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45 °F Forecast | Road Cams Monday, January 24, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend October 17, 2004 Jason Kravitz, a 23-year-old field organizer for the Kerry presidential campaign in Jackson County, answers a question before the start of John Edwards� town hall meeting in Medford on Wednesday. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Vote-getters: Young Democrat keeps Kerry faithful running at full speed TUESDAY AFTERNOON, DEMOCRATIC PARTY HEADQUARTERS : There’s a churn of people through the door at a former bridal boutique on East Main Street where the Democrats have set up shop. The visitors pick up tickets for John Edwards’ town hall forum on health care. They buy bumper stickers, campaign buttons and yard signs. They want to volunteer. About a dozen campaign workers, most wearing name tags that identify them as volunteers, respond to requests and answer a chorus of jangling phones. Voices rise to compete with Main Street’s traffic sounds, which surge each time the door opens. Gray-haired ladies confer over paperwork, while youthful volunteers dart around them to fetch brochures from boxes stacked along a wall. The Portland office of the Oregon Democratic Party calls this the "Medford Machine," excited by what they see as important inroads in a longtime conservative county. Jason Kravitz, a slight 23-year-old with close-cropped hair, slouchy jeans and New Balance tennis shoes, is at the wheel. He’s a field organizer with Carry Oregon, a statewide organization funded by the Democratic National Committee. With a cordless phone propped on his shoulder, Kravitz listens to a conference call among state, local and national organizers putting together Edwards’ Wednesday visit. He raises a hand, fingers outstretched, and mouths "five more minutes" to a volunteer who needs his attention. Five minutes later, he’s still on the phone, padding back and forth across a stained carpet between his office, a cubicle at the back of the narrow room, to the middle of the banner- and bunting-bedecked space. He looks over a list of firefighters who support Kerry and nods to the coordinator trying to get them to the Edwards event at the request of the national campaign team. Advertisement The call wraps up another five minutes later. "This visit will rally the troops," Kravitz says of Edwards’ pending arrival. "I’ve seen the glow in the volunteers’ eyes." While Edwards’ trip to Medford has generated added energy and activity at the office, Kravitz expected this to be a busy week anyway. "This is when this office is most abuzz, with the ballots going out," he says. "The past three and a half months have all been getting ready for when the ballots go out." Kravitz arrived in Medford in mid-July, one of about 1,000 field organizers the Kerry campaign spread across the country. There are 37 in Oregon, mostly in the populous northwest corner. The early Southern Oregon effort went so well that in September another organizer, Damon Elder, joined him here to focus on Josephine County. Originally from Santa Barbara, Calif., Kravitz earned a degree in international affairs and economics from Northeastern University in Boston. He had a congressional internship with Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, then landed a job in the "foreign policy shop" at Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office. He calls Washington, D.C., home. A Boston volunteer with Kerry’s 2002 U.S. Senate campaign, he wanted to spend this summer on the ground with voters. "I wanted to get out in the country," he says. "I didn’t want to be behind a desk in Washington in the most important election I’ve seen. I wanted to be part of a movement for positive change." He thought he might be sent to Arizona or New Mexico, but was assigned to Oregon, a place he’d never been. He didn’t even know where Medford was, he says. Jackson County Democrats were gearing up for a big election, too, says Jean Maack, a Medford activist with the party since the late ’80s. The central office, a hastily assembled collection of plastic chairs and battered tables covered with red and blue plastic, usually opens in August for the run-up to the vote. In this tight election year it opened in April. "We’ve always had someone in from out of state," she says of the organizers sent in to rally campaign workers. "He [Kravitz] has been quite exceptional." With his help, local Democrats set up phone banks and, in the early weeks of organizing, got out more calls to prospective voters than did the party’s offices in Portland, she says. Kravitz credits the grassroots group Rogue Valley for Kerry, which came together this spring, with helping him hit the ground running. He orchestrates more than 600 active volunteers in Jackson, Josephine, Klamath and Curry counties, tapping the especially willing to serve as coordinators. Jane Maynard, an Ashland retiree who worked with volunteers for 20 years at Head Start, joined Rogue Valley for Kerry in April and now serves as a volunteer coordinator. "I was concerned with the state of the world and U.S. action in it," she says. "Rather than sit and moan, I decided I would do something about it." Today, she’s poring over lists of volunteers and a to-do list of work needed at the Edwards event, making sure every person and every job has a match. At 4 p.m. she’s still grabbing bites of lunch — a sandwich — between tasks. She and Kravitz review the script that canvassers will follow as they go door-to-door to drum up support for Democrats and encourage supporters to vote. That crew will arrive around 4:30 p.m. "Everyone’s vision is clear. He tells us what we need to do and how to do it better," Maynard says of Kravitz. The canvassers’ script earns Kravitz’ nod. Maynard offers him an update on her afternoon of work. She still hasn’t confirmed that supportive firefighters will be on hand for Edwards’ Medford speech. She needs to reassure a driver that he doesn’t need to clean out his car; he’ll drive an official vehicle. "At least the phone has slowed down," she says, gesturing to a cordless handset that sits amid stacks of paper. Kravitz picks up the phone and hits a button. "It’s off the hook," he says. With the phone back online, Kravitz is off to track down the correct Kerry-Edwards pamphlets for the canvassers. Then he sits down with Morgan Reaves, an Ashland volunteer who’s overseeing the phone bank, to go over a new script. Callers have been encouraging people to register to vote, but with the registration deadline passed, now they’ll remind people to vote. They also collect information on people’s positions for the party’s confidential database. "It’s a challenge to keep the phone banks going while Edwards’ advance team is here," Kravitz says, gesturing to laptops and papers the team has spread across a table where phone-bank callers usually sit. As 5 p.m. nears, the rush for tickets and signs slows and callers start to arrive. They’ll work the phones till 8 p.m. "I can run around doing other things," Kravitz says. Tonight he’ll make sure all the party’s loyal helpers can get into Edwards’ town hall and gear up for an increasingly intense schedule of door-to-door visits to drum up support as ballots arrive in the mail. That starts what Kravitz describes as "a 17-day sprint" to get out the Democratic vote. When callers finish, Kravitz will take a conference call with field organizers around the state to review polls and track efforts. "I get out of here between 10:30 and 11" p.m., he says. "And I’m back around 8 a.m. "Every day is a grind, but the days fly by." Reach reporter Anita Burke at 776-4485, or e-mail [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers