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post from the DUmpster

Again with my concern: the canvass flake rate was 30% last Saturday and our phone flake rate was more like 50% and even before that we were already short of the goals for knocks and dials that the head honchos had set for our county that day. (Flake rate means the percentage of people who signed up for a shift and then didn’t show up - we are trying to switch over to using “no show rate” but some terms just aren’t easy to change.) We’re hearing this all over.

Blame it on nice weather or blame it on sports or blame it where it belongs. This is good reason for concern. People are acting like this is a done deal.

Our field organizers are getting anxious and a bit cranky. These are people who actually get paid to do their jobs for Obama. Their bosses are getting irritated about the volunteers. They don’t want to hear about how far ahead we are in the polls. They always say “don’t talk about that - work like we’re down 20 points”.

Barack said, “Don’t get cocky!” meaning that we can’t get complacent; there’s still work to do.

This last weekend Barack himself asked a crowd, “Will you make calls for us? Will you knock on doors for us?” The crowd yelled, “Yes!” But I wonder how many people even made it over to their local office.

The people running this GOTV plan KNOW the plan, and they know EXACTLY how many knocks and dials we need in EXACTLY which precincts to get PRECISELY X number of votes turned out, and they JUST want us to WORK THE PLAN.

They don’t want us to worry and beat each other down. I sure as heck don’t want that. The people at the top of this campaign understand the meaning and value of HOPE more than any of us here. We can all see the light at the end of this eight-year (more like 20-year) tunnel.

But they also don’t want us to be doing the victory dance and champagne Jell-o shots quite yet.

Here is my main point. People aren’t volunteering at the levels we need.