{"id":948,"date":"2008-12-06T18:15:23","date_gmt":"2008-12-07T02:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/06\/obavalos-and-the-ground-game\/"},"modified":"2017-05-28T12:38:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T20:38:55","slug":"obavalos-and-the-ground-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/948\/obavalos-and-the-ground-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Obavalos and the Ground Game"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nPatrick Goggin<\/p>\n

By Patrick Goggin<\/strong><\/p>\n

December 6, 2008<\/p>\n

We are now just over a month from the historic election that saw us elect the first African-American President, Californians pass the hateful Proposition 8, and progressives impressively maintain their majority on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. While we find ourselves within a strengthening global recession during the holiday season and pondering how Obama and Congress will navigate the treacherous waters we are deeply steeped in, I want to take a look back at the amazing 2008 election that was and beyond.<\/p>\n

As I grew up, I heard many stories about my father’s ten-year tenure (long before term limits) in the California State Assembly—some good, some not so good, but most intriguing. He was first elected when I was six. My early political memories were riding and waving on fire trucks in parades. By the time I was in high school, I was helping by walking precincts. At age 16 he was voted out of office and it hurt, mostly because I lost what was so familiar.<\/p>\n

Two decades later in 2003 we witnessed, and many of us participated in, the Howard Dean and Matt Gonzalez phenomena. Dr. Dean’s candidacy began the revolutionary use of the internet to organize a national political campaign – remember the meet-up? Had he not issued his infamous Iowa scream, we might have seen a President Dean. Regardless, without Dean’s innovative campaign, we very likely would not have seen an Obama campaign like the one we did. In many ways Obama was Dean 2.0. Indeed, it was Dean who, later as DNC chair, established the 50-state strategy adopted by Obama that contributed greatly to his primary victory and electoral landslide.<\/p>\n


\nDNC National Chair Howard Dean
\nPhoto by Luke Thomas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Locally that year, Gonzalez galvanized progressives around an articulate, very intelligent candidate for mayor against what many of us perceived as the socialite and far too moderate candidacy of Gavin Newsom. After Gonzalez made it into a runoff with Newsom, progressives frenziedly organized around the City and nearly pulled off a fantastic upset. Election night was bittersweet – Gonzalez won on getting out the vote on Election Day, but lost badly in absentee and early voting.<\/p>\n

Nationally and historically, Republicans have had the upper hand in absentee and early voting over Democrats. Thus, Newsom’s employment of a Republican dominated strategy was THE reason for his victory. Progressives learned a fateful lesson locally in December 2003 and again nationally in November 2004 when W. squeaked by John Kerry. Amongst other things, absentee and early voting pushed W. just a nose ahead of Kerry in another photo finish, this time in Ohio.<\/p>\n

In 2008, the Obama campaign and progressive candidates for the Board of Supervisors changed the early voting dynamic. November 4 confirmed this when Obama won Florida, and a number of other swing states, because he won the early vote. Here, progressive candidates vastly improved in early voting – combined with their get out the vote performance, they went four-for-four in open seats.<\/p>\n

I live in District 11. Having known Supervisor-elect John Avalos as a neighbor and fellow progressive, I naturally endorsed and supported him early on. When we first chatted about his candidacy, I relayed to John my family’s experience. My father has said quite often that if you run for office, walk all the precincts. Connecting with the voters one-on-one was how John believes he won.<\/p>\n


\nSupervisor-elect John Avalos connecting with voters
\nat a street fair in the Excelsior.
\nPhoto by Luke Thomas<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the fall, I found myself walking precincts for John and phone-banked for him the weekend before the election. On Election Day, I was a co-precinct captain for the precinct where I live and vote. When we were not vote-counting at the poll, we were walking the precinct door-to-door and calling known supporters and undecideds all day until the polls closed at 8:00 pm. The Avalos campaign had this happening in every precinct. Simultaneous to discovering during our final vote count that many of our targeted voters had shown up to the poll, my phone started ringing off the hook and honking horns told us that the election had been called for Obama.<\/p>\n

Later that night I learned that John and the other progressive candidates were ahead. With ranked choice vote counting yet to come, I remained cautiously optimistic. However, I could not help feeling at a very visceral level, when it comes to winning elections it truly is all about the ground game – connecting one-on-one with voters and making sure they vote by Election Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patrick Goggin By Patrick Goggin December 6, 2008 We are now just over a month from the historic election that saw us elect the first African-American President, Californians pass the hateful Proposition 8, and progressives…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nObavalos and the Ground Game - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/948\/obavalos-and-the-ground-game\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obavalos and the Ground Game - 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