Features

Paula Casio wants President Bush out of office. But with a daughter and a full-time job, she can’t spend the next month canvassing the streets of swing states. 

With the help of a Berkeley-based organization, Casio is reaching those swing voters nonetheless from her home in Lomita, about 20 minutes south of Los Angeles. 

The organization, Party For America (PFA), which has partnered with America Coming Together (ACT), the largest anti-Bush canvassing group, is providing alternatives for people like Casio who want to make a difference in the election, but don’t have much time or don’t live near a central organizing spot. 

“I was looking for a way to help with the campaign,” Casio said. “I finally determined that I couldn’t travel because I have a daughter. I was looking for something I could do on the phone.” 

She looked on ACT’s website, but saw there was not much she could do without traveling. Then she saw PFA’s link at the bottom of the site for alternative ways of getting involved. After entering her information, she received an e-mail from an organizer offering suggestions.  

The organizer suggested that Casio help the campaign by making calls to swing states from her home. She now has a list of 30 phone numbers for women who live in rural West Virginia whom she’s been trying to convince to vote for John Kerry next month. Those names came from a list of about 11,000 potential women swing voters whom ACT didn’t have time to visit or call. 

“We needed to give [volunteers] an alternative to driving 50 miles” to the nearest event or to canvass, said Robert Vogel, PFA’s director who lives in Berkeley’s Claremont/Elmwood neighborhood. 

Since starting in March, PFA has helped organize about 2,200 people like Casio, Vogel said. And while that’s small compared to the numbers ACT or MoveOn.org have organized, Vogel said that he is happy with the group’s contribution, moving thousands of people who otherwise would have likely sat by the sidelines. 

Large parts of PFA’s organizing strategy come out of the Howard Dean house parties that Vogel, his wife Simona Carini and several of their Berkeley friends, attended and helped organize leading up to the primary elections.  

Attendees to those gatherings saw the power of talking other people instead of sitting in front of their computers, Vogel said.  

Sandi Smith, a volunteer in Austin, said every time she has a question about organizing, she send an e-mail to her organizer and usually gets a response within an hour. She tests software for a living is comfortable with computers and familiar with Internet organizing, but still appreciates the human help. 

Smith joined PFA because she knew Texas is going to be won by Bush and wanted to organize outside her state without leaving her job. Like Casio, she is calling women in West Virginia.  

“I have not been involved in politics much,” said Smith. “The fact that Bush has done such a horrendous job as president has woken me up and made me realize that I need to get off my lazy butt and do something.”  

For those interested in helping PFA contact women in swing states, please visit PFA’s site at http://partyforamerica.editme.com.w