Now this feels like California. . .

"Sometimes it doesn't matter if you turned your paper in late. Sometimes the next two weeks matter more than any paper you've ever written." 

-Van Jones, speaking to UC Berkeley students yesterday

Sixteen days left until the election. That's 384 hours to educate as many Californians as possible about why it's in their own self interest to vote NO on Prop 23.

I was losing a bit of motivation at the beginning of this week and experiencing the burnout that repeatedly hits every organizer. This week was thus the perfect time for October training, when everyone in Green Corps comes together from across the country to take a deep breath, debrief, recalculate, and hang out. It felt great to share all of our experiences thus far and start to truly understand what this year's all about. We held our training in the conference room of the beautiful Sierra Club Headquarters in San Francisco. 

They said it would happen - but we really are becoming a 30-person family. We cooked a big group dinner of daal, salad and apple crisp at Henry's groovy art deco home last night and happily sprawled out on his carpet and couches.

Those on the east coast have been working on an entirely different style of campaign, which unfortunately wasn't very well planned by the NGO hosting them. The upshot is that they've learned a lot about higher-level planning and strategy development, and have had an opportunity to be creative while we have not. Our campaign is all about the numbers of course.

Living in a dream

My day to day activities of contacting voters and training volunteers to contact voters are somewhat monotonous, and I am missing the intellectual exercises of analysis and synthesis. With that said, I wouldn't trade these two months for anything. Every day I have to take a reality check, because my life is becoming more surreal by the day. 

You may remember from previous entries how I had recruited a retired 60s hippy folk singer whose mother had written "Little Boxes," and that she had written a cute song for our rallies. Well, the song has now been recorded by a studio in Oakland, with Grammy-winner Laurie Lewis on lead vocals! Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyjYY82uOIM 

I'm not really sure how to handle how proud I feel; I will definitely have a lot of self-reflection to do after this campaign.

That was probably my highlight of this week, however it has some stiff competition. Last Sunday was 10.10.10, the international day of action on climate change by Bill McKibben's 350.org. Over 30 "work parties" were held in Berkeley, with people installing solar panels, planting community gardens, and launching 1000 new cyclists to take real action on climate change. I was in charge of coordinating the aerial 350 photo; in places all across the world, people spell out 350 - the atmospheric parts per million concentration of carbon dioxide we must achieve to reverse catastrophic climate change. My graphic design intern Devon is also a great photographer, and I secured an apartment building roof for us to be on top of to take the picture. We laid out the shape before-hand, and then I radioed with Claire to get everyone in position. We even spelled "NO on 23" in lawn signs; it was so cool! Another very proud moment.

Berkeley residents show their commitment to fighting climate change on 10.10.10.

From there things got even better. On Wednesday we all went to the CREDO office in San Francisco to have a huge phonebank and test out the predictive dialing system. In 2 hours, we contacted over 1700 voters! It felt amazing, and even more-so because the CREDO office is high up in the federal reserve building smack in the middle of downtown San Francisco. It has floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the city. 

The CREDO staff are really cool, as I think I've said before, but watching the CEO play ping-pong with my classmates really hammered that one home. Their political department is full of hilarious full sized cutouts of politicians, from the Governator to Sarah Palin (with a magic marker mustache . . . it's no mystery what side of the political spectrum these guys are on!).

On Thursday we had the opportunity to volunteer at the Rainforest Action Network's (RAN) 25th Birthday party and fundraiser. It's called REVEL, and is known by those in the environmental community as one of the best annual fundraisers in the country. I was really interested to see what big donor events like this were like, and RAN certainly did not disappoint. 

As a volunteer, my job was to stand by the elevators on the ground floor with my friend Sam and usher party-goers up to the 4th floor where the event was. I only had to do this for and hour and a half, and got to enjoy the min. $250-ticket party for free. I've never been to a party like this. There was an open bar, an impressive silent auction, and when I walked in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was standing in front of me. He was being honored at the event, along with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, and singer Bonnie Raitt. Bobby Weir of The Grateful Dead even played. A few of my friends worked up the courage to talk to these big-wigs, but I was content to soak it all in. After all, I didn't even know who Bonnie Raitt was until someone looked at me exasperatedly and began singing "Something To Talk About" and I clued in. Her red hair is quite impressive; apparently she's always been quite the environmental activist.

RFK Jr. practices environmental law and has been an awesome advocate for clean energy in DC. Ironically he opposed the Cape Wind project and has come under a lot of fire for it; I guess even the Kennedys can exhibit NIMBYism. His speech was good, and also raised the hairs on the back of my neck because despite his vocal waver he sounds exactly like JFK and RFK.

Green Corps volunteers at REVEL.

RFK Jr. addresses the party-goers. 

The gorgeous venue at the Metreon in SF. You can just see Michael, the ping-pong-playing CEO of CREDO above the #6 card on the middle table. 

Check out RAN's Flickr stream for more pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainforestactionnetwork/ 

Art imitates life

Just yesterday it came out that James Cameron is donating $1 million to the NO on Prop 23 campaign. This is awesome. The theme of Avatar was pretty obvious, and where the influence of his artistry wanes in the real world he's backing it up with real support. Check out the LA Times article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/james-cameron-avatar-environmental-prop-23.html

Donations to the NO on 23 campaign now top $20 million, almost doubling what's been put in on the Yes side. This is really encouraging, and a Reuters/IPSOS poll from the beginning of October has us up to 49% NO, 37% YES and 14% undecided.

I am hopeful, but it is far too early to count our chickens and we have to put everything possible into these last two weeks. Wish us luck.