That may be changing. Last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which now allows unlimited corporate spending on elections, seems to have woken up a sleeping giant.

I notice a lot more chatter among progressive leaders about it — a widespread recognition that without clean elections, we’re unlikely to win any of the hot button issues for which we fight. Polls show that over 80% of Americans think corporate corruption in politics is a major problem. And here in New York, clean elections are back on the policy table, with a large coalition of groups pushing for reform and Governor Cuomo going out on a limb to support the idea.

Now my west coast ally Gideon Rosenblatt, formerly executive director of ONE/Northwest (now Groundwire) has penned an article for the Huffington Post arguing that fighting for clean elections isn’t just a political necessity, but huge political opportunity. I think he’s right on. His money quote:

“As leaders in the fight to drive money out of politics, progressives have an opportunity to redefine themselves as restorers of American democracy.”

Or, as I might phrase it, “If progressives fight for clean elections, we can restore America’s greatness — and our rightful claim on patriotism and democracy.”

Thanks for a great articulation of an important idea, Gideon!

Kheel was well known as a labor mediator who helped resolve many of New York’s thorniest strikes. But throughout his career, he was also an incredibly vocal and effective advocate of a concept that is coming back into vogue — free transit for New York City. As in, all subways and buses would be free. No more Metrocards. No more turnstiles. No more tourists fumbling their cards through bus card readers. Just free, fast, reliable transportation, everywhere in New York City.

Kheel’s co-conspirator, Charles Komanoff, has written a great piece in Streetsblog about Kheel’s free transit dream. It’s worth a read, especially for anyone who rides the MTA. If anyone wants more info about this — or a really fun, strategic way to breathe new life into Kheel’s dream — check out facebook.com/freetransit.

Kheel’s life also earned a prestigious “Last Word” segment from the New York Times (a series that my soon-to-be-brother-in-law, Rob Harris, contributes to regularly).

Would that we can all live to 96, and have such a full and visionary life!

Once election returns fully come in and are certified, we’ll know if the WFP got more votes than the Independence Party. If so, they’ll get Row D. This is a tactical advantage — the higher the position on the ballot, the more votes one usually gets — but more importantly, a symbolic victory. It means that the WFP’s power continues to increase in New York. (Incidentally, the WFP’s power also took a huge leap this election in Connecticut, as illustrated by this New Haven Register article.)

I’ve included snippets of an email from WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor below, explaining the victory. The message is clear — the Working Families Party is one of the brightest lights of the otherwise dreary 2010 elections.

Get this: Nearly 140,000 New Yorkers voted on the Working Families Party line last Tuesday, according to initial election returns – which means we’re on track to become one of the top four parties in New York State, with our highest percentage of the vote ever.

If we wind up on line ‘D’ of the ballot, we can be even more decisive in future elections, ensuring that politicians focus on the common-sense issues that matter to middle- and working-class New Yorkers.

This is an enormous victory, and it happened because of you. I don’t ask this often, but can you help us keep the momentum going by giving just $5 per month (the cost of two cups of coffee) to sustain our work? Click here to contribute.

Both bad and good news from this election shows why Working Families Party votes matter.

The bad: Republicans may win control of the NY State Senate because some Democrats refused the WFP’s endorsement in hopes of seeming more “conservative.” It’s now clear that Working Families votes could have made the difference in their elections.

One Democratic senator trails his Republican opponent by just 400 votes. If he had accepted the WFP’s support instead of running to the right, he would have received another 1,500 to 1,700 votes – putting him over the top. If Democrats do lose the State Senate, it will be much harder to make progress on issues like a hydrofracking moratorium or MTA reform.

But here’s the good news: In New York’s closest statewide race this year, Democrat/Working Families candidate Tom DiNapoli won re-election for State Comptroller because he stood up for common-sense progressive values. DiNapoli beat his opponent by 2% – roughly 100,000 votes. The 140,000 New Yorkers who voted on the Working Families Party line were crucial to this victory.

These two stories prove what WFP voters have always known: Even when the Tea Party and Fox News dominate the headlines, the best way for progressive leaders to win is by standing proud for fairness, equality, and the values of working families.

Thanks,
Dan Cantor
WFP Executive Director

Hello friends and family in NY –

Tomorrow is election day, and I’m excited. Prospects may look dim nationally, but here in New York, we have an opportunity to win a huge progressive victory. We have the Working Families Party.

Tomorrow, I’m going to vote for my all favorite candidates, including Eric Schneiderman for Attorney General, on the Working Families Party line. I hope you will join me. If you don’t know where to vote, find out here: http://gis.nyc.gov/vote/ps/index.htm

Voting on the WFP line (row E on the ballot) counts just as much as voting on the Democratic line. But it has the extra benefit of sending a powerful message to Albany — that I stand with working people, not party bosses. That I support the WFP’s fight for a cleaner environment, for raising wages, for clean energy jobs, for education funding, and all the other good progressive policies they champion. I know the folks at the WFP pretty well, and they say that to pass critical legislation next year, they need every vote they can get tomorrow.

If you don’t believe me, ask Matt Damon. Yep, the actor Matt Damon. He recorded this (pretty frickin’ funny) video for the WFP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24m1PZ9iZoY

Basically, no matter what happens nationally, here in New York you can’t afford to stay home and not vote. Don’t get last-minute-lazy, don’t pretend your vote doesn’t matter, and don’t give up your democratic rights. Trust me, I have two kids under two, I know how easy it is to get distracted and overwhelmed. But millions of Americans fought — and some died — for the right to vote. Don’t take it for granted.

Plus, if you don’t vote, everyone will know. By law, anyone can get a copy of the NYS voter file and look you up. (They can’t tell how you voted, just if you voted.) It would be embarrassing for your friends to know you shirked your civic duty, right? :)

SO GO VOTE!!

Love,
Tate

The original post is below. Note that I changed the headline, to make sure no one misconstrues it.

As election day 2010 draws near, political campaigners are gearing up their GOTV plans. In the coming weeks, volunteers will be asked to phone bank, knock doors, pass out literature, plant lawn signs, and perhaps even stand on street corners waving banners at passing cars.

I’ve got a new idea — let them send emails.

Sound boring? Or ineffective? In my experience, it’s not. In a recent totally un-scientific analysis, a couple of friends and I found that sending out GOTV emails to our personal lists was by far the most efficient and effective use of our time.

The election in question was the Sept 14 New York primary. On Sept 13, I sent out an email to 225 New Yorkers, reminding them of the election and asking them to vote for Eric Schneiderman for NY’s Attorney General. My appeal was short and sweet — four brief paragraphs, starting with, “Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow, Tuesday, is Election Day in New York, and you should go vote!” I followed that with an exhortation to vote Schneiderman.

I didn’t expect much — perhaps one or two courteous replies, and a few more “don’t spam me!” complaints. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the response. Six people — Laurie, Bob, Patty, Danika, Julia and Matt — individually emailed me to say that they had voted for Schneiderman because of my email. Patty also told me she forwarded it to her entire New York list. Not a single person complained.

Inspired by this “turnout,” I contacted two friends who also sent out similar personal endorsement emails on Sept 13, and I asked for their “response rates.” Their results confirmed mine:

• Andrew sent his email to about 400 New Yorkers, “a mix of friends and cultural / business / political acquaintances.” He got five responses saying that they had voted on his recommendation; and one person who acknowledged forwarding the email to her New York list.

• Elana sent her personal endorsement email to 75 New Yorkers, and posted it to her Facebook page. She got 16 responses saying that they had voted on her recommendation. Her email was also forwarded to a high-profile magazine editor, who blogged and tweeted it.

Between the three of us, our emails reached 700 New Yorkers and generated 27 votes (or at least, people who reported voting because of it). If the numbers are accurate — a big if — hat’s a 3.8% conversion rate — a tremendous success for any GOTV activity.

In terms of votes per hour, it was an efficient use of time.

• My email took about 90 minutes; 15 minutes to write the email, 45 minutes to collect addresses from my address book, and 30 more to send (in batches, so spam filters wouldn’t nail it). I earned six votes.
Rate: 4 votes / hour.

• Andrew spent two hours on his email. He earned five votes.
Rate: 2.5 votes / hour.

• Elana spent four hours on her email, most of it researching down-ballot candidates. She earned 16 votes.
Rate: 4 votes / hour.

Averaged out, our rate was 3.6 votes / hour.

As someone who has run countless phone bank and canvass efforts, these numbers strike me as surprisingly efficient. When compared to the tactic of sending volunteers door to door, or phone banking, or lit dropping, the personal endorsement email seems like a totally viable tactic.

Not that all of those other tactics aren’t legitimate GOTV activities. They certainly are, and they should be used as part of a holistic GOTV strategy. My point isn’t to abandon traditional GOTV tactics. My point is to add a new tool to the toolbox.

In short, campaign managers should ask every volunteer willing to phone bank or knock doors also to send a personal email endorsement to their lists. And the campaigns should provide volunteers with support to make it work. Specifically, they should:

• Explain to volunteers the power and value of their personal email list

• Set aside time in the campaign office to do it, especially during periods when phone banking and canvassing aren’t effective (late night, middle of the day)

• Give volunteers template emails (plain text, plain English, low-pressure tone) so they don’t get stuck on the writing — but ask them to use their own words if they can

• Set up a “technical support” structure for folks who need help using their email clients to send out personal blasts; have your more computer-savvy volunteers be tech support for the less savvy

• Ask volunteers to report “response rates”

Of course, I fully admit that my un-scientific analysis could be inaccurate. Self-reporting vote counts are never reliable. My friends may have reported to me that I swung their vote, even if they would have voted for Schneiderman anyway. Other friends might have voted on my suggestion but not thanked me (I never asked for a report from anyone). And the impact of Patty forwarding my email to her list can’t be measured. My best guess is that these corrupting factors even each other out, and thus I did generate six(ish) votes for Schneiderman. [Note: after this was published, another friend emailed me this: "PS: By the way I just read your post and you can add me to your response rate. I am embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t really been following the primaries. Your email prompted me to make it to the polls 3 mins before closing (literally) ... and voting for SChneiderman who I voted of because of you."]

Also, I realize that this tactic won’t be appropriate under all circumstances. A high profile Presidential campaign probably doesn’t room for last minute persuasion. Very local races probably won’t attract volunteers with enough personal contacts in district to make an email effective. So, under what circumstances will this tactic work?

1) You need the right races. This tactic is probably best in a statewide, low profile campaign. Most volunteers do not have social networks confined to one State Senate or Assembly district, or even one U.S. Congressional district. So ballot initiatives, gubernatorial races, mayoral, AGs, comptrollers, US Senate primaries, and “at large” citywide races are good opportunities for this tactic.

2) You need the right volunteers. Not every person will have the same ability to reach out to a like-minded social network and activate them. Elana, Andrew and myself are all professional political or social change activists who are involved in our communities. We have more email addresses of like-minded voters than the average Joe — and more willingness to contact them. But, so will most campaign volunteers. They, too, tend to surround themselves with like-minded political friends and acquaintances, and they usually have enough commitment to contact those folks with a low-pressure email.

3) You need the right support. Navigating email programs may be difficult for less tech-savvy volunteers. If you don’t have someone who can walk a volunteer through using their BCC function, your efforts will be frustrated. But if you’re using volunteers for GOTV work at all, then you probably do — because someone is training them to phone bank, knock doors, etc.

4) You need the right sender. Meaning, volunteers must send these emails, not the campaign. Research has conclusively shown that campaigns sending GOTV emails, either to their list or to bought / rented / swapped lists, does not make one iota of turnout difference. The only thing worth trying is personal emails, authored by real live volunteers, sent out authentically to their social networks.

Variations on this tactic have been used for centuries, of course. A friend-to-friend endorsement is often seen as the most valuable coin in politics. Whether it is or not is debatable — at least one piece of research suggests it is not. Nevertheless, many campaigns and organizations have systematized this kind of contact into formal programs. Here in New York, the Working Families Party has long delivered “Friends & Neighbor” mailings to their volunteers’ lists, and they are about to launch an equivalent email tool. The League of Young Voters pioneered the concept of user-generated “ballot guides” (still very much active at theballot.org), which are intended to spread to friends and allies. And the geeks at the Democratic Party are building a ballot guide tool that looks more like a social media platform.

My suggestion is much simpler than all of that. There’s no new technology to adopt, no privacy issues to navigate, no websites to visit. Just plain old email, to plain old friends and acquaintances.

So, campaign managers, next time your volunteers are standing around waiting for the canvass to start, or hanging around after the phone banks have closed, plop them down in front of a computer and let them send emails!

It’s a funny drug, politics. For much of the last decade, I wallowed in the political hangover of the Bush years. The progressive resurgence in 2006, followed closely by the Obama campaign in 2008, lifted me back to incredible highs. Since then, the post-Obama malaise left me (and so many others) dispirited again. You could have mistaken me for an on-again-off-again junkie — up, down, up, down.

Yesterday night, I got another huge high. In the New York primaries, I had a personal clean sweep — victory in every single race of importance to me. This is probably because I share my political views with the Working Families Party. And these days, what the WFP wants, the WFP gets. Last night, the party showed how their solid electoral organizing and progressive aspirations translate into concrete wins. Their power grows with each election cycle.

Here’s the rundown:

• Eric Schneiderman beat the odds to become the Democratic nominee for NY Attorney General. Eric is a lifelong progressive with the clout to clean up Albany. This was a hard fought race, in which the establishment “smart money” lined up behind his lame opponent, Kathleen Rice. They didn’t count on a wave of progressive primary voters riled up by the WFP.

• Reform candidate Gustavo Rivera unseated the most corrupt man in the NY State Senate, Pedro Espada, 62% to 33%. This was the Working Families Party’s top race. I threw them a house party to fund this battle, and I’m so proud that the few thousand I raised got put to such good use. Once again, the WFP proved its unique power to primary out bad Democrats. This victory is the most important blow for Albany reform since the WFP elected Daniel Squadron to the State Senate last cycle. The march towards competent, progressive NY State government continues!

• Progressive upper-East-Side Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney crushed Wall Street plant Reshma Saujani, 81% to 19%. What a blowout. Saujani was a media sensation because she ran on an unapologetic platform of defending the super-rich in her tony district. Apparently even the super-rich don’t feel the need to defend the super-rich. The “anti-populist backlash” is a phantom.

• In my neighborhood, Assemblywoman Joan Millman retained her well-deserved seat, fending off an ugly challenge from attack dog Doug Biviano. This was expected, but still satisfying.

• Also not shocking but very satisfying, State Senate crook Hiram “Slash My Girlfriend In the Face” Monserrate went down to his challenger, Francisco Moya. Like Espada, Monserrate was a regressive machine politician who has wrecked havoc in Albany. Good riddance.

• On the other side of the political spectrum, results were equally good for progressives. In New York’s Republican primary for Governor, Tea Party candidate Carl Paladino, a billionaire businessman from Buffalo, beat the mainstream GOP candidate Rick Lazio. This belies the huge rift in Republican politics this year — moderate Republicans and Tea Party activists at war — and bodes poorly for their success in November. To be fair, the Democratic candidate, Andrew Cuomo, is heavily favored to win the Governor’s race, whether he faced Paladino or Laizo. But the spin today matters, and the spin is that the GOP’s infighting will sink its chances in New York.

• In the same vein, Delaware’s Republican primary for US Senate has Democrats cheering. Ultra-conservative (and totally underwhelming) candidate Christine O’Donnell beat mainstreamer Mike Castle. Castle is the respected former governor who was a favorite to win the general election. O’Donnell beat him based on Sarah Palin’s endorsement — she’s apparently a fellow “mama grizzly” — and energy from Tea Party activists. Fortunately, she’s got little chance in November. The GOP establishment won’t put any money into this race, the moderate-to-liberal voters of Delaware will reject her, and the Democrats will be much more assured of keeping control of the US Senate.

Karl Rove has a bad political hangover this morning. Albany’s “business as usual” lobbyists feel like crap. Their political drugs were bunk last night. And that makes me very, very politically high.

After 14 months, Lincoln has become mobile. Naturally, this has led to another movie — a baby buddy road trip movie, called “Low Rider,” starring Lincoln, Sake the Pug, and a Radio Flyer wagon.

Trust me, a baby pushing a pug in a wagon is really, really cute.

A group of reactionary ex-Guiliani staffers had filed a campaign finance suit, not because they had a rightful claim, but to undercut the WFP’s power. In truth, the suit was as much a compliment as anything. It recognized that the party has gained tremendous power in Albany in the past few years. This has NYC’s corporate and real estate interests understandably worried. And when the powerful are threatened, they take steps to defend their power — in this case, attacking the populist WFP.

Tuesday’s decision puts this threat to an end. It surely won’t be the last attack the WFP endures, though. Hopefully in the future, those attacks will be called out as phony political theater they surely will be.

Jesse, Andy, Roan, Roy and I went upstate for a wilderness trip, with one central rule — we could eat only what we foraged, fished or hunted. No outside food was allowed. Roan wrote it all up in this funny, well-illustrated blog post.

The idea for the weekend came to me earlier in the summer, while walking around Brooklyn at dinnertime. Shawna and I were trying to choose from one of ten zillion delicious restaurants. I felt overwhelmed with choices … and overwhelmed by the modern cornucopia that we take for granted every day. What would happen if the modern food system broke down? Would we survive?

For 36 hours, the answer was yes. We came away hungry, but no worse for wear. More importantly, we all came away with an appreciation for the bounty that modern society brings to us every day.

Pancakes at Sweet Sues are sweet. The satisfaction of producing one’s own food is even sweeter!

Finally! After far too many years, I just relaunched StudioGuild.org, the website of my collaborative office space in New York City.

Know anyone looking for an office or a desk? We have a number of spots open. Send your friends to the Work Here page, or have them peruse the Floorplans.

(Thanks to Matthew Willse of The Coup for designing and installing the site. You always make it easy!)