Not because of delegate math either, which reminds me of what Douglas Adams talks about referring to the way numbers work on a waiters check; just not applicable to the real world of math at all.
No, I’m talking about electoral votes. Most people don’t know what the 50 State Strategy Project Group does here on Daily Kos, though to be fair, not many know what the HOF group or the Wildebeests and Yaks group do either.
Yet, the 50 State Strategy Project is one of the most prolific here right now, and we’ve only published one diary. We do republish a LOT of diaries though. Anything and everything we can find about local elections in any state.
The group was started with a clear goal in mind, winning the Presidential election. The method for doing so is to register more and better (just kidding about the better part) voters. The 50 State Strategy Group operates under the banner of DK Fans of 90 for 90, inspired by Dr. Ferguson Reid.
In the true style of how Dr. Reid operates and how he has gotten so much done in his historic lifetime, we’ve “dropped down and gone around”. The administrators of most of the geographical groups were invited to join the 50 State Strategy Project. For each state that joined, their electoral votes were added to the pile in the virtual, internet, Daily Kos electoral college.
There are 7 or 8 states where Daily Kos does not have any organized groups. Of the Daily Kos groups that joined, the electoral vote count is 442. In a real election the candidate who gets to 270 first is the President elect. Here in this little virtual, theoretical world it seems we’ve just become the President elect of the Internet, or at least this little corner of it. 442 electoral votes is a landslide.
Only here’s the thing, we don’t want to be the President of anything, even a virtual, theoretical anything. We just want to be a part of a movement that affects real change in the world, and this win shows fairly clearly that Daily Kos has the power to do this, and it seems to be a primary mission of this site.
We all make up this site and it’s up to us to carry out the mission. According to the math we have the power to do that. First we need to get organized, get our groups going. If your state doesn’t have one, get one going. It is so much fun to meet up with Kossacks in real life. Here in Nashville, meet-ups are fun and informative. In NC they get together and do voter registration, and seem to have a good time doing it. (They seem to have a good time doing everything!) We’re hoping to start doing that here in Nashville too.
The other thing we hope to do is get a Democratic name on every ballot in every race, more on that latter.
This is a 50 State Strategy Project so of course we want all 50 states involved. That’s how Howard Dean did it and that’s how Dr. Reid did it. It doesn’t happen overnight either, it takes time. The time to start is NOW. So please, find a group near you and join it. If you don’t already have a group, start one.
With or without your group, please let us know what is going on in your state. Whoever is elected as the next President isn’t going to be able to get much done with a Republican Congress, so let’s make sure we help them get a Congress that will work with them.
You can write articles about your local, down ballot elections like Vet Wife just did here or like Gordon did day after day after day here. You can take as much time or as little time writing a candidate diary. A list of great candidates is here at 90for90, a voter advocacy movement started to honor Dr. Reid, the first black man elected to the VA legislature since Reconstruction, so we know at least the candidates listed here are doing one thing right, they are supporting voter registration.
The next thing we need to do right, as Dr. Reid would say, is to organize. We need to get our groups lined up geographically, find out what districts we’re all in and get ready to move out and make a change. On your mark...get set… OK GO!
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