This wasn't the first registration drive I helped organize; it was my second.  I was just coming off the last drive in the village of Ossining, feeling pretty damn good about the 96 voters we registered the previous weekend, when I started organizing the Peekskill drive.  

Volunteer recruitment through the Obama website had slowed down dramatically, probably due to the Summer lull of people going on vacations and wanting to spend their weekends at the beach instead of registering voters in 90 degree heat.  I knew there was no way I would even come close to matching the 58 volunteers who signed up for the Ossining drive (35 of whom actually participated).  So I took a shot in the dark and called Congressman Hall's office to ask if they could provide any assistance in helping me to recruit volunteers to help register voters in his district.

Let's pause here to consider how ridiculous this is.  Who am I?  I was just some guy with a regular 9-5 job (8:00-6:30 actually) and no political connections or experience.  Why I thought that a Congressional office would even give me the time of day, let alone help me recruit volunteers is beyond me.  I wasn't too surprised when they asked me to send my resume and a few references and said that they would get back to me.

Right.  "We'll get back to you."

Three days later they got back to me.  Not only did they offer help in recruiting volunteers, they allowed me to present the registration drive as an effort sponsored by the John Hall for Congress campaign.  Within days of this conversation, the Peekskill Democratic City Committee (PDCC) was offering to participate.  The Chairman of the committee offered his house as a staging point, and purchased cases of soda and Gatorade for the day of the drive.  Several Democratic members of the city council enthusiastically signed on.  

Two weeks before the drive we held a planning session which was attended by volunteers who signed up through the Obama website, members of the PDCC, and the regional Field Organizer for the Hall campaign.  You might think that the social dynamics of such a meeting would be a recipe for a power struggle.  Either the Hall campaign would try to take control of all the planning and preparation, or the local Democaratic Party would claim "home turf" authority.  And I was more than a little concerned that we may see dueling egos.  

It was not like that at all.  It was about as egalitarian as anyone with strong grassroots sensibilities could have hoped.  Congressman Hall's Field Organizer, far from trying to take control of the session, instead took on a supportive role.  When we were discussing how to promote the event through posting flyers, he offered to make several hundred copies and send out his own staff to plaster the entire town with them.  The Hall campaign even began to include mentioning the voter drive in their phone banking operations.

On the day of the drive itself, 40 volunteers participated, despite only 43 signing up through the Obama website (contrast this to the Ossining drive where 58 signed up and 35 participated).  This is because the Hall campaign sent 10 of their own staff, all of whom busted their humps canvassing neighborhoods.  Even the campaign manager, who could have decided to serve as a point person and sit on his ass at the staging area without anyone batting an eye, grabbed a canvassing list and hit the streets.

Towards the end of the day, my cell rang.  I answered thinking it was a volunteer with a question or some other issue.  Wrong.  It was Congressman Hall calling to thank me for all the hard work we put into organizing the drive.  I, of course, was completely caught off guard and said something inane and altogether inarticulate about I have no idea what.  Then a few minutes later my wife's cell rang, and she was far more eloquent than I was in speaking with the Congressman.

The end result of this effort was 123 people registered, 100 forms handed to people who requested one, and 550 forms deposited at the homes of people who were not registered, but who were not home when we canvassed.  A conservative estimate suggests that we registered 215 people that afternoon.

I have never experienced, let along heard of, anything like this.  A Congressional campaign working so closely with, and expending its own resources to support, an independent grassroots movement without demanding any control or oversight over the operation whatsoever.  Congressman Hall has demonstrated that he is a genuine advocate of grassroots, ground-up politics.  What's more, the man has style.  He was a member of the 70's band Orleans.  This is him, center stage in the blue shirt:

Thank you Congressman Hall!