October 6, 2007

ANNOUNCING: The FRC Straw Poll Voter Drive

+ Download the FRC Voter Drive Form +
UPDATE: In just a few hours on Sunday, and with just three people, we collected nearly 40 votes for Huckabee using the FRC Straw Poll Voter Drive form. At our Meetup this upcoming Sunday we're planning to have 10-15 people and to collect several hundred votes. Take advantage of the form and join us.

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Later this month (October 19th-20th) the Family Research Council will be holding their Washington Briefing event and Republican Presidential Straw Poll. This poll will be crucial in cementing Huckabee's place as the candidate for social conservatives. As David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network has said:
The Family Research Council straw poll will be held on Saturday, October 20th. [Huckabee] must do well here. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that he may need to win it to be seen as the candidate for social conservatives. This Value Voters Summit that FRC is putting on will have all the social conservative heavyweights in town and it really will, more than any other event so far this year, give a real sense as to who social conservatives will rally around. If Huckabee wins it, he can lay claim to that title.
What is more, all of the most influential conservative leaders — like Dobson and Don Wildmon of AFA — are waiting until after the FRC Straw Poll to make public endorsements.

In other words, along with fundraising, the FRC Straw Poll is the most crucial effort for Huckabee supporters — and we have just two weeks.

As K Street Mole has recognized, this is an opportunity for grassroots mobilization. It's an opportunity for Huckabee supporters to converge upon the event itself and to thoughtfully and effectively influence the conservative activists and leaders who will be there. This will be money and time well spent.

But even if you can't do that (or even if you are doing that) there's more you can do. Even though Brett and I are in Oregon, far from DC and hardly a key primary state, we can influence this election for Huckabee by helping to ensure that he wins the FRC Straw Poll. Why? Because anyone can vote online by making a $1 donation to the Family Research Council. If you haven't already, do it today.

More important than your own vote (or your own trip to DC) is getting your family and friends to join you. That's why we're announcing the FRC Straw Poll Voter Drive. Brett has designed a beautiful and effective form (with instructions) for signing people up and then following up with them. And it's designed to recruit votes and event attendees.

Our Portland Area Meetup Group already has events planned (e.g. at church, meetings, large gatherings) to sign people up. If you don't have a Meetup event planned yet, this is a great one. You can view ours as an example by clicking here.

We think everyone who considers themselves a Huckabee supporter should join us in the FRC Straw Poll Voter Drive. Fellow bloggers, please blog about this and keep your readers update on your progress to keep them motivated. This is a crucial effort that is well worth our time, money, and energy. God bless you all!
+ Download the FRC Voter Drive Form +

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just voted in the FRC straw poll and I plan to post about on my blog. I can't wait to see how Huckabee does.

Anonymous said...

This is a great idea and I just went and voted. My wife is also a Huckabee supporter, so we tried to do this same under her name. Unfortunately, it wouldn't allow a second vote as the site apparently determined we were the same person, even though we went through the process a second time and used her credit card. Any thoughts on this?

Brett Harris said...

Mark, I don't know what to tell you. We've voted for all four eligible voters in our household and it seems like they all worked. We even used the same credit card. It might be based on your computer's IP address, in which case you could try voting for her on a different computer.

Anonymous said...

Blue on black... not a good look. Very little contrast. Not spectacular for old peoples' eyes. Nice blog otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Mark H,

You might try deleting the cookie cache on your computer. The FRC website may be using a cookie to determine who you are.

Larry

Anonymous said...

Guys - there may be a bit of a problem for Huckabee at the Washington Briefing. Straw Poll voting begins on Friday and ends at 1pm on Saturday. Huckabee doesn't not speak until almost noon on Saturday. He is the last candidate to speak before the Straw Poll closes ... a lot of people are likely to already have voted by then (I suspect a lot of people will be gone by then). I'm just guessing, but this could make our getting as many votes as possible ahead of time even more crucial.

Anonymous said...

correction to above:

"doesn't speak" ... sorry for the double negative in previous comment. Typing too fast.

Jimmy Morris said...

Hi Bret & Alex,

Thanks so much for all your efforts. For some reason, FRC website is allowing me to "vote" as many times as I want to. I emailed them to find out if they are counting duplicate entries and if they are combining the online votes with the actual Washington Briefing attendees' votes, but I have not received a reply. Since you are helping to head up the online effort, can you try to contact FRC and verify the results of our efforts? Thanks!

Brett Harris said...

Jimmy, I thought the same thing (i.e. that the system allowed you to vote multiple times), but then I read the fine print on the "Thank You For Voting" page. Once you have voted the wording changes to say "It appears you have already voted." However, because the page looks just the same (unless you read it) it appears you can vote multiple times.

Anonymous said...

If you delete your cookies and keep voting will the computer tabulate all the votes? If so you can delete cookies and vote as many times as you can

Brett Harris said...

Anonymous: Absolutely not. We are not going to cheat Mike Huckabee into winning the Values Voter Straw Poll. Each person must vote ONE (1) time for themselves and then help find other people to vote ONE (1) time as well. We can win without cheating if we are willing to do the work of finding voters and getting them to the (online straw) polls.

Anonymous said...

Here's the new promo video from FRC

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4qsZIP732XY

HuckabeE-Harmony style...

Jimmy Morris said...

Brett,

Thanks for the clarification. I was also able to talk to someone at FRC, and they verified with their IT staff that only one vote per member was registering on the final tally. Thankfully, this is not a straw poll that can be cheated on, and I ditto the comments about the necessity of winning without cheating!

GO MIKE!

Anonymous said...

anyone have any idea how mike is doing in the frc poll , I know its a tough question but I'm just asking for a guestimate