[SfN] GOTV ideas from Ralph hisself

[Jim Buell]

This just in from the Nader national campus email list. What kinds of final 
days' Get Out the Vote efforts should we be working on?

The Prairie Greens are phone banking, walking precincts to drop literature 
door to door in large parts of Urbana, and holding a very cool 
Greens/Independent Media Center benefit at the Highdive on Sunday evening. 
Folks in Students for Nader are very much welcome to take part in all these 
efforts and/or to get those of us in the community-wide Greens group 
involved in campus-specific events.

BTW, is anybody up for leafletting the tailgaters at tomorrow's Dad's Day 
game against Indiana? It's an early one with an 11 am kickoff 
(http://fightingillini.fansonly.com/sports/m-footbl/ill-m-footbl-sched.html) 
. We've got tons of campaign lit, etc., at the Greens office, 206 N. 
Randolph in downtown Champaign. Just need people power to get it out the door.

As Nader reminds us here, the days from now through Nov. 7 need to be days 
of action on a scale that will pull the entire UI campus population into 
the polls to vote for a change.

Go we go,
Jim

 >Ralph Nader Rallies Students to Get Out the Vote
 >
 >Dear Student Supporters,
 >
 >In 1996, more than 94 million voters—more than 50 percent of the
 >electorate—failed to turn out for the Presidential Election.  Among young
 >people, the numbers were even lower where only 28% of citizens ages 18-24
 >cast a vote for their nation’s President.  These drop out figures point to a
 >severe and fundamental breakdown in our democracy.  It is up to us to change
 >those numbers.
 >
 >The Nader/LaDuke campaign has been an exercise in the politics of joy and
 >justice.  And yet, for decades, the corporate two party duopoly has told
 >you—the youth of America that there is no joy in politics and there is no
 >justice in politics.  It is time for change.  We can all feel a new movement
 >growing, but it must be pushed on, it must not fall prey to the politics of
 >sorrow and disillusion.
 >
 >The corporate media and the politicians they support, the very people that
 >have led to this poor turnout among youth, have completely ignored your
 >generation, writing you off as lazy and apathetic.  And yet, a recent survey
 >conducted by the Harvard University Institute of Politics shows that 60
 >percent of students have been actively involved in community service.
 >
 >Here stands a blatant contradiction.
 >
 >You know that most of your classmates are NOT apathetic; they have simply
 >thrown their hands in the air believing that their voices will never be
 >heard. As one poll showed, 40% of youth think politics is “about money and
 >lying.”  Maybe many young people don’t vote because they are smart enough to
 >see through the look-alike, talk-alike candidates who serve only corporate
 >interests and talk down to today’s youth as if they do not see through the
 >smoke and mirrors.
 >
 >But you do.
 >
 >As a young supporter of this campaign, you are living proof that young
 >people engage themselves in politics because of issues, not rhetoric;
 >because of actions, not promises; and because there is a real and palpable
 >possibility for progressive change.  The success of our campaign and our
 >movement depends heavily upon your engagement to politics.
 >
 >When the media and the corporate politicians in Washington behave as if
 >they’re telling you that you can’t make a difference, tell them to take a
 >look at history. As much as they try to downplay your power for social,
 >economic, and environmental reform, by calling your ideals naïve and
 >politically unrealistic, they cannot contest the fact that young people have
 >been the driving force behind every social movement from the civil rights,
 >anti-war and environmental struggles of the 1960’s to the anti-sweatshop
 >organizing today.  I ask America: Without the energy, passion, and idealism
 >of our youth, where would we be today?
 >
 >Let’s show them where we are today, riding the crest of the protests in
 >Seattle, DC, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Prague, forming a worldwide
 >movement of people over profits, a movement where people matter foremost.
 >
 >I ask you, the students organizing for this campaign, flanked by fellow
 >students on over 900 campuses nationwide, to join me on Nov. 5th to kick off
 >a National Student Get Out the Vote Drive.  On this day, hold a rally on
 >your campus to galvanize your fellow supporters, then go out and “paint the
 >campus” Green, and let that renewing color spill over into your community.
 >Go door-to-door canvassing, table, dorm-storm try to reach every student at
 >your school, and every citizen in the surrounding neighborhoods.  Let them
 >know why you’re voting your conscience, and why you feel that they should 
too.
 >
 >On November 5th, I will rally with Cornel West, Michael Moore, Barbara
 >Ehrenreich, Patti Smith, Randall Robinson, Phil Donahue, Danny Glover, and
 >thousands of supporters at the MCI Center in Washington D.C.  Please stand
 >in solidarity with us by localizing the politics of joy and justice and
 >throwing Get Out the Vote (GOTV) rallies at your campus on this day.
 >
 >With a successful GOTV drive, and with the issues driving our way to the
 >polls, we will deliver a shock to the American political duopoly on November
 >7th, and move one step closer to reinvigorating American Democracy, as
 >America’s third largest and fastest growing party—the Green Party.
 >
 >I am calling on you, the youth of America, to lead this drive, to prove to
 >the media that you do care, and to prove to the amalgamated
 >Democratic-Republican party that their days as the majority are numbered,
 >for the youth of America are tired of the corruption and the hopelessness.
 >We can take an important step towards deepening our democracy for future
 >advances in justice and progress.
 >
 >Let’s Get Out the Votes!
 >
 >Sincerely,
 >Ralph Nader
 >