A Taste Of Democracy Brings New York Restaurants To Presidential Campaign

Restaurants Offer Specialty Items for Battleground State Effort. Recording Artists Will Join New Yorkers who Sign Up to Get Out the Vote.

New York restaurants are joining a grassroots effort by New Yorkers to get out the vote in the battleground states, by joining in a Taste of Democracy on October 14th. The restaurants will provide one of their favorite menu items to New Yorkers who are signing up to join Get Out the Vote efforts in the states that will decide who wins the election on November 2nd.

At the Taste of Democracy, New Yorkers can sign up to Get Out the Vote in the battleground states, while listening to prominent recording artists. Artemis recording artist Jeffrey Gaines will be joined by the band of singer, songwriter Taylor Barton and GE Smith, who led the Saturday Night Live band for ten years and Gridley records artist Erin Hill.

This will be great food, great music and a great opportunity for New Yorkers to volunteer to get out the vote in the swing states, said Michele Maglione, Director of Citizen Action of New York City.

The Taste of Democracy is organized by Citizen Action of New York's Volunteer2004.org campaign, which now has 800 volunteers a week contacting voters in the swing states. Volunteers are making calls to battleground states from high-tech phone banks in New York City, Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey and in cities from Buffalo to Washington.

At the Taste of Democracy, volunteers will be able to sign up for phone banks calling voters in the battleground states from New York City and for traveling by bus or car to door-knock in the swing states to get out the vote.

The restaurants who are bringing their specialty items include: O'Neils; Angelica's Kitchen; Bambou; Candle Cafe; Carne; Cowgirl Hall of Fame; Daphne's Caribbean Express; Knickerbocker Village; Mara's Homemade Sandwich Planet; The Heights; and Waikiki Wallys.

Tickets for Taste of Democracy are $100 in advance and $110 at the door. The event will be held at 101 Avenue of the Americas, the auditorium of SEIU 32BJ, on October 14th from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. To reserve tickets, call Janice Sanford at 212-523-0180 X 21 or email: jsanford@citizenactionny.org. For more information about Citizen Action and the battleground states campaign, go to www.volunteer2004.org.