling in: Deb McManus in Chatham County needs some help, so does Patty Philipps over in Alamance County, as well as Mike McIntyre down in Clayton.  A couple months and many many email conversations later, I finalized it.  Finally.  Visiting 8 different campaigns over the course of 8 weeks to join their structure for a weekend day and knock on doors?  Not a problem, let's do it.

The other logistics came through during July and August.  Who was to report to whom?  How were we to file and keep track of all this data?  Can this be approved for other internship credits?  Is everyone in on the loop?  These questions were ll answered over the next few weeks, so that by the time move-in rolled around this internship was completely ready and waiting.

So sign-ups began.  We got a lot.  So much interest its unbelievable.  But with this interest came some problems.  We have three groups on campus: Young Democrats, Tar Heels for Obama, and Organizing For America.  All of us are working together this fall; hell, we're all pretty good friends.  But this raised the issue of delegation, responsibilities, and boundaries.  The solution was to draw up a structure where the three groups were all on equal footing, reported to the same individual, and drew from the same base of volunteers.

After we cleared up the confusion as to who would answer to whom, there was still one question left: how do we un-confuse the volunteers?  You see, while we (the supreme overlords) knew the ins and outs of this internship, our interns didn't.  There was much confusion as to wihch group was sponsoring which event, who to email to RSVP, which office one needed to meet at.  So, of course, your brilliant leader, Vice President McIntyre, came up with an incredible solution.

Right now we have three separate listservs.  One for OFA, one for YD, and one for THFO.  My plan is to pick out the purely political aspects of these individual listservs and put them into one, extremely condensed email.  Therefore, no matter who you wish to work for (YD, OFA, THFO, or any combination) you will be aware of each event occurring and who is in charge of it.  I'm hoping to start sending this email out on Sunday evenings, beginning this week.  If this works, it will be the most incredible method of communication on a college campus in North Carolina.  We'll be efficient, we'll be unconfused, we'll be ready.

I'm going over these details tonight when I meet with the other campus leaders.  Hopefully, we'll come to an agreement on this and be able to implement everything we wish to accomplish via one listserv.  This will work wonders; I just have to prove it.