(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign and this post is part of a live series from the No on 8 SF offices)

This morning Speaker Nancy Pelosi came by the San Francisco No on Prop 8 offices to surprise several hundred volunteers who were for training.  She stopped at the office after church and her good friend Phyllis Lyon was with her.  The two (and Del) go way back to the days when Pelosi was a young up and coming San Francisco politician and are close to this day.  I am still trying to track down a great picture someone showed me of Pelosi giving Phyllis a big kiss on the cheek.

Pelosi recalled the time she called Del Martin and it took a few minutes for Del to figure out who was calling.  She repeated that it was Nancy a few times, but Del said “I’m sorry, I don’t know who this is.”  Pelosi finally said “Del, it’s the speaker.”, which prompted a big “Oooh, hi Nancy.”

Unfortunately, it was hard to hear the rest of the Speaker’s remarks.  She didn’t have a mic and I was towards the back.  Heather Cronk from NOI is out here volunteering and captured it all on her flip camera.  It is hard to hear and a bit shaky.  Flip it for the video and more pictures.

Volunteers are here for the final training of the evening.  They are signing up for shifts on election day at voting locations all over the Bay Area.  Thousands have come through this office over the weekend.  The same scene is repeating at offices across the state.

Staffers are busy allocating literature for election day, having to re-calibrate their estimates given the flood of volunteers coming into the offices.  The staff is a mix of Californians and out of state veterans of the MA marriage fight and other GLTB battles.  They have been sleeping (a little) on futons and couches and everyone is a little in awe of the scale of this campaign.  For some of the staff this is officially “vacation” time as they have taken a leave from their day jobs to join the campaign trail.

Speaking of staff, the Oakland team organizing the African-American literature drop returned recently, exhausted but with smiles on their faces.  They had a great turnout and covered a ton of turf.

On the more good news front, the campus program continues to expand.  There are GOTV activities on 167 campuses across the state, from small rural community colleges to the big UCs.  That is a lot logistics to sort out to get literature to all of those locations, but that is a great problem to have.

Only 48 hours until the polls close.

Phyllis and Pelosi sitting in the crowd.

Office packed listening to Pelosi

Speaker Pelosi

More photos up on my No on 8 flickr photoset.

(Written from earlier today)

So here I am at Monkey Business in Fullerton to do some phone banking for our local candidates, including for my husband Gary Pritchard, who is running for California State Senate.

The 33rd district covers a huge amount of area, including Anaheim, Anaheim Hills, Fullerton, Villa Park, Orange, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Aliso Viejo, Buena Park, Tustin, Silverado, Irvine, Santa Ana, Lake Forest, Coto de Caza and Foothill Ranch.  I like to call the district map, “Rexi”.  

The other two candidates I’m calling for are John MacMurray for Assembly and Florice Hoffman for Orange Unified School Board.  All of these are progressive Democrats working hard to help turn Orange County a bit bluer this year.

And today we also have Karen Haluza, who is a Democrat running for Fullerton City Council.  Haluza has been hit rather hard by the local Republicans in some nasty mailers.  You always know you have a chance when they start sending out the hit pieces.

This is our last great push to get the votes out for the amazing local candidates and my chance to do more than just blog on behalf of Gary’s campaign.  It’s the local campaigns that can have such a tremendous impact on the lives of voters but it can also help grow some bluer grass in the heart of a Red County.

The more Democrats that run, especially in non-partisan races, the more other Democrats feel comfortable to come out for what they believe in and to encourage others to run as proud progressive Democrats.  People need to know they have an option, even the redest of red districts.

Now the 33rd district in California is huge.  It is bigger than any of the Congressional districts in Orange County and covers over 500,000 registered voters.  The registration layout is quite discouraging as well for any Democratic candidate and it’s the reason it is so difficult to get Democrats to run in Orange County.  It is an uphill battle as they say.

So, 29% of those registered voters are Democratic, 48% Republican and 19% Declined to State.  Yes, it’s that bad.  But if Democrats don’t run then how can Democrats win?  We have to run in every seat possible, it’s how we build the party even in the very red districts like the 33rd.

Unfortunately, we still have a major expense to pay for that we’ve not yet raised enough money to do so and that’s the ballot statement.  It’s quite confusing to many to try to explain that we paid for the first half of the ballot statement in August of this year but because the Republican did not buy a ballot statement we must come up with the other $7,000 plus to cover the costs of the printing.  It’s a crazy rule and it really does help the lesser party in the area.  And that would be Democrats

So, I’m asking to help us raise the money we need to pay this ballot statement and we’re unfortunately a good five thousand dollars away from that.  Can you help?  Donate here if you can.

Gary and Charlotte!

SO, here I go, phone banking for Gary, he’s sitting next to me with his very own list calling on behalf of all these great candidates.  Every vote counts when you’ve races like these and every donation helps!

Yes we can!