I wanted to let you all know about a new environmental organization I've founded in West Virginia and ask for your help.

The biggest challenge over the next 50 years--in fact, the great challenge for my entire generation--will be fighting climate change.  It will be very hard--but we simply cannot afford to fail at this task.

One of the most important lessons from the 2008 election is that you have to compete everywhere--that you can't ignore large swaths of the country if you want to win.  The same is true of global warming.  We need a 50 State Strategy for climate change to look for emissions reductions in every block, community, and state.

West Virginia is the heart of coal country and the least environmentally-friendly state by nearly every ranking.  And it happens to  be my home state.  In an effort to make inroads into the state for the environmental movement, have a substantive effect on our greenhouse gas emissions, and improve the local economy, I just founded a new non-profit organization called The Light Switch.

The Light Switch is an energy efficiency education project that will help homeowners realize that they can save money by making simple changes--like making the switch to energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs.  This summer, we will knock on 18,000 doors--every home in Jefferson County, WV and deliver one free fluorescent light bulb to each home and coupons to bring the price down even more.  

Will you make a donation to The Light Switch and help bring energy efficiency and the fight against global warming to a state that desperately needs it??  

 I know times are tough right now, but the world can't afford to wait.  Your generous donation will pay for the light bulbs, for a field office, and the recruitment and training of our neighborhood volunteers.  Whatever you can spare--whether it's $100, $50, or $25 will go a long way toward making the world a greener place.

To contribute, to volunteer, or for more information, please visit our website at www.wvlightswitch.org  

Thank you,

Dan Conant

Executive Director
The Light Switch

PS--Will you contribute to The Light Switch at www.wvlightswitch.org?  

Bumped from the diaries -- Jonathan... This is a great look at a successful process for turning out college students to vote.

At my college in Pennsylvania this year, I personally designed the GOTV strategy for campus.  What we did was:

1) Set up a dorm captain system, modeled on the precinct captain system.  We had 1-2 people in charge of each dorm. They were told to register everyone, keep track of their leanings (on a 1-5 scale) and note whether anyone needed absentee applications.  

2) Convince people to not only register, but register in the college's town, so that they didn't have to worry about absentees.  

3) We tried to build a master email list of all liberal-leaning groups on campus (Dems, Students for Environmental Action, ACLU, etc) as well as a separate list of swing groups or ones to reach out to (the Catholic group, especially with Casey being Catholic, was the big one).  

4) Using this list, we sent a few reminder emails (about deadlines and Election Day).  More importantly, though, we made handwritten, colorful notes that we sent to everybody reminding them to vote.  Don't underestimate this part.  For a college student, mail is rare.  Colleges aren't recruiting us anymore, so that one yellow piece of paper will really brighten our day.  Also, the handwritten part was vital.  We were asking not for votes in general, but Sally's personal support and help.

5) We coordinated to have 1 essay per week published, on a different topic, in the campus newspaper.

6) We have a debate every semester between the College Dems and College Repubs.  This fall, we had it less than a week before Election Day.  It got everybody really excited before the last push.

7) The night before the Election Day, dorm captains slipped reminder fliers under the door of every Dem-leaner in the building.

As a result of our efforts, we actually had a higher turnout in our precinct in 2006 than in 2004.  This may be due to the fact that more people were registered in Meadville rather than at home, so perhaps overall turnout for the student body wasn't as high, but the town still noticed.  I'm really proud of what the group accomplished.  There are a few areas I think we could improve in, though.

1) I didn't keep as close a track on the dorm captains as I should have.  So how much work they did, I'm honestly not sure, particularly with the dorm storm the night before Election Day.

2) Our attempts to create a database of students kind of fell flat.  Official voting rolls are extremely out of date (as is the case with any college town).  What we would have liked to do is come up with a list, sorted by class, of who is registered and who is not, who is conservative and who is liberal.  That way, when 2008 rolls around, we know who's still on campus, and who we need to register and we're not rebuilding.  

3) We didn't have as many bodies as we needed, despite the large turnout early on. This made it particularly hard to help the county party out with canvassing down there.  We thought that assigning tasks at the first meeting would keep people active, and it did, but not as much as we would have liked.

I'd love to hear other College Dems' stories or suggestions/ideas.  Hopefully ours has been helpful.