Nader draws 12,000 in Minneapolis

[Michael Ferro]

John Halle wrote:
>
>I'd be glad to talk about my experience trying to co-ordinate
>organizing for Nader at ten colleges here in Connecticut, though judging
>from what I've seen on the list there will be very little interest in this
>discussion.... It is run on a shoestring by
>people who are often new to organizing and as a result all sorts of things
>which should get done don't get done.  One of our the worst problems is
>the campaign's inability to tap into the huge numbers of people who have
>signed up for volunteering on votenader.com. I know many folks who have
>signed up who haven't gotten called back some times for weeks, sometimes
>not at all. I'm convinced that if all the people who agreed to volunteer
>hit the streets with flyers they made themselves or downloaded from the
>web, it would increase the visibility of the campaign enormously.
>Unfortunately, they're waiting for a call from central which often never
>comes.


>I would also appreciate reading about other's experiences working on the
>campaign-assuming I'm not the only one-not impossible on this group, I
>would imagine, for reasons which would are worth discussing.

Everything you say definitely applies to the Nader campaign here in Seattle
where I did some work over a period of several days (helped them set up the
office, install lighting, etc.) about 3 weeks ago. Extremely disorganized
and amateurish. Efficiency and good sense of paid staff questionable. On the
other hand a steady stream of volunteers walking in the door ready to do
almost any task. Lots of enthusiasm everywhere. Eventually stuff gets done. 

Last night friends came over for dinner whose 16 year-old son was going to
last night's Nader rally in Seattle. Paid $10 out of his own pocket to be
with 14,000 others in the same stadium as the Savior. Haven't heard the news
this morning on how big the attendance really was. But lots of kids are
interested (I saw the Minneapolis speech on C-Span). Maybe these kids have
functional bullshit detectors thus just can't get juiced on Al and Geo.

M.F.