On the Battlefield

Funny thing about elections. As the national numbers move the battlefields shift. They don't go away.

With Barack Obama ahead by 7-10 points in national polls, then, Georgia has become a battlefield. Recent polls show the Democrat down only 3 points. State House candidate (and former blogger) Chris Huttman notes this makes the state eminently winnable. The main DailyKos site adds this makes the execreble Saxby (the draft dodger who called a three-limb amputee a coward) Chambliss eminently beatable.

This is firing us up. Time to go back inside the Obama ground game.

I joined a steady stream of customers on the east side of Decatur, paying $5 each for Obama-Biden yard signs. (I suggested calling them Obama bin Biden yard signs, just to piss off the right.)

While last month I got a list of neighbors who were found on old voter registration lists (and mostly did not live here any more) this time I got a list of real people. Real Democrats. I told the folks in the office this was the "good list."

I learned that my neighbor across the street has a half-dozen voters in his home, including a 90-year old great grandma who is determined to still file her absentee ballot and survive until November 4. I found three of the people I sought out before (unsuccessfully) now at home. One had an Obama yard sign, a second gave him the thumbs-up, and the third had recently mowed the lawn of a foreclosed neighbor so he's a great guy whoever he votes for. Two neighbors I have yet to connect with feature Obama signs prominently on their lawns. "Winter Avenue is coming out strong," I reported happily.

The press says the Obama campaign abandoned Georgia a month ago, but there are now 14 Obama offices in the Atlanta metro area, including the state headquarters and storefronts in such Republican enclaves as Fayetteville, Roswell and Douglasville. Back in 2004 the driver of a car in those parts sporting a Kerry or Dean bumper sticker would fear for their life, and there were stories of cars getting trashed for daring to do that.

Our good Congressman John Lewis is doing his best to keep up the scare. He came out with a statement yesterday comparing John McCain to George Wallace. When you've got people at his rallies carrying Obama monkeys, calling our man an Arab terrorist to their man's face, that's not hyperbole.

A few more important points. I haven't gotten any directions from any office in doing any of this. I got my voter lists, and reported my contacts, through the Web site. I also volunteered to drive voters to the polls through the Web site. When you drive by an Obama office late at night and see a bunch of people inside working, know that is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

So here's a memo to my Republican friends. We're going to fight like hell for every vote, in every city, village and town for the next 23 days. We are going to try to bury you, bury you so far you won't have anyone to blame for your decimation but yourself.

I'm doing it in hopes a new Republican party can rise from the ashes, an honest and loyal opposition standing for real Republican principles like balanced budgets and individual liberty. If you still believe in those principles, if you're not an unreconstructed racist or religious bigot, join us. Vote as though the future of your party depends upon it, because it does.