from Obama for America
DATE: October 31, 2008
TO: Interested Parties
FROM Craig Schirmer, Pennsylvania State Director, Obama Campaign
RE: Final Push
Halloween is here, and the McCain-Palin campaign is running scared.
As we enter the last 72 hours until Election Day, voters across the
country are making it known that they want change - and want Barack
Obama as the next President of the United States. In Republican
strongholds from Indiana to Virginia to North Carolina, Barack Obama is
running strong. In early voting states such as Florida and Ohio, people
are lining up for hours in order to cast their ballot for an economy
that works for them, affordable health care, and jobs that can't be
shipped overseas. The Obama campaign is now expanding the map to states
such as North Dakota and even John McCain's home state of Arizona,
supplementing the strong organizations already there with media buys.
In Pennsylvania, the Obama campaign also is expanding the map. We have
81 campaign offices across the state, many in parts of Pennsylvania
that have never seen a Democratic presidential campaign set up there
before. We have more than 500 staging locations for our grassroots
canvass teams, positioned in every corner of the Commonwealth. And
since June 1, our volunteers have knocked on 2.5 million doors and made
5 million personal calls to Pennsylvanians from Erie to Easton, from
Pittsburgh to Plymouth Meeting.
That's what John McCain and Sarah Palin will face when they come to
Pennsylvania these next three days. The Keystone State has always been
a battleground - no Democratic presidential candidate has won more than
51 percent of the vote since 1964 - and the Obama campaign is ready for
them. We have over 57,000 volunteers signed up to canvass and make
phone calls over this weekend and on Election Day. We have filled
nearly 180,000 volunteer-shifts for the final push, and as Election Day
approaches and excitement builds, our organization is growing at an
even quicker pace. Yesterday alone we scheduled over 20,000 GOTV
volunteer-shifts. The visits of John McCain and Sarah Palin can't
compete with this grassroots organization (remember that George W. Bush
visited Pennsylvania 44 times in the 2004 campaign - compared to John
Kerry's 24 - -and still lost the state).
The McCain campaign can try to scare Pennsylvanians with their
robocalls, email smears, and false attacks. But this Halloween,
Pennsylvanians fear something scarier: another four more years of the
failed Bush-McCain economic policies. That's why they're rallying to
Barack Obama and Joe Biden, signing up to volunteer, and are ready and
motivated to win this state and change America.
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