I would like to take a moment, during the celebrations across the country, to thank MoveOn.org for their incredible organizing effort. Without them (us), I do not believe the Dems would have taken both houses, maybe neither. You have no idea how many times I have called Elton Gallegly's (R-CA) office to voice my feelings on issues, only to hear a staffer ask me, "Are you from MoveOn?" Leftward, Ho!!!!!

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/43934/

The MoveOn political machine exceeds all expectations
Posted by Don Hazen at 6:04 PM on November 5, 2006.
(Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.)

MoveOn has broken all of its records in terms of its
grass roots engagement, voter contacts, and surpassed
even their own ambitious intentions for election '06.

According to its DC political maestro Tom Mattzie, MoveOn is involved in 57 races -- up from 30 a few weeks ago; it has 101,453 volunteers plugged into phone banks, house parties and their "Call From Home" phone system. They will have 161 staff on Election Day with 39 field offices in 25 states. Now that is a political operation.

MoveOn's goal for voter contacts through the end of Election Day was to actually talk to 450,000 people several times. They will pass that goal today, Sunday. According to lead honcho Eli Pariser, MoveOn has made 4.43 million calls to voters -- 805,000 on Saturday alone. People are holding over 3,000 parties across the country. That's 50% more parties than MoveOn has ever done in one round. at this point they are adding something like 4,000 new volunteers a day.

MoveOn leaders joke that their nickname is "Liquid Phone" because they just keep adding volunteers. They say the closer the races are, the more excited their volunteers get. The more excited the people get, the more GOTV work they can do and the more races we can compete in. Quite a nice situation to be in.

In terms of dough, MoveOn raised $5,242,432 in October... alone. That money is headed for strong Democratic candidates and VoteVets.org. In addition -- a very big number -- $27,157,797 -- was raised in this election cycle so far.

The DLCers and the Blue Dogs in the Democratic party are very likely paying close attention to MoveOn, who they have attacked, red baited, and tried to undermine, along with many Republican candidates, while MoveOn has just gotten stronger and stronger.

Some pundits and conservative Democrats are desperately trying to spin the fantasy that Democrats are succeeding in this election because they went out and got conservative candidates to run. But that is just plain silly. The country is sick and tired of war, corruption, hypocrisy, ignoring global warming, lack of healthcare, and the colossal failure of Republicans across the board. Anti-war candidates are leading the way in most of the country.

All of this portends a very promising future for 2008 and beyond for Democrats. MoveOn's success -- using the fundamental strategy of going to the people for strength, and action, and not depending on "star" consultants, or beltway based strategies, may just be leading the country, to a far better place, after 6 years of true darkness.

Here comes Democracy.

That'll give the Democrats a shock......

I believe Dr Dean, (we remember Dean, 50 state plan, Democrats recapture the House and Senate, Yeee hawwwww) Mr. Dean knows all about the Grass roots, and the power of the internet. MoveOn was one of the first he contacted when he formulated his quite obvious, very successful plan.

Many Democrats are still clueless, but many, and i do mean a lot of Democrats are quite aware, especially those that took a seat from a Republican!


Yeah, here come Democracy. Especially considering how much room there is for growth in the medium.

But the Democratic party will have to be reminded constantly who put them back in power...us, we the people, not big fucking business. This fine garden we have planted will take, I am afraid constant weeding.

Oh come on, Zooks, admit it; weeding is kinda fun. It's how we stay connected to the project, it's our touchstone to the process. This is a good thing!

Yep!

What you stated here Zooks is a primer on the care and feeding of a healthy democracy.

You and I are apparently happy to be pulling weeds, but the majority of Americans don't like getting dirt under their fingernails. 40% turnout.

I don't know about Washington, but I heard that Oregon had a 71% turn out.
(vote by mail)

Wow, i didnt visit moveon once in this past election. shame on me!

Speaking of celebrations, MoveON sent our region invitations to partys > a REAL PARTY (they are calling it a Hope for Humanity celebrations). Will be there tonite .... can't wait to meet all them folks in person for the first time ( I'm bringing cheese balls )!

I would also like to thank all the other organizations who helped bring the Democrats to a majority in both houses. MoveOn.org was perhaps the biggest and most well-known, but there were literally hundreds of independent, liberal, progressive, grass-roots, net-roots organizations who made this possible. They acted as agents for, not agents of the Democratic Party. Which means they, we, will be watching the Democrats as closely as we did the Republicans. The Dems will need to be reminded occasionally that they don't own us, we own them.

What a great gathering! About 65 wonderful Moveoners on deck at a restaurant grill ~ beautiful nite too! As I suspected, the majority of us blogger/posters are baby-boomers and older, with a few thirty-somethings in the mix. Our organizer last nite was in his thirties. He knew all about PNAC. What a great conversation we had~ the couple in their sixties I sat near, the lady said she felt like a real Patriot from colonial times saving America with the internet! She didn't know about the PNAC , however, soooo you can imagine how wide-eyed she got when I explained the whole manifesto is signed by the cabal and the plot is on the internet to this day. We talked about the Blue Revolution, we ate great food (filet mignon and wine... yummy), we talked about the war and getting the soldiers back home (that was unaminous), we discussed impeachment (that was a split), and we talked about our dreams. One man asked us what our main wish is (besides Iraq War over) now that we won ~ I and the majority said Universal Health Care. We spent two and half hours with these wonderful people celebrating , writing our emails on MoveON and Codepink lists, and enjoying each other's conversation and company. Oh, and each and every guest got a POAC business card! Welcome back America, boy did we miss you

Thank you for sharing that Yank. Sounds like you had enough good time to hold you over to 08!

Absolutely, sky! If these horrible past six years taught us anything about the bad guys, it's that they don't take a day off. We learned we need each other together to get something good done .