If You’re in the United States . . .

. . . why the heck are you sitting here reading this blog this morning? Get your butt out there and vote!!

Preferably for Obama, but even if you’re not, get out there and vote anyway!

I must say I’m really impressed with the Obama campaign’s ground game at this point. I live on the edge of a small town in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which is an extremely conservative area with very few Democrats. On the day of the primary in May, the Obama campaign had volunteers going door-to-door in the afternoon making sure everyone voted or was going to within the next couple of hours.

This morning, on the day of the general election, when my wife walked out the door to go vote before work at 6:50 in the morning, she found that someone from the Obama campaign had already been through the neighborhood and hung placards on doorknobs listing the location of our polling place and the hours it’s open.

The placards also list information about what forms of identification are acceptable and reminders that if you are still waiting in line at closing time, you still have the right to cast your vote, and that “you have the right to vote even if you have debts, unpaid bills, parking tickets, or overdue taxes. It’s OK to wear Obama t-shirts and pins to the polls, but you may be asked to cover them up when voting.” There’s also a phone number to contact if you have trouble at the polls (1-877-572-6226, or 1-877-5-PA-OBAMA in case you’re looking for a number).

I’ve never seen anything like these ground efforts around here before. I’m sure in a lot of places this is all quite normal, but it’s unprecedented here. No Democratic candidate ever did anything like this before, probably because the maximum number of votes they can get from here is pretty minimal, and I’ve never seen a Republican candidate put forth this kind of ground effort here, either, probably because they have such a tremendous lock on the area historically.

If this is indicative of what the Democratic ground effort is like nationwide, that get-out-the-vote drive could make a massive impact today, not just in the Presidential race, but in a whole host of local, state, and congressional elections and ballot initiatives around the country.

FYI, I’ll be voting once the kid is done with his morning nap. We just have to walk a block and a half from our house to the fire hall that serves as our precinct polling place.

Tags: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Democrats, election 2008, get out the vote, ground game, Obama, Obama Campaign, presidential election, U.S. Presidential Election, vote, voting