Bridges for Obama Project

[Meredith Wheeler]

Hi everybody,

I've just joined this group.
I'm an American in southwestern France, where I chair the local Democrats Abroad chapter in Toulouse.

I first learned about political organizing in Chicago, where I grew up.

My current project is a grassroots initiative to support the Obama campaign via a project for Americans abroad called "Bridges for Obama". The idea was to collect photos of Obama supporters on famous or scenic bridges around the world--bridges being a perfect symbol for his candidacy. He even spoke about building bridges at his recent speech in Berlin.

We're hoping these photos, which now number over 75 from 36 countries from 5 continents will be shown at the Democratic National Convention later this month.

The photos proved a great way to gather local supporters, raise the profile of the local group and attract local media attention. The New York Times and Washington Post have both blogged about it, as has Amy Hamblin, the official blogger for the Obama website.

If you'd like to see the photos and read more about it, the links are below.

If you'd like to organize a bridge photo in your part of the world, contact me!
We have a TIPS sheet on how to get a good pix plus a sample press release to help get media coverage.

Meredith Wheeler
[e-mail]


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/44240.html

PHOTOS in this series:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/bridgesforobama/pool/

New York Times Political Blog on this project:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/democrats-abroad-say-...

The Washington Post Political Blog on this project:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/14/obams_internati...

Obama Campaign Official Blog, by Amy Hamblin:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amyhamblin/gGxymS/com...

MAP with participating bridges plotted:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23556339@N05/map?&fLat=13.5819&...

LIST of bridges taking part:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pvmab7tp2AwW8csp8_uASQA