Every once in a while, it's nice to hit the road. Through a blur of airports, buses, and subways, I'm talking to the canvassers in all nine Progressive Future summer citizen outreach offices.
In addition to hitting Boulder twice this summer (in my own backyard, just 40 mins from Denver), I was in Miami last week. This week I was in Boston/Cambridge and I'm now writing from Manhattan.
Next week is Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Here are some pics and stories from the road:
Miami
Late last week, I flew from the America's Future Now conference in DC down to Miami for my first far-away office briefing.
It was hot.
Canvass Director Nick and the Assistant Directors have a great crew down there who are not shy about heading out into the 100 degree heat (with nearly 100% humidity, of course) every day to build our membership and get folks involved.
Here is Katie, one of the directors in the office, and Adam who works for one of our coalition partners (Environment Florida) standing with our life-sized Rush Limbaugh cut out:
Two of the "Field Managers" (who work with the directors to manage staff and are key to winning our campaigns) have been offered Director jobs next year--so they're doing something right in that heat.
Cambridge
After toughing it out in the FL heat, I headed back to Denver for a few days before getting back on a plane to Boston to brief our Cambridge office, run by Canvass Director Sasha Rosen, and located just off of Harvard Square.
Here is the Progressive Future crew from the Cambridge office, with their "Rush":
Here's assistant canvass director Mike Norris in action just off of Harvard Square:
While in Boston, I got to hang out with my good friend from law school, Rahul. Rahul is also a doctor and a recognized health care expert who served on President Obama's health care transition team. Over sushi and sake, we talked about the health care bill the Democrats had introduced earlier in the week and its prospects for passage. Bottom line: we can do this, but there's lots of work left to do.
Manhattan
After Cambridge it was the Bolt bus (complete with wireless access) to Manhattan on Thursday evening for a 9am briefing with the Manhattan office, run by Sam Landenwitsch.
This is the biggest canvass office in the country--they'll send out about 80 canvassers every day at their peak for groups that include Progressive Future, Environment New York, Human Rights Campaign, and New Jersey PIRG.
Here's a shot from daily annoucements (quick political updates, goals for the day and week, etc.) just before my briefing. Sam is on the right; Anthony Romeo (on the left) is the highest averaging canvasser in the country--he raised $1290 per day for the Human Rights Campaign this week.
Here's a shot of the Progressive Future crew before heading out to the streets of New York:
Here's the PF crew from today in Manhattan: director Lawrence with Kyle and Elizabeth.
OK, that's it from NYC. I'll spend the weekend with friends and family (I'm from Long Island) and get on a plane for Chicago on Monday. I'll send more updates from the road next week.
