Vote Hope Launches: Independent Campaign for Obama in CA

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

The first major independent campaign for the 2008 presidential primary in California has just been launched. Called Vote Hope, the group explicitly has laid out it's goal of "banking" 500,000 early votes for Barack Obama in California. From their official launch blog post:

Vote Hope, which officially launches today, is led by a network of activists for social justice in California who want to ensure that the voices of diverse Californians are heard during this critical part of the democratic process.

We are inspired by Barack Obama’s life experience, his vision for the country, and his calls for people to self-organize in a new wave of political participation. We are heeding that call and building something ourselves that will be value-added in California — starting now.

They are completely upfront about their organizing strategy, which is heavily focused on grassroots organizing, using data files.

Vote Hope will work over the next seven months to identify 500,000 Barack Obama supporters – online and in communities, through traditional organizing and non-traditional cultural events – who will vote early for Obama, either by mail or at the county registrar’s office. Early voting in California will begin Jan. 7, and we will be running a sophisticated, voter-file-driven program to turn out our early votes before the Iowa caucuses even begin.

We know that Barack Obama has deep support in California, much of it from ordinary people in constituencies that have been all but ignored by every major campaign in recent memory, particularly young people and in communities of color. There are millions of people in California who are registered but don’t vote regularly, and millions more who are eligible to be registered. We’re going to engage them, empower them with tools and data, and we’re going to win California for Barack Obama.

I know several of the folks working on this campaign. It will be interesting to see them put this plan into action and see how successful this strategy at actually driving votes into Obama's column.