News » January 3, 2007

MoveOn Members Call for Change

By Adam Doster

In the lead up to the midterm elections, MoveOn.org paid little attention to the Virginia Senate race, figuring that Republican incumbent George Allen would cruise to re-election over Jim Webb. But when Allen dropped a racial epithet on a young Webb aide and things tightened up, MoveOn took notice.

“We weren’t going to get involved in Virginia,” says Jennifer Lindenauer, the organization’s communications director. “But then we saw that it was a race where we could make an impact.” In less than two months, MoveOn directed 503,181 volunteer phone calls into Virginia. On Election Day, Webb ousted Allen by a mere 7,236 votes.

How did MoveOn almost instantaneously switch gears, perhaps altering the country’s political landscape? The answer is Call for Change, a new Web-based phone-banking program. Call for Change sets volunteers up with a user-friendly Web site offering a script, phone numbers and a call-reporting system. Volunteers, often using cell phones with free long-distance, are given call lists of infrequent Democratic and independent voters in competitive states or districts across the country.

MoveOn uses the term “liquid” to describe the program’s adaptability. “If we find a race that is competitive on Monday, we can call into that race as early as Tuesday or Wednesday,” says Lindenauer. “It’s the kind of program we needed in an election season where things were changing so quickly.”

Volunteers really took to Call for Change. In a little more than three months, 185,000 MoveOn members placed more than 7 million calls into 61 targeted districts, including some of the most disputed battlegrounds. Calling from their homes or at MoveOn-sponsored “calling parties,” members were able to reach potential voters in crucial races like Claire McCaskill’s Missouri Senate victory (230,808 calls) and Joe Courtney’s 170-vote triumph in Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional district (103,862 calls). “If you look at the margin of victory compared to the number of phone calls in the key races,” Lindenauer says, “it’s pretty astounding.”

While it is too early—and unrealistic—to anoint MoveOn as the Democratic Party’s savior, evidence suggests their efforts were likely productive. A Yale study, which examined a prototype program used this past summer in a California special election, found that MoveOn’s efforts increased voter turnout by almost four percent. Donald Green, a Yale University political science professor and author of Get Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout, believes that programs like Call for Change can mobilize the electorate if executed properly. “Volunteer phone banking, especially compared to robo-calls, is effective,” he says. “Callers are more authentic.”

Perhaps most notably, Call for Change’s technology allows MoveOn members who live in uncompetitive districts to participate in close campaigns. It also harnesses the power of the time-strapped. “It allows people to make a difference even if they only have five or 10 minutes,” says Lindenauer.

Yet MoveOn’s efforts are not universally lauded. Evan Hutchinson, the former state director of Ohio Vote Mob 2004, believes phone banking can be a risky proposition as voters—particularly undecided ones—are suspicious of calls flowing in from outside their district. “For a lot of middle-class voters, [volunteer phone banking] can seem intrusive and inappropriate,” he says. “When the calls are piled on, people get pissed and they shut down.”

By only throwing resources into competitive national races for short spurts, Hutchinson also says MoveOn fails to build local power and engage citizens around issues beyond the ballot box. “They don’t have the capability to build localized, long-term organizational structures,” says Hutchinson.

Bob Miller, however, disagrees. A resident of Three Oaks in southwestern Michigan, Miller and his neighbors formed Baseline America as a result of MoveOn e-mails. For two years, the group has met monthly to engage in various political discussions and actions. This election season, they targeted their Republican congressmen, 20-year incumbent Fred Upton, and helped the Democratic challenger cut 10 percentage points off Upton’s 2004 victory total.

Members of Baseline America also participated in Call for Change and believed the program was worthwhile. Calling mostly into Indiana’s 2nd congressional district, where Democrat Joe Donnelly won by 15,145 votes, phone bankers were met with more cordiality than disdain. “Our members reported that their experiences were great,” says Miller. “Folks were glad to talk and to find out that people were doing this work.”

• subscribe to print magazine

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  move-on did a fantastic job, they deserve nothing but praise as far as i can see. if anyone knows to the contrary let’s hear it.

  Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 3, 2007 at 12:59 PM

  Some campaign finance reform proposals recommend prohibiting money being raised outside of the district represented by an elected official. Would national call programs, such as MoveOn’s also be prohibited?

  I’ll throw out a couple possibilities for the effectiveness of the MoveOn calls. One, people might be happy to learn that anybody is paying attention to the campaign. Two, people are used to national call centers.

  Were the callers identifying themselves as MoveOn volunteers? Were the calls focusing on some well-publicized slip? My concern with instant call strategy changes would be that the calls did not play up issues of government but merely issues of high publicity.

  Posted by SillyLeftist on Jan 5, 2007 at 7:19 AM

  I’d be opposed to the first idea you list because the voters in a given district might be backward fools and big local money could always control the outcome. Campaign finance reform might bring up more problems than it solves. Sometimes you need to spend big time in order to defeat an entrenched incumbent. You need power to fight
  power. Nixon was not brought down by the High School Bugle.

  Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 5, 2007 at 1:16 PM

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Also featured Spoils of War
Non-Lethal Weaponry: The Next Generation
Does Andy Stern Talk His Walk?

Full contents
Previous issues
Subscribe and save!

Also by Adam Doster

• GOP Dirty Tricks 2.0
  Republican officials continue their campaign against "voter fraud"Posted on October 13, 2008
• Change We All Believe In
  Progressive activists, leaders gather in Denver for convention kick-off eventPosted on August 25, 2008
• The Mess is the Message
  Since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005, the president's approval… morePosted on August 15, 2008
• Expand the Vote
  The Obama campaign’s voter registration drive could radically alter the electoral map this fallPosted on June 11, 2008
• Sam’s Club Politics
  On a recent episode of the NBC comedy "30 Rock," the cutthroat… morePosted on May 30, 2008