Sharon, Political Star, Oklahoma Blog

Note: This is cross-posted from "Sharon, Political Superstar" on pennsylvaniaforjohnmccain, a site I urge you to visit. It's one of 50 state blogs for John McCain. In it a few weeks, its focus will be on the McCain race in Pennsylvania, with an occasional nod to neighboring states: WV, NJ, OH, and NY.

THE ONE-MILLION VOTE PROJECT

Up and running now are New Mexico for John McCain and Pennsylvania for John McCain (this site). Also, Sharon from Norman, OK ("Go Sooners!") has agreed to manage Oklahoma for John McCain, and it will be running hard soon. Sharon is a political version of The Energizer Bunny, and she's extremely skilled in organizational and GOTV (Get Out the Vote) activities.

We "ordinary mortals" will never be quite at Sharon's, but many of the things she does are learnable and doable. In the first few weeks this site is alive, I'm going to post material from Sharon and others who are very skilled in making sure their candidates get elected -- and, in this case, that means John McCain.

The woman who heads the New Mexico site blogs usually at The Pink Flamingo. Her initial experience was with political guru Lee Atwater in South Carolina. She also worked on the campaigns of Senator Lindsay Graham. She set up on blogspot 49 of the state sites. I did a grand total of one, Pennsylvania. But I did find the great picture of the Amish kids!

We very much need volunteers to take over the other state sites. I believe we have one for Texas, but a state like that one (huge in geography and populaton) could probably use more than one blog manager. In my exchanges with Sharon, she gives me a lot of information about her political background. Invariably, what she says is applicable to others -- although perhaps not quite at her level of commitment. In her most recent e-mail, she told me the following about the "Air Force life."

She says, "OK is in the bag for McCain for the general election. I can easily help out with Texas. We lived there for eight years before moving to OK when Kelly AFB ended up on the BRAC list to be shut. We were some of the first people from that area to transfer to Tinker AFB. If you cannot find a Texas person, I will see if Brad who comes from Houston will take it over (he helped me out on the Bush yahoo groups) if I promise to help him out. I know several states better then OK - Ohio where I grew up, CA where we used to live, TX where we used to live, and FL where I work with my good friend on elections -- he went to McCain a week before the FL primary and ended up escorted Sen McCain and his wife to events for the final week. In 2000 I knew much more about FL then OK including giving directions to people for Bush rallies. My brother lives in Orlando."

What if a state like Oklahoma is, as Sharon says, "in the bag" for McCain (as I agree it is)? In that case, activists from Oklahoma can contact family and friends in other more hotly contested states.

The two columns below discuss what the 50 state blogs for McCain are designed to do. Each blog will look alike, but the approaches will all be different. There will be no "orders from the top," because there will be no top. In each case, however, they're designed to bring together activists to work TOGETHER toward the election of John McCain.

Soon, you'll see blogrolls with the 50 states for John McCain. Within a month, there will be on this site a blogroll for Pennsylvania. People who don't have blogs -- and that's the vast majorityof people online -- are very much invited to participate. They can receive e-mail alerts about political developments of interest in PA.

Anyway, welcome aboard all. "Mac is back," and so are we.

GRASSROOTS POLITICS: KEY FOR MCCAIN

NOTE: I HOPE YOU'LL ALL (Y'ALL FOR SOUTHERNERS) WILL VISIT MY MAIN BLOG AT: http://camp2008victorya.blogspot.com. All the main posts will go up there first. Thanks! Your comments are always welcome.

Today on MSNBC, political pundit Roger Simon said the way to win elections in 2008 is to attract a core of people "who go door-to-door . . . friend-to-friend." That's the essence of grassroots politics.

This weekend (Saturday and Sunday) I'll be discussing a political operative, Sharon Caliendo of Norman, Oklahoma, who's an expert in the kind of politics described by Roger Simon. If you scroll down to the previous column, you'll see how Sharon and her friends helped ensure the election of conservative Tom Coburn, in his race for a Senate seat.

In fact, Sharon's effort went one better than the door-to-door approach. She and her co-workers went where the people were: specifically, to the huge crowds that attended University of Oklahoma football games. In Oklahoma, the political activists handed out tee-shirts that promoted both the football team and the candidate. It would be possible to sell such tee-shirts, but it's better (if the campaign can afford it) to hand them out for free -- and encourage people to put them on right away.

She indicates the same approach would work country-wide.

The following are some additional comments by Sharon on the Coburn grassroots effort:

Added some more to the Coburn grassroots. It really needs to be an example for any candidate running a campaign on what they can do to get the grassroots involved.

Dr. Coburn held BBQ's around the state with free hamburgers/chips/drinks to recruit volunteers along with town hall meetings. The guy that did the grilling was a BBQ guru from the Tulsa area who made the best hamburgers. We held one at the OU duck pond and about 75 people turned out to the event and out of the 75, we recruited 63 of them to help and it was repeated around the State and it just kept growing. Most amazing thing I have ever been involved with.

I will never forget when Dr. Tom won our County straw poll and was the only candidate there without a group of paid staffers but we won. I was Coburn rep for counting ballots and will never forget the look on Humphrey's campaign aide's faces when Dr. Tom won -- priceless. I live in the 3rd largest county and that was the beginning of a win for Dr. Tom who has never lost a race. In fact he won his House seat in an area that is heavily Dem and we haven't had a Republican since he left.

Hearing Dr. Tom speak today [at the CPAC convention shere he introduced John McCain] brought back all those great memories from his campaign.

Grassroots Politics & McCain Victory

Here are some of the locations of visitors within the past several hours: Carrizozo, NM; Kenya, Africa, Savannah, GA, Seattle, WA, Midvale, UT, Houston, TX, Lubbock, TX, Bellingham, WA, Seattle, WA, Downingtown, PA, Glenside, PA, as well as many other places. Thanks to all of you for visiting.

If you'd like to see my daily columns, the best place to go is: http://camp2008victorya.blogspot.com. Copy that link, paste it into your broswer, and then when you get to the primary site, please bookmark it.

Later today (Friday, February 8, 2008), I'll be writing about the tactics advocated by an Oklahoma activist, Sharon Caliendo, who lives in Norman. Sharon discusses how you can turn your favorite candidate from "someone who came close" to "someone who celebrates a victory on Election Eve."

Sharon, along with Greg Alterton, began the Yahoo Group of Rudy Giuliani supporters. When Rudy dropped out, the Group became "Rudy Supporters for McCain." It was and is one of the largest groups on Yahoo, with approximately 1500 members. It was a factor in John McCain's winning the Oklahoma Primary.

Her emphasis is on grassroots politics -- basically on political activists (like you) recruiting other activists. Of course, we each have ONE vote, but if we act wisely we can leverage our vote into many votes. It's something like a snowball rolling down a hill. By the time it reaches the bottom it has turned into a huge mass.

To win on November 4, 2008, John McCain will need approximately 70-75 million votes. Sharon's analysis explains how McCain can accumulate enough support to win. I hope you return to see what she says.

________________________________

RICH GALEN ON WHY YOU SHOULD BE SUPPORTING JOHN MCCAIN:


Rush, Sean, and Laura
By Rich Galen
Friday, February 8, 2008

With the exit of Gov. Mitt Romney there is no doubt that Sen. John McCain will be the Republican nominee.

The Popular Press is running around in tiny circles, eyes wide, arms waving, mouths agape selling themselves on the theory that McCain's impending nomination will signal the end of the Republican Party.

The Main Stream Media has a vision of the GOP which is that Republicans are a bunch of narrow-minded, widely-condemning, high-handed, low-opinioned, under-educated, over-critical brutes who subscribe to a political orthodoxy which brooks no deviation from a belief set laid down by disciples of Aimee Semple McPherson

Not all. But many.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and the others are doing the work of the New York Times and the rest of the popular press by railing against McCain all day, every day.

It appears on the surface that their goal is to make Conservatives stay home next November 4 and hand the White House to Hillary or Barack.

But the reality is they are doing it because it means good ratings. When their listeners get tired of hearing them beat up on McCain, they'll switch to something else.

If they were to ask for my advice (which they most assuredly will not) I would suggest they take on the issue of the Democrats in the Senate holding up - according to the Wall Street Journal - 208 nominees: 180 nominees to executive branch positions and 28 nominees to the Federal bench.

If Rush, Sean, Laura and the rest wanted to really do a favor for America, they would get their tens of millions of listeners amped up about the nominees who are being held up - some for as long as two years - by Senate Democrats who will not allow the President to govern and will not allow the Judicial Branch to function.

But, I digress.

It is not a surprise that Mitt Romney got out of the race yesterday. After spending some $40-50 million of his own money and perhaps $100 million overall, he needed be able to have said more than "I did somewhat better than Mike Huckabee" after Super Tuesday.

Huckabee would never have gotten out of the race as long as Romney stayed in, so Romney found himself in an untenable political corner in which he was boxed in by McCain on his left and Huckabee on his right.

Huckabee will likely stay in at least until next Tuesday (the "Potomac Primary" - Virginia, DC, and Maryland) to see how he fares without having to share the right side of the ballot with either Romney or, as in South Carolina, Fred Thompson. After that Huckabee will get out leaving the field clear for McCain.

I don't have any idea that this has actually happened, but I would be surprised if surrogates for Charlie Black (McCain) and Ed Rollins (Huckabee) haven't been on the phone laying down the ground rules for a discussion about what role Huckabee will have in the campaign and what role his delegates will have at the Republican National Convention.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) yesterday, John McCain showed confidence and courage by standing before the very group which Rush, Sean, Laura and the rest have been attempting to agitate like a washing machine on steroids against him.

Watching the speech on television - first on Fox then on CNN - it appeared those in attendance appreciated McCain showing up, his willingness to openly speak about their differences, and his recitation of his Conservative creds.

It did not hurt that former Sen. George Allen stood with McCain as he was introduced, thus demonstrating that a favorite of core Conservatives - Allen - was pronouncing McCain satisfactory, acceptable, and … OK by him.

John McCain has nearly nine months to consolidate Republican support behind him. He will, with the aid of other Conservatives, do that.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are going to be duking it out until at least April and maybe all the way to the Democratic National Convention in August - leaving the nominee only a couple of months to accomplish that feat on the Dem side.

The Talk Show Set should get on board and stop doing the work of the New York & Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek and Time.



Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. He currently is a senior adviser to Fred Thompson's presidential campaign and writes at Mullings.com

Be the first to read Rich Galen's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com delivered each morning to your inbox.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RichGalen/2008/02/08/rush,_sean,_and_laura