By Lisa Montanarelli
24 October 2008

If you support Barack Obama, the most effective thing you can do is volunteer to Get Out The Vote. Go to http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/givebarackaday, and help out in your nearest battleground state on November 1 through 4.

Obama hasn’t won yet, even though the polls show him leading and all your friends may be cheering him on. (These days on Facebook, my friends pop up as Owen Hussein Jones, Mary Hussein Smith, Tony Hussein Garcia. I’ll bet McCain voters aren’t changing their middle names.)

Let’s look more closely at the polls. As of October 24, RealClearPolitics.com shows Obama leading McCain by a 7.5% average nationally. But most of these polls survey people who say they’re going to vote. Only one poll, the Gallup “traditional,” takes into account past voting behavior as well as current intentions. As of October 23, Gallup showed Obama ahead by only 5%.

I’m volunteering in Pennsylvania, which is solid blue on the electoral map. The polls aren’t even calling Pennsylvania a battleground state. But here on the ground, it’s Gettysburg. Right now, McCain needs PA’s 21 electoral votes to win. He’s pouring money into this state, pulling staff out of other states and shipping them here. The suburbs around Philly will be decisive in this election. We need volunteers.

On weekends, I knock on doors in lower Bucks County and talk to undecided voters about Obama. When they’re willing to engage in politi-talk with a stranger at the front door, we discuss the economy. I don’t need to say people are worried. And well-informed voters know that both Obama and McCain are calling for smarter, better thought-out regulation. Even McCain, who has spent his political life as a deregulator, seems to be changing face.

But the current crisis doesn’t quite fit into McCain’s worldview. A self-proclaimed “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution,” McCain still blames excessive government for our troubles. For instance, he points to the government-sponsored lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the primary causes of the crisis, when the numbers show they were relatively minor players in the recent bad-lending spree.

The present crisis is, in fact, so complex that it’s much easier to point fingers than to clear from blame. But when Jim Lehrer in the first debate asked McCain how he’d lead us out of the economic crisis, he said, “the first thing we have to do is get spending under control.”

In a recent New York Times Op-Ed column, Paul Krugman, the Princeton prof and Nobel laureate in economics, points out the folly of this plan: “right now, increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold.”

The federal government needs to spend money—to extend unemployment benefits, for instance, and to grant emergency funds to state and local governments so they don’t have to cut public services and lay off workers.

Obama—and Democrats in general—are much more prepared to take the new New Deal approach we need. This doesn’t mean they won’t face opposition in D.C., but they’ll push for spending to save the economy. Check out Barack’s economic policies: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/

So vote Democratic and—if you can—knock on doors. As Christopher Beam wrote in “The Really Busy Person’s Guide to Political Activism,” “if you live in a battle ground state, the single best thing you can do is make face-to-face contact.”

And if you live in or near Pennsylvania, come join me in lower Bucks County.
 
Bucks County - Bristol
234 Mill Street
Bristol, PA 19007
(267) 812-5719
Email: info@paforchange.com

Lisa Montanarelli is a writer based in New York City. Visit her at lisaNY.com.

Special thanks to Owen Jones.