Obama Volunteers Kick Off New Campaign

President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign battle cry -- "fired up and ready to go" -- took on new life Thursday as many of his volunteers kicked off a new drive to help the incoming administration pass a bold, progressive agenda.

 

Many supporters got together at some dozen “Fired Up and Ready to Go” gatherings in the San Fernando Valley, which organizers said were “to celebrate our big win, brainstorm next steps for our organizing, and kick off efforts to help Obama make bold, progressive changes.”

 

“We want to show Congress that Obsama absolutely has a mandate from the people to make changes in

Washington

and in the country,” said Suzanne Strachan, who hosted one of the Valley gatherings at her In the Mudra Yoga & Dance Studio in

Canoga

Park

.

On Thursday Valley for Obama campaign leaders also announced they were holding phone bank operations Sunday to make calls to Georgia voters on behalf of Democratic Senate candidate Jim Martin who is in a Dec. 2 runoff in that state against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.

“Everyone in the Obama campaign is committed to staying involved,” said Peter Rothenberg of Northridge, co-chair of the Valley for Obama campaign.

 

Sunday’s phone banking is in response to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, who in a mass e-mail sent to former workers Wednesday, asked how much time they could spare for four missions integral to Obama’s effort to transform his victory into a broader political movement.

 

Campaigning for progressive state and local candidates like Martin was one of those missions.

Meanwhile, Thursday night’s gatherings – 1,300 throughout the country -- were organized by MoveOn.org, which says it mobilized almost a million volunteers to help put Obama in the White House.

 

“We need to make sure that Obama’s progressive agenda – on education, the economy, health care, the environment and the war are acted on by quickly by Congress,” said maintenance business owner Mary Lee-Dysart of Canoga, who hosted one of the gatherings.

 

The new movement answers one of the inevitable questions of the two weeks since Obama’s election: what's next for the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who registered new voters, made get-out-the vote phone calls, sold baked goods, and made his election an obsession.

 

Rothenberg said local Obama volunteers received recognition at a celebration earlier this week from the state campaign which announced that

California

workers had been responsible for half of all the phone calls made during the campaign to other states in other states.

 

“It was simply one of the most remarkable achievements of the campaign,” said Rothenberg. “Toward the end (of the campaign), our volunteers were making between three and four million calls a day.”