KML is gearing up for our politics show, KML Goes to the Polls (opening October 4 -- one month before the presidential election) by getting informed, getting angry, and getting poltically active. All this while writing the funny for the new show.

This election is frankly the most important political event of our generation. We want to do everything we can to join in the fight to get you to the election booths on November 2.

We invite you to check out the links below to get the 411 on what's at stake in this election. Please note: this list will keep growing in the coming weeks...

First, let's get you registered.
Now you can do it online. Man, is it easy.

Now, do your research.
Every major news outlet has a web site. If you can't find info on the election on your TV or at your newsstand, just type a favorite publication into your browser and add .com -- or google it/them. Most sites even have an election 2004 section. This is a good start.

Links
- Sites to Check Out

Driving Votes - A righteous site and organization aimed at getting the folks in those precious states registered and voting against the Bush regime. Check out their rad site, and see what they are up to. Read an interview with Leighton Woodhouse, one of the driving votes captains below!

Bush Facts - A sad but true notepad that charts our current president's damages to the country, your wallet, and our future.

Stop The Monkey - A humorous blog aimed at the current Prez.

Get Your War On - A very funny, liberally-minded series of strips; the best use of clip art that we've seen in a long time.

The Smirking Chimp - Another blog aimed at... you guessed it.

MoveOn.org - The grand activist site of them all.

Got Political Links You Like? We want to know about them. So email them to us at info@killingmylobster.com!

Jon: Leighton.

Leighton: Jon

Your org is called Driving Votes... so my first question is--what do you drive?

A bucket. An 89 Honda Civic, 165K. But I'm big on Muni and BART.

Hey--that's like what I do. So how did DrivingVotes.org get it's start?

DrivingVotes.org began as a plan hatched over dinner one day by a handful of people in Seattle to take a road trip to a swing state to register new voters. The plan was to get a couple carloads of people together, head out to Florida and put in some work to help get Bush out of office. The plan got a little more complicated, however, when the folks who were putting it together discovered that all of the information they needed to go register voters in a swing state -- registration forms, local election laws, contact information for organizations doing registration drives -- was scattered across half a dozen different websites on the internet for every state, and incomplete at that. The problem was more than just a hassle: if they were having such a hard time getting all that information together, these guys figured that a lot of other people who might want to do the same thing are going to run into the same problems, and a lot of those folks are likely just to throw up their arms in despair and give up on the whole idea. Obviously, that would have been a huge waste of a lot of energy of a lot of people who are willing to put in some time to get rid of this awful administration. Luckily, among that original group of folks in Seattle who were planning that trip to Florida, a lot of them were techy types, so they just decided to take it upon themselves to create a single website that could serve as an information clearinghouse for anyone anywhere in the country who wanted to do some voter outreach in any swing state. That idea then evolved into a more ambitious plan: to create a national organization that planned trips to the swing states and helped others plan their own trips. Not too long after the site launched and the organization began to come together, Michael Moore endorsed DrivingVotes.org, and then interest in DV and in the idea of road tripping to a swing state just took off, and it's been taking off ever since.

Nice. So how many miles have you personally logged in the name of the DV mission?

Personally, I've been on three trips so far, one to Reno, and two to Las Vegas. All of them were really exhilarating experiences in grassroots political activism. This week, our "DV/RV" cross-country caravan is taking off from Seattle, heading to New York City to participate in the protests against the Republican National Convention, and stopping in swing states along the way. Then the caravan heads down to Florida, and I'm going to be on that second leg of the trip. I can't wait.

What has the response been like to your efforts from residents of these swing states? Have you managed to register most people you have approached? Where have you been rebuffed the most?

The response has been by and large very positive, according to most of the Driving Votes activists I've spoken to, and according to my own experiences. People know what's at stake in this election, and a lot of them are only too happy to talk about it. In Las Vegas, where we pounded pavement in 107 degree heat talking to registered Democrats with America Coming Together, we had people inviting us into their living rooms so we could get out of the sun, giving us glasses of water and sitting down with us because they wanted to have a longer conversation. Our state captain in San Diego headed out to Phoenix, and while he was on the street, a cashier invited him inside her store because she wanted to register to vote, but she didn't have any break time left. So he made a purchase and registered her while he was at the cash register. Not everyone is that eager to talk or to register, of course, but that's our job, to GET them interested.

When Driving Votes volunteers do on-site voter registration in the swing states, or when we canvass precincts to talk to registered voters, we stick to those neighborhoods that are traditionally politically underrepresented. Those tend to be working class neighborhoods and communities of color. These are the people who have the most to gain from Bush being sent back to Crawford. They tend to be a very receptive group of people. We're rebuffed sometimes, certainly, and it's impossible to register every person you talk to, or even most of them, but these are swing states, where the margin of victory is going to be so narrow that EVERY VOTE MAKES A DIFFERENCE. That means that registering just a handful of new voters in a day, or having a handful of conversations with registered voters, can be decisive. Every ounce of effort you put into the political process in the swing states is crucial to the outcome of this election. The most effective way to beat Bush is to travel to a swing state, which is what DrivingVotes.org is all about.

I am curious if there is anything that you say to these undecided folks that really seals the deal. The listing of Bush's incredibly awful record (Bush Facts) on the DV site is a pretty good resource to get people's anger up. But is there one phrase or statistic that you guys pull out that really gets people fired up to register? Any specific words?

Right now we're focused on registering new voters, and talking to registered Democrats about the importance of voting in November. When we do talk to people about Bush's record, which we'll do much more of after the voter registration deadlines are reached in most swing states, we generally talk to them about the issues that concern them personally.

Everyone has a concern that is a stake in this election. For many, it's that their family lacks health care insurance. For others, it's that their kids' classrooms are decrepit and their history textbooks are so old that they end right after JFK's assassination. For a great deal of people in the swing states, it's that they have relatives risking their lives in Iraq and they don't understand why they're there. The facts that the Republican Party has consistently thrown up roadblocks to universal healthcare coverage, starved education budgets in order to cut taxes for the rich, and launched a war on the basis of a lie are very significant to these people.

As you point out, our website has a long list of reasons why Bush is the wrong choice for president in 2004, and we also just posted a document that gives short and straightforward answers to questions like, "Isn't Kerry a flip-flopper?" and "Didn't we liberate the Iraqi people?" Our job is both easier and harder than that of the Bush campaign: we need to give people straightforward information about what the Bush administration has done over the past three-and-a-half years, and what it's doing now. The Republicans need to distort it.

So, on November 3, the day after this election, where can I find the DV crew, and what will you be doing?

We plan to do what the entire world is going to do: get drunk in the streets and celebrate George W. Bush's defeat.

I think we can all get behind that idea.

Trust us... just go to drivingvotes.org and take a look at the absolutely enormous effort these guys are putting into this election. Even if you love our current president, you gotta respect what these guys are doing in the name of democracy. Vote, goddamnit. Just fucking vote. Please.