Fear of Clowns

I had a territory of 100-150 houses in a precinct that generally votes 80% DFL although a few of the streets were McCain havens.

• I met several McCain supporters who had voted absentee, but only Obama supporter who had.
• A lot of people - mostly self-described "independents" - tried to start arguments, a few launching a heated salvo. Only one guy kept yelling after I bid him farewell, explaining I was out to find undecideds and make sure Obama supporters made it to the polls.
• One woman, clearly in her 40s or 50s claimed to have "received a summons saying I'm too young to vote."
• I detected nobody who supported Obama but indicated they weren't excited about voting. Based on my experience, I don't believe complacency will drive down Democratic turnout. I did meet several McCain supporters who seemed disheartened. People like to vote for the winner.
• Met one guy tonight who wandered down the stairs with tears in his eyes, explaining, "I was just watching Obama - his momma died."
• I like canvassing. My political volunteerism until this election was fighting against a permit for an incinerator in my college town. That entailed buying a screen press, printing t-shirts and selling them at cost from atop sturdy tables in bars. Between then and now, I had a few years of obsessively agitating on right-wing webboards, but I doubt that did much if any good for the cause I was trying to champion. Getting out there and focusing on undecideds and encouraging supporters to act on their convictions is way more exciting than making myself feel superior to mental midgets in Hannityland. In the webboard onslaught, it always took days or weeks to reduce supporters to fountains of incomprehensible speech and the high from the victory was gone in a few hours or days. In this campaign, I feel like I've helped sway half a dozen or more undecideds into the Obama camp and motivated as many or more instinctual supports to actually get out and vote. As far as I can tell, the McCain campaign has had noone in my territory (this hilarious anecdote would appear to lay bare the ineptitude of McCain's campaign skill and organization in getting out his vote). But the most satisfying aspect has been knowing I've helped about as many as can be counted on one hand who wanted to support Obama make it to their polling place or understand what they need to bring when registering on election day.

From what I understand, the undecided voters I report to the precinct manager are forwarded to the central call center who calls to talk about the issues I've indicated for that undecided voter from face-to-face contact. I've also been encouraged to return with one-page handouts - localized on a state level - for that undecided voter's concerns.

I don't know if it's true, but heard on NPR that Lincoln's campaign was the first to systematically target voters: for each door knock, the household was recorded on one of three colored cards: one color to indicate support for the opposition (these addresses were not revisited), another color for the undecideds (who were revisited until they became decided), and a third color for supporters (who were revisted late in the campaign to make sure they voted).

That is the backbone of how my precinct manager has trained me in his foyer. Having heard it before, I think I was a quick learner.

Labels: 2008 elections

// posted by Erik @ 11/03/2008 07:49:00 PM
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