The “friends” we’re asking you to contact are people you know: friends, family members, co-workers, neighbors, and others including people you know on social media but possibly have never met in person.

Where I live, we’re kind of screwed politically. The state is die-hard Republican; the city is Democratic, but gerrymandered into different congresisonal districts so the Republicans get 5 of the local 6 congressional seats, even though the local Democrats outnumber the Republicans.

So maybe it doesn’t matter if my friends vote.

But it does matter: Maybe we can defeat the incumbent Republican senator and replace him with a Democrat. Beto O’Rourke only lost by about 1% to Ted Cruz in Texas, which many people think is die-hard Republican. With better voter turnout, we’d now be calling him “Senator O’Rourke.”

Maybe it matters in a local city council race. 

So – – back to the issue of “who are your friends?”

When I choose my friends for this project, I’m going to choose people who (a) are reliable Democratic voters, and (b) live in other states. Especially since I know people in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two of the states that swung to Trump in 2016. Those two states, plus Ohio, are high on the list of swing states. Florida is close in there, too.

I’m also going to go door to door. In my neighborhood, there’s people I don’t know but are flying a gay pride flag outside. There’s other people who have signs outside that say “Black lives Matter. Science is Real…” I’m going to knock on their doors, introduce myself, and present the “Five Friends” project.

I’ll ask them to join, and I’ll ask them who else they know on the street would be receptive to the Five Friends message.