[CUGreens] Minutes for 10/25/00

[Trevor Stone <tstone@flwyd.dhs.org>]

The election draws near!  If you have any free time, please help restore
democracy to the United States!

For the next two weeks our efforts will be coordinated with the efforts
of other groups on campus.  If you'd like to sign up for times and
activities, contact Ginger at gcassidy@mailcity.com  (Ginger, if I've
made any errors in dates and times here, let me know.)

All next week there will be Get Out The Vote tabling in front of Hellems
and Baby Does (in the UMC).  Tabling will go from 10-3.  The emphasis will
be on informing students where and when they can vote -- we will have a
map of the precincts in which a lot of students live and the locations at
which those precincts vote.  Although the campuswide group is nominally
nonpartisan, there will be partisan literature on the tables, including
Green lit.  We'll also provide information on early voting and possibly
organize some shuttles to the county courthouse for students who'll be
too busy on Tuesday the 7th.

On Sunday evening before the election (11/5), we'll be doing a massive
chalking and postering effort around campus.  (3pm to 6pm.)  Afterwords,
there will be a large phone banking effort, phoning tons of students.
Again, we're allowed to encourage them to vote for our pet candidates
and issues.

On Monday, 11/6 and election day (11/7) tabling will continue at Hellems,
Baby Doe's, the fountain, and the terrace by the ATMs.  I'm trying to
set up a table by the Engineering Center.  There will also be an open
mic at the fountain from 10-2 for people to encourage people to vote.
On Tuesday we'll have people with precinct map sandwitch boards walking
around campus.  I encourage everyone to get some green Jolly Ranchers
and hand them out to people as you encourage them to vote Green.

Next Monday (10/30) there will be a touch-base meeting at 6pm in
Hellems 193.  Our group will congregate at Baby Doe's at 7:30 (or after
the meeting ends, which shouldn't be much later) to chalk pro-Green
messages all over campus.

If you don't have time to get involved in the big effort, at the very
least make sure your friends and neighbors get out and vote.

-= Other Stuff =-

Not directly linked to the coalition efforts, here are some notes and
observations:

Dubya is leading Gore by about 11% in Colorado polls.  If people tell you
that they'd vote for Nader but they don't want Bush to win, tell them that
Bush will probably win Colorado's electoral votes anyway, so that a vote for
Gore doesn't really help Gore at all.

Gore's finally acknowledged Nader's existance and is running ads which try to
attract Nader supporters in states with tight races.  He isn't really in
attack  mode, though.  Asked if he wanted Nader to drop out of the race, he
said he'd rather have Bush drop.  (I say they should both drop and have Nader,
Browne, and Buchanan fight it out, but hey.)

Wear your buttons/shirts/etc.  Encourage your friends to get buttons and
bumper stickers, their value decreases significantly on November 8th.
(We'll have these at the tabling efforts; the main box of stuff is in
Brett's office.)

Looking for something creative for Halloween?  Carve a pumpkin with
"VOTE NADER" or a Green sunflower.  Get a Bush or Gore mask and come
up with a satirical costume.  (Some possibilities the back end of a
donkey for Gore, combining two masks into the Bushgore alien.  Or you
could keep with the macabre nature of Halloween and be something like
democracy's executioner.)

The Colorado Nader office would like to no if we're interested in holding
up Nader (and Forthofer) signs at key intersections on election day
(Broadway and 16th, frex.)  If you'd like to do this, contact me and
I'll pass it on to the CO Nader group for coordination.

If everyone on this list convinces 10 other people to vote for Nader,
we'll get over 1,000 additional votes.  On your next call home, talk to
your parents about Nader.  At the next house party you go to, talk to
the encouragable drunk people.  It's what grassroots is all about.

The mock presidential debate on Tuesday was poorly attended, most of the
people there were members of one of the groups in question.  The Greens
made a pretty strong case, the Libertarians were very entertaining, and
the Republicans and Democrats seemed to have splits between their own
views and their candidates views.  We learned late in the process that
the four groups must split a $90 tech fee.  This shouldn't be a problem.

The congressional candidate forum yesterday afternoon was pretty well
attended and was recorded by Independent Media and cable Channel 8,
which will air it several times before the election.  Mark Udall was
unable to attend because Congress is finishing appropriations bills.
The audience showed lots of support for Ron Forthofer while several of
David Baker's responses were well received as well.  Carolyn Cox managed
to convey that "Allow workers to invest privately instead of having
Social Security" was her entire platform.  Although Udall supporters
were supposed to be present at the reception to answer questions, they
left almost as quickly as Ms. Cox.

We also discussed the future of the CU Greens group after the election.
Obviously we won't continue to be CU Students for Green Party Candidates,
but there are other Green issues that need work outside of elections.
Some possibilities are political discussions (among our group and
among student groups generally) and letter writing campaigns (election
reform, frex).  We'll want to talk more about this after the election.
(Tom, do we have the room reserved for the 8th or for the 15th?)

Hope you're all well and not overworked,
=-=-=-= Trevor Stone =-=-= a.k.a. Flwyd =-=-= tstone @ flwyd.dhs.org =-=-=-=
Computer science, eclectic philosophy, games, wits, esotericism, weird hats.
http://www.flwyd.dhs.org/                Thou jarring rough-hewn malignancy!
Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune
 tellers take economists seriously?
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