It's Pledge Week! But I Don't Want Your Money.

I'm asking for two hours of your time.  And, like any good pledge drive, there are soft sells and hard sells.   I'll put the soft sell here and the hard sell, which may offend delicate sensibilities, in the extended entry.  If you go there, don't come whining to me about hurt feelings.  You've been warned.

Hi, this is eRobin from Fact-esque, American Street and Phillyburbs.  As a proud blog writer and reader, I know the power of blogtopia and I can tell you that when bloggers and their readers want to get something done, there's nothing that can stand in our way. 

Well, there's something that needs to be done.  We need change in the Philly suburbs.  Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties are offering us the opportunity this Election Day to send a message about BushCo's upside down priorities.  But taking that opportunity depends on you, bloggers and blog readers. 

Twenty million women didn't vote in the last election.  That makes them the largest group of non-voters in America.   US Action and Women's Votes via PA Action is going after those votes in a non-partisan c3 civic engagement campaign (no candidate names) that will kick into high gear tomorrow.  We need you.

Part of the field plan is to contact by phone roughly sixty thousand likely progressive, likely unmarried women in Bucks, Delaware and Chester Counties over the rapidly dwindling pre-election days.  The program we use to call is Pop Vox.  It's web-based, easy (even easier if you know computers), free to you and built so you can use it out of your home.  That means that if you live in a deep-red state with no hope for change, you don't have to feel left out.  You can make a difference by signing on to this campaign.   

The script is short and only asks if the voter plans to vote on November 7.  There's no partisan message so the number of angry calls is kept to a minimum.   It's so efficient that a good caller can make between 75 and 85 calls every hour.   At that rate, we only need 375 volunteers to give two hours of their time to make calls.   That will free up our volunteers on the ground to actually be on the ground making face-to-face contact with voters instead of on the phone. 

375 callers.  Two hours to change the direction of this country.

We all want to see change, but we can't leave it up to our friends and neighbors.  We need to make the time to get it done.  We need you.

The call center is open all day.  Evenings are the best time to reach people instead of machines, but if you can only spare two lunch hours, we'll take them.   

Directions to use Pop Vox are here and here.

And now the gift!  There are always gifts.  If you are a blogger and you either post about this campaign or sign up to make calls yourself, I will link to you in a post devoted to saying nice things about people who join this effort.   I'll call it  Heroes or Change Makers or Heroic Angels of Change.   
Something subtle.   

If you aren't a blogger and you make calls, I'll post a link to your favorite charity in your name.  You provide the link.   I'm all out of mugs and umbrellas.

Act now!

And now, the Hard Sell, or, It's Happening Reg.  Something's Actually Happening.

Look, blogtopia.  Posts about how great it would be to be able to say "Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi" or "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid" are great.  I could be bludgeoned by their pragmatism all day. 

Setting up fund drives for candidates is also great.  I love money. 

And nobody wants to witness the ascendency of the progressive values of a truly blue America more than I do.   

But hard cash and dreamy posts, even the most beautifully written and reasoned, don't get the job done.  There isn't a politician or a consultant in the country worth her salt who doesn't know that nothing matters if voters aren't contacted, educated and dragged to the polls in the last several days before the election.  That's where we are.   The time for beatiful and well-reasoned posts has past.  Now is the time to act.

PA Action, working with US Action and Women's Votes, has a brilliant c3 Civic Engagement plan, operated by dedicated, crazy-hard working staff, right now in Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties - three of the hottest counties this election cycle.   In order to reach everyone we want to reach and to free up as many hours for on-the-ground canvassing as possible, we need 375 people to sit down for two hours to make calls to likely progressive, likely unmarried women to get them to the polls on November 7.   If one or maybe two big blogs picked this up, we could have those 375 volunteers in twelve hours.   That would free up 750 hours for our in-county volunteers to hit the streets to make the face-to-face contacts.   

If you blog, please blog about this.  If you comment on blogs, please comment about this, where it's appropriate.   I've posted all this info back at the PA Action blog so you can use that link and I can't be accused of link whoring.  Heaven forfend.

I've read over and over again how important this election is.  That is undoubtedly true.

I've also read over and over again about how powerful the big lefty blogs are and how they don't appreciate being treated like ATMs.  I've seen the ATM quality at work but I'm not sure about how powerful blogtopia is if we can't mobilize 375 people in three of the most crucial counties in the country to pick up a phone for two hours. 

Write about this.  Get your readers to pick up the phone.  Something's actually happening.