The electorate is set!

When Regional Field Director Ryan Cooper announced Monday, October 6, that our goal was "48 (hundred voter registration cards) in 48" (hours, prior to the 5:00 p.m. voter registration deadline on October 8), I didn't understand the frame of reference...I just didn't imagine it would be for this lil ole Jackson County! Well, guess what. We got 5300 in Jackson County!

I can't believe that Voter Registration is over. The last few weeks have been totally crazy...running from here to there, getting people started at voter reg. sites, at the canvassing staging location, at the phone bank at our house, sometimes all within the same hour or two. I've become comfortable walking Troost all by myself (where I came to the conclusion a few weeks prior to the deadline that most African-Americans around here were already registered) and also Armour Blvd., just a block from my house, but previously someplace I quickly crossed over in my car or on my bike. I have made friends with the Tenant Services manager of MAC Property Management, a delightful woman named Patricia Harris, who let us put notes about the voter registration deadline on all the doors of the 7 apartment buildings owned by her employer, and set up a voter reg. table on the sidewalk outside her office three weekends in a row. The last weekend before the deadline, I put flyers on the exterior doors of the apartment buildings along 36th and Armour, appealing to folks to register at the table. One young woman called my cell phone number, which was on the flyer, after we'd taken down the table, and we met up and she signed the form. An elderly African-American woman I met outside of her apartment building responded to my automatic "Do you need to update your voter registration?" with, "No, thank you. I've already registered. And so have my children, and my grandchildren, and my greatgrandchildren..."

Tuesday night Kelvin hosted a fundraiser for Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. She is a an incredibly talented, smart, and ethical leader, who gives me a certain amout of confidence in our process for the elections. I look forward to her running for higher office at some point (just my wish; I don't know what her actual plans are).

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II talked to Robin and me about the challenges we will face if there are long lines at the polls and first-time or other voters are not significantly motivated to stay and vote; and some things that have been done in the past to address such challenges. I later talked to field directors for the Obama Campaign and found that the campaign is on top of all the possible scenarios and we have people and processes in place to address these concerns.

Prior to last week's organizing meeting, at the request of our Field Organizer and the F.O. of another Neighborhood Team, three of us on our team met with folks from another team, about how we function as a TEAM. I guess the campaign staff people think we are doing a good job. That was gratifying :)

Wednesday Kelvin and Claire McCaskill held a news conference about Barack's health care plan. Kelvin expected that he would be one of a group of doctors involved; turned out it was just Kelvin and Claire! He believes very strongly that Obama's plan is just as good as McCain's plan is bad, but, per the style of this campaign, stayed on message about what Barack Obama's movement will DO FOR the the American people.

Wednesday night we held a nonpartisan Late Night Voter Registration for Procrastinators, at three locations and the Plaza Library (the Election Board person couldn't stay at the library, so one of our volunteer Deputy Registrars filled in there). I'd had this approved by the KC Election Board and the store managers in advance, and found Deputy Registrars to do the work. I did press releases to radio and TV stations. When it was all said and done, we had registered an additional 112 Kansas Citians, who otherwise would have been too late and missed out!