Here is the article I promised:
From today's San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, July 25, 2004):
'Californians road-tripping to register Nevada voters'
'Home thought safe for Kerry, so focus is on swing states'
Las Vegas -- His shirt soaked with sweat after 21/2 hours of walking door-to-door in the 107-degree morning heat of Las Vegas, Santa Clara construction worker Dan Yoshida put down his clipboard and counted how many Nevadans he had registered to vote.
Three.
He had caravanned 10 hours with 24 other Bay Area residents to this most unsexy suburban corner of northwest Vegas to offer help in a "swing" state where polls say the presidential election is too close to call. For three voters? And yet he was smiling.
Polls are giving Democratic Sen. John Kerry a comfortable lead over President Bush in California, so a growing number of the Bay Area's left-of- center types feel there's no point staying home and preaching to the converted.
Their solution: Hook up with one of a host of new organizations, like last weekend's organizer, DrivingVotes.org, that are coordinating trips to places like Nevada, where their efforts are needed more; Bush beat Democrat Al Gore in Nevada by a shade under 21,000 votes in 2000.
Nevada's prize is five electoral votes, which could be the election's difference, as the mantra goes in the 17 states where the vote is too close to tally on either campaign's tote board.
Tilting that margin toward Kerry is what is inspiring California road- trippers like Yoshida. He was one of 35 Californians, including nine from Southern California, who packed into vans Friday for a 72-hour roadie, many splitting the $68-a-night accommodations at the Howard Johnson by the airport, far from the Vegas strip.
"I was tired of sitting around with my friends saying, 'We're pissed off, but what are we going to do about it?' " said Yoshida, who just finished a 4 1/2-year hitch in the Marines. "This got me off my butt. Yeah, this was definitely worth it. It makes you feel like you're doing something."
Coordinated separately by Bay Area pro-Kerry groups and national progressive outfits like America Coming Together, Swing the State and the League of Independent Voters, a growing number of Californians are finding ways to turn out like-minded voters outside their home state. Most are under 35 and heretofore politically disengaged, and they find electoral politics loathsome.
Mobilizing large force
Yet other than New Yorkers headed to the Midwest, no state is exporting more help to swing states than California, said Adrienne Maree Brown, program director of the League of Young Voters, which is encouraging such road trips to register voters.
"California is surrounded by swing states," said Brown, co-editor of the league's inspiration, the how-to book, "How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-boring Guide to Power."
"It's like progressive people have finally gotten the message that they have to lose those elitist attitudes that are there on the coasts," Brown said. "A lot of people talk about, 'We got to help the people rise up,' but they forget the 'people' part of it. There's progressive people in Akron, Ohio. Now people are trying to connect with them."
"Everybody says swing states are where the action is," said Carol Butler, an El Cerrito resident who is coordinating swing state expeditions for Bay Area volunteers for Kerry. The plan is to visit Nevada regularly until November, including a fall pitch to college students for another road trip to Las Vegas.
"John Kerry is going to win California whether we stay here and work for him or not," Butler said.
Not so fast, said Bush campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, who said there are 75,000 volunteers for Bush in California. Campaign officials stress that Bush hasn't written off the state and confirm that he plans to visit Southern California in mid-August.
Republican National Committee spokesman Yier Shi said he knew of no similar effort to export conservative help from red to swing states. "We have enough volunteers in the swing states," he said.
Quipped California Republican Party spokeswoman Karen Hanretty: "Maybe Republicans (from California) are smart enough not to walk around Las Vegas in 100-degree heat."
Hanretty dismissed the border-crossing effort as the work of "the more liberal voters from the Bay Area who are going to support Kerry because he's not the other candidate. But I don't see a lot of enthusiasm for Kerry himself. "
Indeed, the Vegas road-trippers didn't encounter a lot of Kerry love from Nevadans. A poster inside the America Coming Together offices where the California volunteers gathered asked, "Why the hell did you come all the way to Nevada?" Underneath, one respondent wrote, "I'm angry." They're hearing the same response on the street.
"People are mostly saying, 'Get rid of Bush,' " said Seiji Carpenter, a San Francisco Mission District resident, as he snagged a handful of registrations outside a Food 4 Less.
Getting results
Whatever the motivator, Kerry's Nevada operatives and other progressive leaders there have appreciated the help. Of the 47 volunteers trying to identify and register sympathetic voters Saturday in Vegas, more than two- thirds were from California. They helped register 162 new voters and made face- to-face contact with 341 others -- a boon in a region where the party registration is as close as the polls.
"The response from California has been amazing," said Anna Franker, field director for the Nevada chapter of America Coming Together, a year-old organization formed to register and turn out progressive voters. "If each person who comes out has five conversations with voters, then over the next few months, that's what's going to swing the election."
Franker was a bit overenthusiastic in her Saturday morning pep talk to volunteers, saying, "If you're talking to someone who's a Bush supporter, don't register them. The Bush people will take care of them." An America Coming Together spokesman quickly corrected her, saying they would register everyone, regardless of party affiliation.
For Bay Area road-trippers, the side benefit of these Nevada jaunts -- besides the after-campaigning joys of the Strip -- has been an education in talking to voters outside the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley progressive bubble. They ran into the fiercely independent "Nevaditude" of people like 68- year-old Mark Connor, who answered the door shirtless and told Yoshida, "I don't think either of them is worth my damn vote."
As the Californians walked through Connor's working-class neighborhood Saturday, where 1,200-foot, 3-bedroom homes were selling for $172,500 and front-yard auto repair was not uncommon, some of the Californians were surprised at people's concerns.
"I thought people were going to be upset about the war, but they were more concerned about health care and housing," said James Moed, a 29-year-old San Franciscan. "This has been an eye-opening experience."
E-mail Joe Garofoli at
jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.
