Monday, May 31, 2010

A 14-7 Office For Reshma 2010

Image of Reshma Saujani from FacebookImage of Reshma Saujani
I want a Reshma 2010 office that is open every day of the week from 8 AM to 10 PM all the way to September 14. Your average staffer still works about 50 hours a week, but shutting the operations down during weekends is a very, very bad idea. I volunteer to work weekends, and I volunteer to work the late hours. I get to take my day off on Monday or Tuesday. And I like sleeping in late anyways.

The hours go up as we get closer to September 14. Victors put in hours.

An open office is one that has at least one person in the office. We want people out in the field as much as in the office. But we want one person who will answer the phone. "Hi, this is Jon with Reshma 2010." "Hi, this is Kevin with Reshma 2010." We answer the phone 14-7 unfailingly. And we talk to the caller as long as they will talk to us. And we answer all emails. All emails. What is that one email address?

People still will get their days off, but not all of them will be off on Sundays. A lot of community action happens during weekends. A lot of events are evening events. Everybody on the team has to have a phone that is always on. When you are not in the physical office, you are in the mobile office. But if we plan well, the last minute fire fighting phone calls will be kept to the minimum. When you are with people, be with the people, get off the phone, concentrate on the people. Shower attention on the volunteers, shower attention on the media people, shower attention on the community leaders and activists. Get on a first name basis with all of them. You can't do that if you are on the phone with the campaign office instead.

I can do weekends, and I can do the late shift, no problem. I could take Wednesdays off. I hear the Bronx Zoo is free entry on Wednesdays.

Read, read, read. Read the New York Times. Read it every day. Read it first thing in the morning. It is a good newspaper. Got to talk up the politics of the day. What is the latest? What is happening in DC? What is happening in Albany? What's up in City Hall? What is Bloomberg up to today? Read up. Read it on online. Buy it in print. Share it. Pass it around. Ask to read the business section when someone else is reading the front page. I want to see stains on that paper, your hand stains.

On your day off go read a book.

Call, call, call. Spend at least one hour every working day calling up voters. I don't know yet what the setup is like in the office, but we need a few dedicated landlines for that express purpose. One hour is minimum. Do it at random hours of the day. Do it because you need a break from staring at that computer screen.

Meet, meet, meet. Meeting ordinary people is the best part of working on a political campaign. You should have fun doing it. You should look forward to it. You should feel like, I am having so much fun meeting people, why is Reshma even paying me to do this? Paying me to meet people is a scam. I would do it for free. This is so much fun. If you are not enjoying meeting people, you are in the wrong line of business. Go become a carpenter or something. Or a rocket scientist.

Drink, drink, drink. Do not get dehydrated. Always carry with you a bottle of water wherever you go. We just need the plastic bottles. Tap water works just fine. Bottled water is tap water with a brand name. That is all. Bring the bottles back to the office and fill them up. Never run out of water. The best things in life are free. Water is one of them. Water is officially the best drink anyone can get hold of. Better even than milk.

I demand we keep a mixer/grinder in the office, and always a ready stock of yogurt, mango pulp, icecream, and ice. I will make mango lussee for everyone, as often as I have to. But I'd prefer to teach it to you. You add two raw eggs and some milk into that mix, and it is a meal. I have tried that many times. I want an endless supply of lassee for me, lassee that I make myself. Yogurt, mango pulp, milk, eggs, icecream, ice. Kevin, if you want me to call you boss, do this. Keep the supplies stocked up. This is what I mean by keep the trains running.

Mock debates every week. Megan stands in as Maloney. Kevin moderates. I do a brutal analysis after it is over. All staffers and interns are encouraged to come watch, to offer one liners, funny and otherwise. We are opening up a bank for one liners. Donate one liners. We are not asking for blood. It is just one liners. Any staffer/intern/volunteer can apply to stand in as Maloney. If you think you are a great debater, contact me.

Work the subway stops. Everyone on the team - staffers, interns, top volunteers - must work a subway stop in the district for at least an hour during rush hour each week. We will meet many non voters in the process, but that is okay. Remember that part about meeting people? All we are trying to do is get people to visit our website. And they don't have to be in the district to donate. If they are not in the district, maybe they know someone who is. If they are not a voter, they might know someone who is. Hi, Reshma is running for Congress, and she would like you to visit her website. And you hand out the flyer.

I am assuming all staffers have the monthly metro card. I will get one too. If anyone wants to get on the Metro PCS family plan with me, holler! Unlimited talk, text, web sounds like sliced bread. I have never tried it. I am about to. On the other hand, getting the new 4G Android phone from Sprint might allow me to video blog for the campaign every day, several times a day. Video blog, tweet. Feedback welcome. I am going to ask Nihal about this tomorrow.

Buzzd: Paramendra
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Save Immigration For 2011

Official presidential portrait of Barack Obama...Image via Wikipedia
As to what will happen in November of this year is anyone's guess, but Obama has set his mind to make history again by doing the best he can to keep the House and the Senate. If he loses one chamber, the next two years start looking shaky in terms of legislative work.

Passing health care reform was historic, and puts Obama in the FDR league of greatness. Work on financial sector reform also looks promising. Success on health made work on finance easy.

Obama might get tempted to make as much headway as possible on immigration as well. His commitment to the issue is beyond doubt, and the Hispanic caucus might even argue that putting immigration reform front and center will ensure crucial Hispanic turnout. And the Hispanic voters tend to cast the deciding vote.

That might as well be the case, but my instinct tells me the best strategy would be keep the immigration issue alive but saving actual work on it to begin in early 2011, hopefully to be completed by the end of that year, if not earlier. Some of the passions exhibited during the health care debate were to do with a really bad economy. People were hurting and anxious.

Health care reform, financial sector reform, comprehensive immigration reform: these are huge issues, and huge accomplishments when work is completed.

By the end of 2011 though, as Obama gears for his reelection effort, he is going to have to talk deficits and debt loud and clear. He will have to run on the platform that he will have balanced the budget early in his second term. Actually hinting towards that eventuality might be a great theme to keep echoing in the lead up to November this year itself.

A nuanced strategy would be to begin work on immigration this year but barely, so it does rouse Hispanic turnout at the polls, enough to tilt the tide in favor of Obama keeping both chambers, but to do actual work after the election is over. It is because immigration is a volatile issue. The top priority for the rest of this year for Obama has to be to keep the House and keep the Senate.

Gulf Oil Spill
A Dirty Bomb Just Went Off In The Gulf
In South Africa They Had Apartheid, In America They Got Immigration
Do I Know Rajiv Shah?
The Obama FDR Parallels
Obama's Got Momentum: He Could Defy History In November
State Of The Union: In Good Hands
Supreme Court Vs. Obama
Iran: An Opportunity
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My Political Resume, Reshma 2010, And September 14

The United States Congress approves federal fu...Image via Wikipedia
Happy Memorial Day Weekend. Summer officially begins. I don't know about you but I like it warm better than I like it cold.

I am not exactly taking my time to decide if I want to go work full time for Reshma 2010 or not. Right now I don't have the option: Immigration Status. But my work papers should arrive soon.

I moved to the city summer of 2005 to launch my company but got sucked into working for Nepal's democracy and social justice movements full time for the better part of two years. That was a lot of eating into savings. Throwing a dictator off is way more challenging than winning a Congressional race in the US. In a democracy movement, people die, for one.

All I know is I am on the cusp of deciding to do it. I don't need much convincing. This is a historic race: the first Indian American woman ever to run for Congress. The campaign is not in top shape, and I have the option to try and make a difference. The machine is behind the opponent. That makes it even more fun.

Tomorrow I am planning on dropping by the campaign offices: 833 Broadway. I was there for the first time for the tech panel discussion event with Al Wenger and others. I have not been back since. I have stuck to the canvassing.

What Are You Doing Monday? Come Meet Al Wenger (technbiz.blogspot.com)

I think Reshma 2010 will be a great thing for me to do for three and a half months. I have toyed with a few different options. I could just keep being a dedicated volunteer. I could go do it for a month. But doing it to September 14 makes a lot of sense.

I have an impressive political resume.

Both sides of my family were political. I was born in India, grew up in Nepal. My grandfather was headman of the village for 15 years. He was sitting down for dinner and a group of men from the neighboring village came over, barged in, lifted him up, and the celebrations began. A committee of sorts had decided on his name. He was completely unawares. I was there. My father ran for parliament later. He lost. My mother's cousin was Education Minister for Bihar, the second most populous state in India with as many people as there are in France, for much of the 1990s. Laloo Yadav was Chief Minister. More recently Laloo was India's Railway Minister. The CEO of General Electric called him the best Railway Minister in the world. I am half Bihari.

I was House Captain in Class 5 and Class 10, and in Class 12 the school authorities had to offer me the office of School Captain against their desires for being the obvious candidate. All that was at the top school in Kathmandu.

After high school I was Vice General Secretary to a political party in Nepal that had two MPs. A central committee member of that party from that time is currently a cabinet minister in Nepal.

At college in Kentucky I ran for Freshman Class President and everyone else got more votes than me. Five months later I got myself elected student body president. Everybody who had ever been somebody in the SGA had run. I won by three votes.

I was a Deaniac in 2004 in Indiana. And I was one of Obama's earliest people in NYC.
I was the only Nepali in America to have worked full time for the democracy movement in Nepal a few years back. (The First Major Revolution Of The 21st Century Happened In Nepal)
I think I would want the title of Director. There is the candidate. And she sits atop the campaign organization structure. Then there is the Campaign Manager and the Director. The Campaign Manager is the formal head of the organization, makes sure the trains are running on time. The Director works in partnership with the Campaign Manager but keeps an amorphous role so as to be able to do some out of the box thinking. The Field Director reports to the Campaign Manager but also directly to the candidate. All the Field Organizers report to the Field Director. But since we are talking about 20 people or less, everyone is talking to everybody.

I think I want Campaign Manager pay and status, but I want to work in perfect sync with the existing organization. I would want to conduct a brutal analysis of the campaign from November to today, which I am going to call phase one. From now to September 14 is phase two.

This can be done, victory is possible. That is why I am interested in putting my time into this. But there has to be a scientific approach. Numbers have to be faced. Where do we stand in the polls today? We don't stand well.  Our candidate lacks name recognition compared to the incumbent. But that can change rapidly. We want as many debates as possible, starting as early as possible. The debates will be the turning point.

But we also have to do the JFK thing. He first ran for the House, and later for the Senate. And his number one strategy would be to seek speaking assignments every possible place. He would start out by cracking a joke, often a joke he had cracked somewhere else, and then he would dive into his speech, and next. We have to take our candidate to every possible political and community event in town. Make sure she has at least two staffers with her. Megan would be a great person to accompany her. We have to seek speaking assignments. No organization is too small. No topic too esoteric.

One third of the district is South Asian. But we don't have any South Asian staffer working the field. I guess someone like me gets to dive into that.

I really need to spend a few days at the office before I start laying it all out. I have a feeling some of the stuff I want to get done is already being worked upon. But then I also want to make the best of the fact that I will be new and fresh. I will be able to offer perspectives that someone who has been on the staff for months might not be able to. You get used to seeing things a certain way.

We have to track some numbers. How much money have we raised? How much do we continue to raise? How much has been spent? How much do we have in the bank? Have we paced the spending well? What will be the big ticket items down the line? Where do we stand in the polls? How many community newspapers have written about us? How many community leaders have we contacted? How many interns do we have? How many volunteers do we have? I was at John Liu's primary victory party. It felt to me like 30 young people in their early 20s delivered the city to him. If we could have 15 razzmatazz staffers, 20 psyched interns, and 30 volunteers out of the ordinary, we could do it. We have to put the volunteers on the pedestal. We need to throw a party. How about a barbecue in some park?

My Talk With Kevin Lawler Of Reshma 2010

We have to have superior debate preparation. The debates are the political equivalent of boxing championship fights. Everything we do till then will culminate in how we do during the debates. They will be crucial. What can the candidate do to maximize her chances? What are the pre-debate things to do? What are the post-debate things to do?

I think I am going to get a monthly metro card, and a Metro PCS unlimited talk, text and web phone. I want to reach out to the volunteer base in a big way, I want to reach out to community newspapers and leaders.

And I am psyched about creating the rudiments of a 2016 platform for Reshma. We have to stand by all Obama stands for. Because that is what Maloney is going to do. She is not going to offer anything new except the promise that she will vote for everything Obama wants her to vote for. Well, that much we can do too.

We are lucky to have a policy wonk candidate. That will make the task of debate preparation so much easier.

This can be done. This race can be won.

Me @ BBC

There is something we could learn from Paul English, the Kayak.com guy. His focus on customer service is out of the box and legendary. His team replies to all emails from customers. And they have a big, red phone in the office. They pick it up when it rings.

Paul English Writes Back
Kayak, Paul English, Africa, Free Wireless Internet

Maybe we should make it mandatory for all staffers and all interns. You must call up voters for at least one hour each day. And identify the top 30 volunteers, and get the campaign manager to call them up once a week. Identify the top 10 volunteers and get the candidate to call them up once a week. Identify all the community newspapers in the district. And get the candidate to visit their offices, as many as possible. I'd happily visit all of them as Director to get them to do at least one story on us. Every such story is free advertising. Do the cost benefit analysis. We come out on top.

There has got to be a way to find out about all the community events in the district. Some staffer has to show up to all of them. Maybe me. I would be okay with that. We need to have an enthusiastic volunteer in every block in the district, someone willing to throw a house party, knock on 10 doors.

The idea is to get 30,000 votes to win. We want to have called all those 30,000 people before election day.

I am getting sucked into this thing like I got sucked into the Nepal democracy movement a few years back.
  • A 2016 Platform (the best ideas will not come from the two policy staffers, or even the candidate, or me, or any staffer; there are policy wonks at NYU and Columbia, and Harvard and Yale we have to reach out to, think tanks; we have to build a matrix of a network of academics) 
  • Top notch, razzmatazz debate performances (We need to start having mock debates every week. I think Megan should stand in as Maloney.) 
  • An amazing grassroots matrix of supporters. 
  • Community media. 
  • Subway stops: work them like crazy. (Maybe we should make it mandatory for all staffers and all interns; you must work one subway stop for one hour during rush hour every week; pair up with someone, go do it) 
We intend to hit the national headlines come September 14.
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