The New Ward Heelers
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Swing-state organizing efforts draw on some of the same energy and technology that powered Howard Dean's "Perfect Storm." Websites like Driving Votes and Swing the State organize groups of volunteers who live in "safe states" to go to battleground states, and provide them with a network of organizations like ACT that they can hook up with once they arrive. And, in a program called SEIU Heroes, the Service Employees International Union is paying members to take time off to canvass for ACT—Minnesota has 18 "Heroes" from places like Atlanta and New York City.
But while Deaniacs hit Iowa cold and alienated many locals, these volunteers are plugged into an operation modeled on Rosenthal's successful efforts in getting the AFL-CIO to turn out the vote for Democrats in a big way. The campaign ACT is running is built on trusting the messenger, just as union get-out-the-vote efforts are. It uses young people to reach out to young people, steel workers to canvass the Iron Range, and Somali and Hmong organizers to speak to those communities.
Using Palm Pilots to download information into massive data- bases, the 527s move fast and think small, figuring out how much time elapses between when concertgoers line up at The Quest and the doors open, or keeping tabs on community papers like the Hmong Times and the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, or returning to ring the same broken buzzer a dozen times.
This is partly because the increasingly segmented media market makes it harder to reach the broader public with a single message. "There's a growing consensus among people who do this work that face-to-face is the best level of communication," says ACT's Richman. In some ways, he adds, it's a return to the organizing tactics of the old Democratic political machines.
So meet the new boss. Quincy Gamble, 28, has been in Minnesota only six weeks when I meet him in June, but he's already greeting barbers at the All Nations Barbershop by name. A leader of the SEIU Heroes, Gamble's been driving around the Twin Cities in a rented Trailblazer with his grandfather's Bible on the dashboard, meeting people in the African American community, evaluating their needs and how they can help ACT.
A debonair 6 feet 6 inches in his tan double-breasted suit, lavender shirt, and square-tipped shoes, Gamble explains that he goes to church twice on Sunday not out of piety (he goes once out of piety), but as an organizing tactic. He encourages his team to attend church as well. "It's an opportunity to get people involved, establish credibility with pastors, and get an audience with folks. If they get something [spiritual] out of it, great!" he says cheerfully. "I see myself as on the clock 24 hours a day. Everything is an opportunity."
Gamble is taking a year off law school because he wants desperately to affect the election. He worked for Dean's South Carolina operation, and when that ended, ACT seemed like the next logical choice.
Batting his hand on the stick shift to a gospel CD, Gamble makes his rounds of YWCAs, churches, and sorry strip malls. In the Midway neighborhood, he enters an Applebee's looking for Jemika Hayes, 29, whom Gamble had seen MCing a slam poetry night at the Soul City Supper Club. "There were about 200 people there. The poems were mad political," he says, "and I bet half those folks weren't registered." Gamble hopes to convince Hayes to co-sponsor a poetry event with ACT. As we get out of the car, he says, "We haven't broached this with them. I'm hoping this will go well. There's going to be some salesmanship happening."
Gamble settles into Applebee's with a chicken alfredo, extra sauce, and promptly puts away five 16-ounce refills of iced tea as we wait for Hayes to finish his shift as a server. When Hayes comes over with his own lunch, Gamble tells him he saw the poetry reading and thought it was "hot" and "tight." Hayes smiles shyly.
"We can turn out the media for you, and it would be a big thing for our credibility with certain groups," Gamble says. "Tell me what you need to make it happen."
Gamble's next meeting is with Winfred Payne, an ex-convict who runs an after-school program in a North Minneapolis church. Payne's office is in a room lined with karate trophies. Jeopardy hums on an ancient Zenith and a few kids hunt and peck on the program's computers.
Gamble makes his pitch, and Payne seems interested but has a bottom line—he wants 50 canvassing jobs in the community. Unlike a real ward boss, Gamble doesn't have those to offer.
In June, the Republicans made much hay of the fact that ACT had used ex-convicts to canvass in some states. Their calls for letter-writing campaigns about "crooks for Kerry" smacked of demagoguery, revealing some of the political difficulties of peer-to-peer organizing—in neighborhoods like North Minneapolis, it may mean engaging people with criminal records, if not hiring them directly.
"You can't ask someone starving on the corner, selling dope, to do what you get paid to do for free," Payne tells Gamble.
Gamble talks about ACT organizing unregistered Somalis who live in the Cedar- Riverside high-rises, and the need for black representation.
Payne doesn't budge."They're selling dope out there to eat. They're not out there dressed in top gear, they're hustling for food," he says.
"That's the environment I come from all my life," Gamble retorts.
"We can't keep giving away our labor and not being paid for it and not see the results for 20 years," Payne fires back. "That's the slave mentality."
The back-and-forth goes on for well over an hour. In the course of making his case, Payne cites a children's play called The Black Fairy and mentions the trouble he has writing grants. Gamble offers to help write grants and suggests that ACT could produce the play Payne likes so much. By the end of the meeting, the two are going through pictures of Payne's buddies.
Gamble is pleased with the meeting. "He knows so many people that I'm confident I'll be able to turn knowing him into something. On this level of organizing, it's a success if you get their story. I got it. I know that guy is going to spend time in the office to help us do the job we need."
On the way out of the neighborhood, which is full of "Chicago-style" chicken joints and police vans, Gamble eyes, with great interest, the Shiloh Temple Church, which is setting up for a barbecue. I ask if he thinks it'd be good for organizing or if he's just hungry again.
"Both," he grins.
Samantha M. Shapiro is a freelance writer. Her previous story for Mother Jones, “Jails for Jesus” (November/December 2003), focused on evangelical prison programs.
Photo: Naomi Harris
