Get Cracking June 14, 2012June 14, 2012 Republicans are working hard to make it harder for eligible voters to vote. And working hard to misinform those who do. And giving yet more power to the already rich and powerful. I know most Republicans will reflexively disagree — or simply close their ears. But that doesn’t make it any less true. (And we’re not supposed to talk about it. Did you read Paul Krugman on “the new political correctness?” Here, in the New York Times: “[E]ven talking about ‘the wealthy’ brings angry denunciations; we’re supposed to call them ‘job creators’. Even talking about inequality is ‘class warfare’. . . .“) I hate that it’s come to this. And if they win, with their completely backwards economic vision, I think it will hurt your personal finances even worse than eight years of Bush (six of them with a Republican Congress) did. WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT Well, for one thing, if you’re a Democrat or Independent or moderate Republican (remember those?), you can reject the current Republican candidates November 6. And you can volunteer. And you can listen to Joe Biden, who recently wrote: Friend — Something inspired you to step up and pitch in to support Barack and this campaign — whatever it was, whoever it was, I appreciate it. I bet you know one or two people, possibly dozens, who would follow your lead if you just asked. This is the time to do it: Last month, for the first time in this campaign, Mitt Romney and the Republicans brought in more money than we did. They’re just getting started. We’re up against an unprecedented tidal wave of special-interest spending, and we won’t survive it without people like you asking your family and friends to get involved, too. Here’s how: Create a personal grassroots fundraising page, then invite your friends and family to pitch in to help you reach your goal. You can tell them Joe put you up to this. Our grassroots fundraising program is all about growing this campaign the right way — person by person, donation by donation. And it’s how we’re going to win. The single best person to convince your friends and family to step up and own a piece of what happens in November is you. And since this campaign is only as strong as the people behind it, you’ll know you made a real difference when the last poll closes on Election Day. The next five months are going to be some of the toughest Barack and I have been through, and I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to know folks like you have our backs. Take it up a notch and get your friends on board: http://my.barackobama.com/Create-a-Grassroots-Fundraising-Page Thanks again for your support. Let’s go win this thing. Joe If you can get a million people to donate $10 each (and I know that, popular and energetic though you are, that may be tough), you’ll have raised for Obama as much money as one guy — Sheldon Adelson — is reported to be giving the other side alone. And one-fortieth as much as two guys, Charles and David Koch, plan to give. They have a lot more billionaires than we do, and their billionaires love Citizens United. Our billionaires are — rightly — appalled, and, so far at least, seem to favor unilateral disarmament, despite the potentially disastrous consequences. So, yes: set up that personal fundraising page, and get about the business of democracy. Millions of us are needed to balance the influence of a dozen of them. AND THIS JUST IN: Millions of us will pitch in, as we did in 2008, millions of new voters will be registered, as they were in 2008, more than a million volunteers will help turn people out to the polls, as they did in 2008 — and we will win. Because the Romney vision is to cut taxes on the rich (raising the deficit and national debt that much further) while cutting back drastically on everything else — just when the economy most needs government demand and the infrastructure is most primed for renewal. Cut back on everything else, that is, except for a trillion hike in military spending that we neither need nor can afford. I’m not making any of this up. It’s as nuts as the Bush economic stewardship was. The Romney jobs record as chief executive was to take Massachusetts from a poor 37th out of 50 in job creation down to a near-bottom 47th (today, under a Democrat, it’s shot up to more like 11th) at the same time as he left the state with the highest per capita debt in the country. He did his best, presumably, but that proved to carry with it no special magic. (His success with the Olympics, meanwhile, was in getting more federal government subsidy than all previous US Olympics combined. It wasn’t deft budgeting; it was government bailout.) The Obama record — despite being thwarted by the G.O.P. every step of the way — was to avert depression, save the auto industry, cut taxes for the middle class and small business, and help create 4.3 million private sector jobs — more net private sector jobs than were created in 8 years of his Republican predecessor. (Also to restore our standing in the world, bring our troops home from Iraq, put us on a path to leave Afghanistan, decimate Al-Qaeda; pass health care reform the specific provisions of which — save one — are highly popular; double fuel efficiency standards, triple the representation of women on the Supreme Court, and sextuple the number of stem cell lines available to researchers.) At the end of the day, the President will be reelected. But it will be some nasty fight. And we need you.