The word on the street: no street money

The word on the street is that there is going to be no money on the street from the Obama campaign.

No one knows for sure. But ward leaders are worried.

This would be an innovation in Pennsylvania politics…and in my view, a really dumb one.

Street money goes from City Committee to ward leaders who then use it to pay for Election expenses: letters to voters, gas for the cars used to drive voters to the polls, food for people working at the polls and, a small stipend to committee people, usually about $100.
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Everyone knows that committee people have less influence in a Presidential election than in any other election. Most voters know who they are going to vote for before they go to the polls.

But in an election in which an African American candidate is running, and a lot of white working class voters are not so comfortable with the prospect of voting for him, the committee people become important. For the most important way of convincing people to cast an uncomfortable vote is to have people they trust model that vote for them. That’s what good committee people can do. And we need them to do it in places like South Philly and Roxborough and in the River Wards and the Northeast.

That’s how Roseanne Pauciello and Lou Agre and other good ward leaders can make a real difference.

The Obama campaign has a great organization and they are going to bring folks to the polls. But the last little bit of persuasion some folks need to vote for Obama is best done by people who look, sound and are of the same social class as the voters. And that describes committee people a lot more than it describes most Obama volunteers.

And then there are few things Ward leaders can do that are really critical to the a Obama campaign—and a few other things they can do that are really helpful—that no one else can do.

The Critical Stuff

1. Election Boards. Ward leaders are the ones who find judges of election and inspectors when, which is sometimes hard to do because Election Day is long, the world is tedious and the pay is low. Without these folks, voting will be sloooow. And when voting is slow some people don’t vote.

2. Watcher Certificates. The Obama volunteers need them to get inside the polls to track who votes and who doesn’t so that the campaign can go find the folks who haven’t voted and encourage them to go to the polls.

3. Help with strike lists. Committee people know their constituents and can help a great deal in making sure the lists of who votes is accurate.

4. The Last Few Voters. Committee people know where some voters hang out on Election Day. If you are searching for folks it’s helpful to know, for example, where they drink in the afternoon. How many Obamanauts are going to know that?

The Helpful Stuff: Staging Areas and Other Resources. The Obama volunteers want to do a lot of canvassing the final weekend. But they need to find large rooms for staging areas. They are calling local folks like me to help them. And we are calling ward leaders who know the ward and local business people who have the space and are willing to provide it on short notice.

They also need cell phones or some other stuff and have to buy them quickly. Who can they trust to deliver quickly? A ward leader can help with that, too.

How much difference does this make? I don’t know. But I do know that $400,000 of street money would be a lot more valuable than the same amount of money dropped in a few more TV commercials.

And right now, Pennsylvania is the epicenter of the election. Recent reports suggest that McCain thinks PA is a more likely win for him than Virginia. And he is counting on giving the Democratic vote a big dent by appealing to those areas of the city I mentioned above.

Bob Brady once told me that he knows that the ward leaders and committee people don’t win elections for Democrats alone. He knows what progressive activists do. As a progressive activist who is not exactly a favorite of many ward leaders, I’ve got to say that we need the ward leaders and committee people in this election.

Will some of the street money be wasted and go to crooked ward leaders? Yep. But there are a lot fewer crooks among the ward leaders and a lot more among the people who buy TV ads than you would imagine. Political campaigns pay some portion of their campaign workers. There is no moral difference between that and paying committee people for the work they do, except perhaps that the working class committee people in Philadelphia need the money more than the kids who have taken time off from college to work long hours at low wages for the Obama campaign.

Street Money Still Unresolved