Superfreakonomics and the Commonwealth Club

After reading weeks of criticism and debunking of Superfreakonomics by some of the leading figures in climate change conversation, I was disappointed to find that the Commonwealth Club was highlighting the authors with their own book publicity event.

So, some Presidio classmates and I put together a petition and letter to the Club inviting them to take a stand, not on the science of geoengineering, but on the integrity of the book. Essentially, on a topic this important, students in sustainability programs and prominent public forums should hold such authors to a high standard and make sure distortions and misrepresentations don’t pollute the conversation.

Here is the email we sent to the Commonwealth Club today as well as the text of the petition.

Dear Commonwealth Club,

Many in the Presidio Graduate School community were disappointed to hear that the Commonwealth Club would be featuring the authors of Superfreakonomics as part of their book publicity tour. The attached petition and signature comments detail why we feel that the Club should not highlight this book without explicit acknowledgment of its flaws and the widely publicized repudiation by their main scientific sources on climate change.

We believe climate change is the critical issue of our time. As a school dedicated to learning and discussion about sustainability, we welcome diverse opinions, but also take a stand for integrity in the public discourse. Conversation should be based on an honest representation of science and the work of experts.

We know the Commonwealth Club shares our dedication to honest conversation and we invite you to use this opportunity to take a stand for truth on this vitally important topic.

Sincerely,

Forty-four members of the Presidio Graduate School community

PETITION
As students of business and public administration at the Presidio Graduate School, we
passionately believe in the integrity of public discourse and the urgency of the climate change
crisis facing our society.  We have the utmost respect for the Commonwealth Club, its mission,
and its recognition of the crisis with its Climate One initiative.  In that spirit, we strongly urge you
to reconsider your event featuring the authors of Superfreakonomics.

The book’s chapter on climate change can at best be described as “contrarian” and at worst,
dangerous misinformation.  Experts with the highest credentials have thoroughly debunked this
chapter, including a Nobelist stating that there are factual errors “on every page”.  That being
said, we understand that this may be considered acceptable public debate and a discourse that
the Club would like to bring forward.

However, we believe the Club should not endorse a blatant violation of journalistic integrity. 
Beyond a healthy disagreement on how to address climate change, the authors have in fact
misrepresented and distorted the statements and work of the expert sources their position relies
upon.  Most importantly, their main scientific source has publicly repudiated this chapter and its
interpretation of his work.   

This shows that the authors did not intend to constructively add to the public discourse, but
instead deliberately distorted scientific truth to further their own profits.  We assert that the
Commonwealth Club, an organization founded to seek and disseminate truth, should not be a
party to this effort.  By featuring only the authors in this event, the Club is conferring credibility
and validating the integrity of their work.  

Climate change is too important and the expected audience of this book is too large for us to
allow such self-serving distortions to pollute the conversation.

Given that it is likely too late to remove the authors from the agenda of next week’s event, we
recommend that the Commonwealth Club invite and give equal billing to an additional speaker
to challenge the authors.  

We believe that this action is necessary for the Commonwealth Club to remain truly objective
and maintain its strong stand on truth and integrity in the public discourse.

CA Energy Bills Part 2: SB32

SB32 – “FIT-like” extension

The quick way to think about SB32 is that it expands and does a little fixing to the existing FIT-like program in California. Despite what many reporters are saying, this is not a new FIT for California. California has had a FIT-like program since early 2008, starting with AB1969. That program is limited to projects up to 1.5MW and has failed mainly because the price you are paid for the electricity you produce is too low to make investment worthwhile. Despite a goal of deploying 500 MW of renewable energy, the program has resulted in about 10MW of biogas projects.

The program is FIT-like because it sets a fixed rate for energy over a long-term contract (10, 15 or 20 years) and directs utilities to create a standard contract for everyone in this program rather than having each developer negotiate a new contract for each project.

SB32 made improvements to this program in several ways, including:

• The price set by the CPUC can now include the value of avoiding environmental impacts (e.g. GHG emissions).
• The price may also include the value of “locational benefits” which can mean several things depending on how the CPUC interprets the bill. At a minimum, it is expected that this will include the extra value of energy produced on distributions circuits that need help with peak demand.
• Projects can be up to 3 MW: better economies of scale could help make investment viable
  The program applies to all utilities, not just the big Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs)

The primary distinction between this SB32-expanded program and the German-style FIT is the pricing. The California program starts with what’s called the Market-Price-Referent, and estimate of how much the energy is worth to consumers based on what they would have paid for a 500 MW gas-fired power plant. This is called “value-based” pricing. SB32 allows other elements to be added to the MPR whereas the existing program is limited to just MPR.

German-style FITs calculate price based on “cost plus reasonable profit”. First, you estimate the cost of developing and operating a solar farm for example. Then you consider a reasonable ROI, such as 7%. Then, based on how much energy the farm will produce over the life of the contract, you set a rate that the utilities pay per Kilowatt-hour to provide that reasonable ROI.

Bottom line is that we don’t know whether the SB32 changes will result in more renewable energy development because we don’t know what the price will be. The most successful programs in countries around the world use the German-style cost-based approach.

However, the FIT Coalition decided to support SB32 because it represented some real progress this year. The non-price related improvements were good steps towards a successful FIT and we welcomed those.

You can read our letter to supporters and to the Governor on SB32 here. We’re happy that SB32 was signed but we’ll be gearing up full force to get AB1106, an even better FIT, passed in early 2010.

To learn more about FIT’s in general, visit the FIT Coalition at www.fitcoalition.com and join our mailing list for regular updates.

CA Energy Bills Part 1: AB920

Two particular bills, AB920 & SB32, signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on Oct 11, 2009 have received a lot of attention recently for how they change the incentives in California to produce energy from renewable sources. Being steeped in this topic for the last 6 months as co-founder of the FIT Coalition, I am seeing that unfortunately, much of the reporting on these bills has been confused and inaccurate.

People have been throwing around the term “feed-in-tariff” with respect to both bills. If you think very broadly as a FIT being any system for selling energy back to the utility company, then sure, the term applies. But, there are many different ways to implement such systems and just as many meanings for a FIT.

This means that you can’t really liken the world’s most successful FIT, the German one, to AB920, but you can make a more direct compare/contrast to SB32. I’ll try to provide the important details of each bill and likely effects below but note that I’ve been focusing on FITs, not net metering, so while I’ve read and analyzed AB920, I’m not an expert on its likely impacts. (This post is about AB920. Part 2 will be about SB32)

AB920 – Net Metering excess
In simplest terms, basic Net Metering allows a property owner to “zero out” their electricity bill over a 12-month period. Any energy your solar system produces beyond what you use in a particular month gets credited to your bills in other months. So, for example, in the summer, your solar system produces more energy than you use. Then in the winter, you use more than you system produces. The excess production from the summer offsets the energy you took from the grid in the winter.

This program complements the California Solar Initiative. The CSI gives rebates to people who install solar systems based on the size of the system. Basically, Net Metering alone wasn’t enough to get people to install solar because it was still too expensive. So, the CSI brought the cost down and has been pretty successful in getting a lot of people to install.

Two of the problems that have remained with Net Metering:

1. Larger solar systems have better economies of scale but even if you have space for a big system, there’s no incentive to do this when you can’t get any money for the energy you produce beyond zero-ing out your bill.
2. Once you have a system, there’s no incentive to become more energy efficient, again because you can’t get compensated for the extra energy your solar system produces.

AB920 was targeted at solving these issues. In the simplest terms, now the utility has to pay you for all the energy that you produce after zero-ing your bill. It’s important to know that the rate the utility pays you will not be your typical electricity rate that you pay for energy. On your bill, you pay the *retail rate*, whereas for the excess energy, you will earn something close to the *wholesale rate*.

Will this be a big boost to Net Metering and incent a lot more people to deploy solar energy production? It will help some but probably not as much as people think because:

• You now have a reason to put in a bigger system, *but* you may risk not getting the CSI subsidy. The CSI requires you to install a system no bigger than your peak demand estimate. So, if building a bigger system and getting the excess payments is worth more than losing the CSI subsidy, you might do this. I think this will probably only apply to businesses rather than residential homes, and/or will be more effective in a few years when the CSI subsidies have come down.
• The price the utilities pay is going to be pretty low. The price is set by the PUC but it is required to reflect the “value” of the energy and make sure that it doesn’t raise prices for people without solar systems. That means the price will be at a low wholesale rate for energy. And btw, this energy is not “dispatchable” so it’s worth even less to the utilities.
• Net metering and this program ends when enough customers have signed up to make up 2.5% of the utilities delivered energy. Many of the utilities are not far from that limit which is why there was a bill to try to up that cap this year. The bill failed, so the overall program may come to a halt mid-2010 anyway.

Here are two reasons that people typically don’t use the term feed-in-tariff to describe net-metering or even net-metering excess:

• FIT usually applies to independent power producers selling energy at the wholesale level to utilities. It doesn’t include offsetting a retail bill.
• FITs usually don’t require the power producer to be a customer of the utility. You should be able to sell power with a FIT on a bare piece of land that doesn’t take any energy from the grid.

To sum up, AB920 is not a feed-in-tariff in the way FITs are talked about in the industry and is unlikely to incent a lot of new, larger development of solar in the short term. In a few years, this bill may have more of an impact due to two trends: CSI subsidies will be coming down so developers won’t face as much of a subsidy loss, and solar panel costs may come down enough so that the AB920 payments make a real difference in the investment decision.

Commencement speech by Paul Hawken

This speech is so amazing, I felt I had to publish it and try to get as many people to read it as possible.  There’s so much in here that speaks exactly to why I feel driven to work on sustainability, join the movement embodied in the Presidio MBA program, and change my career so drastically.

Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, neked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there. But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades. This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken.

Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food, but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.

The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.

What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description.

Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums. You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisher folk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way. There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.
Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots.

Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty.

But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals.

The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history. The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy.

We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet.

At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering.

Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich. The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable.

We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it.

In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever be quested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Smart Grid and ARRA Money

For those I haven’t talked to recently, I’m in the process of shifting my career towards government policy and regulation, targeting areas that are relevant to climate change and energy. (See my last post Ultimate Vision)

With my tech and business background in Internet, the most natural fit seems to be smart grid policy.  So, here are my notes from last Friday’s “workshop” at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) where the topic was how companies in California can get smart grid related funds from the Recovery Act  (aka Obama’s stimulus package).  The specific goal was for these companies to inform the PUC on what they think the PUC could do to help them get this money.

To set the stage, PUC Commissioner Rachelle Chong reviewed the Act and the relevant timelines. Two important dates:  The DOE is due to release details about the requirements for getting funding by April 17th.  And the funds from the Act need to be obligated by Sep 30th, 2010.  Also, most of the funding would be in the form of matching funds, where the companies would need to come up with half the cost of any proposed project.
In my mind, the themes for the day were

• We don’t know the criteria that the DOE is going to set for these funds, but
• The DOE is in a hurry to allocate this money (in govt time, 1.5 years is fast), so
• We need to prepare “shovel ready” project proposals to compete with other states right now based on what we think the DOE is going to want to see

During the 2.5-hour workshop, we heard from each of the major Investor Owned Utilities (IOU) as well as several publicly owned utilities, the California ISO, a few technology companies, and a few groups representing ratepayers (i.e. electricity consumers).

Based on the first bullet above, it felt like maybe this event was a little early, as if it was difficult for any of these groups to really describe what they wanted to do when they were shooting at an uncertain target. But, as Jake Wise, my Presidio classmate and a PUC analyst, said, things move slowly enough that it was valuable to get the ball rolling and everyone at least talking about moving together.

Also, two of the commissioners are planning to go to DC on 3/31, gather as much information as they can and represent California as a united front in competing for these dollars.  So, this workshop was also asking for input they could take to DC.

Without detailing all the projects and technologies that were described, the major takeaways I heard:

• CA utilities are national leaders in Smart Grid, are dedicated to rapid development and deployment and already have demo projects planned that could qualify for Recovery Act money
• All the necessary technologies exist already.  They just need standards to be set for interoperability and those standards should not just be developed by a bunch of engineers in a room.  The standards should be worked out through demo setups and field tests
• Projects need to look “shovel ready” so make sure that PUC approval process is expedited and synched with the DOE approval process.  There’s a real risk that the historical PUC slowness will be perceived as a barrier to deploying the money quickly.  To that end, consider applying for Recovery money for *already approved* projects
• Ratepayer concerns and job creation are important but none of the companies directly addressed these topics in the workshop.

Based on this input, the main recommendations directly for the PUC seemed to be:

• Continue to act as the convener.  The PUC seems to be the right place to hold the combined vision, coordinate amongst the players, and present a unified face to the DOE
• Dedicate staff specifically to the Recovery Act
• Create a unified definition and vision of Smart Grid for California and maintain a publicly accessible inventory of Smart Grid projects in the state
• Streamline the PUC processes to approve ratepayer funding as matching funds for qualifying projects
• Make it easy for existing, already approved Smart Grid projects to defray ratepayer costs with Recovery Act money
• Help ensure that the ratepayers see some benefits of these funds, not just the market participants

Personally, I feel that we were missing concrete ideas on job creation, one of the Recovery Act’s major priorities.  The Smart Grid projects and technologies would mean additional business for these companies but the number of jobs created, especially for blue-collar workers, seems minimal.

So, my thought for the commissioners is to go to the DOE and float the idea of job creation by increasing support for distributed generation.  The basic thinking is that large scale distributed generation will require Smart Grid advances in protocols, control systems, interface standards and rate structures.  This piece of the Smart Grid could be developed in parallel with the rest of the pieces and so could be funded in distinct, well-defined chunks.

If the grid supports easy, cost effective installation of distributed generation that requires less specialized training (and fewer truck rolls by the utilities), California would see a big jump in demand for installers and related green collar jobs.   This would, in my opinion, be the quickest way to create a large number of jobs that blue-collar workers could qualify for.

If the commissioners find that this logic plays well at the DOE, then we could influence the criteria that are published in April and encourage the California utilities to develop projects on this specific area.

Ultimate Vision

(I thought it appropriate to return to blogging with a post on my vision for professional self – originally posted in my Leadership class at the Presidio School of Management)

For my professional vision, picture a snapshot during a game of Ultimate.  Two players are fully horizontal, diving, striving for the disc.  The grass beneath them is lush and bright green.  The sun is beaming down from a clear blue sky, and there’s just enough breeze to ruffle the shirts of the excited fans and teammates on the sideline.

This is a moment in the perfect game I dream of creating for the world.  Ultimate requires great collaboration, excellent teamwork, but also highlights individual brilliance.  Competition is intense, but “Spirit of the Game” is so core that teams often strive to win the “Best Spirit” award as much as the game itself.  Even at the highest levels, the sport is self-refereed with players policing themselves and external observers only brought in if the players can’t resolve their conflicts with each other.

As outdoor athletes, Ultimate players need to be constantly in tune with nature – acknowledge and incorporate the wind, the sun, and the conditions of the earth.  And we can’t trash the playing field without destroying our ability, or losing permission, to play on it again.

My role in this picture is to design the rules and set up the field where the world economy operates like this perfect game.  By understanding the “physics” and relationships involved in sustainable business, I can help create a game where the score is kept on the integrated bottom line and winning is a victory for the global society.

Last day of door knocking

Just a quick post on yesterday, Day 3.  It was slightly shorter since we didn’t get going until about noon (we don’t want to bother people Sunday morning and many of them would be away at church).

On the way in, I saw people standing on the grassy median in the road, waving McCain/Palin signs.  Like other people I talked to, my first thought on seeing them was, “What a waste of scarce volunteer resources”.  Why aren’t those people knocking on doors or at least making phone calls?  There’s no way that McCain has too many volunteers in the area.  Research shows that canvassing is at least 4 times more effective than phone calls which have got to be several times more effective than waving signs on the road.

Here’s a fun picture from the Ashburn office:

Favorite conversation of the day:  “It’s like a company re-org.  When your company’s failing, you don’t re-org with the same people who ran the company down”

Funny moment of the day:  Young woman answers the door.  I introduce myself and ask her if Fred and Mary are home (not the real names).  She closes the door to go get them.  Fred comes to the door, opens it, says “We’re watching football”, shuts the door.  I stand for a moment surprised in mid-sentence.  Then as I’m about to leave, a young boy (maybe 8 yrs old) opens the door to say hi.  I hand him some of my literature and ask him if he could give it to Fred.  He says ok and shuts the door.

Overall, the energy of the day was great.  I went out 3 times with different teams, probably totaling around 120 doors.  Each time I came back, the office was teeming with volunteers.  In the neighborhoods, didn’t see a single McCain/Palin canvasser.

This was the last day of door knocking.  Monday is just about dropping off literature and giving that last little nudge to go out and vote.

Canvassing Day 2: Inspiration becomes action

The theme of day 2 for me was ‘inspiration’.  I’ve said all along that the President doesn’t need just the intelligence to make the tough decisions; he needs to inspire the country to come together and empower everyone to tackle the tough challenges facing us.  For a great contrast of the two campaigns’ ability to inspire volunteers, read this at fivethirtyeight.com:  The Big Empty

Since there are so many little interesting tidbits today, this post is going to be more a stream of consciousness than my normal writing.
•    Arrived in Ashburn to find 40+ volunteers ready to hit the sidewalks – 90+% of them were from out of state.
•    Local campaign vice-chair confirmed that this is THE battleground county of this battleground state – says the McCain campaign doesn’t have people like us, he’s *paying* his small canvassing force here
•    Here’s our smallest supporter.  Her mother was singing the bit from SNL: “Solid…solid as Barack!”

My canvassing team is 3 people, so we take on some big packets.  These are clustered so one can coordinate and drive while the other 2 zip down a street, but even though I’m the driver I get out to do a fair amount of knocking myself.
•    On my 2nd house, a woman actually trips down the stairs coming to the door!  I see it happen through the clear storm door and open it to help, but her husband comes and helps her up.  Luckily, she’s not hurt.  Rough start to the day!
•    I see some McCain canvassers for the first time, driving by and I consider how little presence the McCain campaign has here even though we’re still seeing the dueling yard-signs everywhere.
•    Here’s a picture from the Democratic precinct captain’s house:

“Veterans for Obama” seems so powerful since McCain’s war “hero” status is supposed to gain him the military vote (and Virginia has a long military tradition).
•    We encounter two young women canvassing for Judy Feder, local Democratic candidate for Congress.  We’re amazed to find out they are Columbia University students, part of a group of 130 who came down from NYC to knock on doors for Democrats.
•    I actually talk to an undecided young voter (he’s 25).  The most interesting thing he said was that I was probably the 4th Obama supporter who’s visited him vs. zero McCain supporters.
•    My favorite quote from a voter today: “We’re voting the Democratic ticket.  He’s 65 years old and this is the first presidential election he’s voting in.  That tells you something.”

Before coming to VA, I’d heard that northern VA was full of minorities who’d moved out to the suburbs from DC.  This afternoon, we found these fascinating “pockets” – mini neighborhoods of a 1-2 dozen houses that were all Asian last names. This is common in CA but I wasn’t expecting it here. I tried to go for the East Asian houses and it was interesting to note that the Columbia students had assigned a young Indian-American to cover the neighborhood that was literally 75+% Indian.

The one “negative” part of the day was getting into an argument with an elderly woman who’d already voted for McCain.  She wouldn’t leave us alone and got progressively nastier, crossing the line when she told one of my partners that he must not love his 3 kids if he’s supporting Obama.   This is an extreme case, but one can connect a campaign’s attitude to the attitude of its supporters.  As with McCain/Palin, this woman had nothing positive to say, not even anything good to say about her candidate – just nasty attacks.

Ending tally for the day – approx 170 doors knocked.  Enough useful conversations to feel successful.  Back at it again tomorrow!

Toto, we’re not in California anymore

Today was my first ever experience knocking on doors for a political campaign.

For those who haven’t heard, I’ve flown out from SF to Arlington, VA to make the biggest difference I can in a place where every single vote is critical.  Because Arlington is  close to DC  ( i.e. abundant with volunteers), the  campaign has assigned me to the Ashburn office in Loudoun County, about 40 minutes west near the Dulles Airport.

Loudoun County is not just another county in a major battleground state, its ground zero for the fight.  It’s a microcosm of the statewide drama and according to one of my canvassing partners today (a volunteer who drives 1 hr+ from DC every day), it’s THE swing county.  Take all the other counties in VA and they’ll split dead even.  As Loudoun County swings, so does the state apparently.

The “split county” profile was evident right away. Just on the drive over, the number and size of the McCain/Palin signs was a wake up call.  I think I’ve seen one of those in the whole Bay Area.
The Ashburn office is small and lightly staffed compared to the SF Obama office where I’ve spent many hours these last weeks.  Granted, it’s a Friday morning but Monday afternoon in SF was *packed*, requiring at least 3 phone bank captains to handle the load.

In a split county, note that there’s going to be a lot fewer volunteers available and many of the ones that were there were from out of state.  *But remember*, this is one of probably 6 Obama offices in Loudoun County.  And the suburban commuter demographics would mean far fewer people around during a weekday.

That’s why our canvassing today only targeted 65 and older  folks, people who might be home  in the middle of  a Friday.

To keep this reasonably short, let’s just say the area really represented the demographic forces and political divide in Virginia.  Just about every Obama/Biden yard sign was matched by a McCain/Palin sign.  Often “dueling” across the street from each other.  And in this surprising case, fighting on the same front lawn:

By demographic forces, I mean the newer, younger suburban communities vs the older, more “rural” areas.  Just in our small canvassing area we saw the range: McMansions with large yards, more “middle class” townhomes, and small ranch homes tucked away down a gravel road.  It’s the  huge growth in these suburbs in northern VA that’s cited as the reason VA may go blue this year.
Overall, the day went quickly and pleasantly – most people weren’t home but the ones who were home were always friendly.  I’ll cut this post short with the woman who really made my day:

I ended up catching a spry, 81 years young woman as she was heading to her car.  (slight paraphrasing) “Our whole family is voting for Obama.  That’s 16 votes for him!   My granddaughter is volunteering for Obama over in Fairfax.  We tried to go to his rally in Leesburg but never even got to security.  So we sat up on the lawn.  When we hear him speak, it sounds like what FDR wanted to do for the country.  We remember FDR.  You’re too young to know FDR.”  (emphasis mine)

A leader that inspires millions

This message from an Obama Regional Field Director is powerful and inspiring.  This country (and the world) needs nothing less than a leader that can inspire this kind of emotion and energy from millions of people.

(Thanks to fivethirtyeight.com for posting this)

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Stay calm – and BE RELENTLESS today. Get everyone motivated, educated, and into the field as quickly and as often as possible…

GET THEM COMFORTABLE WITH A BREAK-NECK PACE. They need to be the cool heads by the time GOTV rolls around…

Report your numbers like clock-work. Call me if you need me. Don’t stop until your last shift is confirmed for Sunday…

Barack really is expecting a lot out us – and there isn’t much else for him to do. He has placed this election in our hands at this point. It’s up to us now. We may never again have our hands on history quite like this again for as long as we live. That makes each hour so so precious. We can slack off, sleep in, and make excuses for the rest of our lives. But today – and for the next 3 weeks… whether we knew what we were getting into or not… we have ended up with people’s lives, livelihoods, and dreams for their children – all dependent on our performance day in and day out. This is our one chance at history… our one chance at perfection. Our one chance to live forever. So today – breathe this in… realize that your grandkids will be reading about you… realize that you will miss this feeling very very soon… and win every single hour.

Proud of you in advance for a big day…