10.31.2004
Happy Halloween
I canvassed again today in Swing State City. (Why be coy? It's Milwaukee.)
I didn't manage to put as many hours in, because I had other things to attend to in the morning. We were doing "lit drop only," i.e. not talking to people, just leaving brochures. It was not as cold and windy as yesterday. There were a lot of Kerry signs. I managed to talk to some passersby, which was gratifying. Walking on the street, nobody is a Republican. I gave one woman a phone number to call to figure out whether she had appropriate ID to register to vote. One girl asked me for a flyer to give to her older sister. I gave some costumed kids flyers to give their parents. I shared some camaraderie with a guy who asked me what candidate I was supporting -- as if there was an option.
Then we went to a supermarket to put flyers on windshields. The first car I went to had people in it, so I tried to give them a flyer.
I: Are you voting on Tuesday?
She: Yes, I'm voting for Bush. He doesn't kill babies.
I: He kills our soldiers!
She: That's OK, because they're fighting a war for our freedom. And for other people's freedom. But that really doesn't matter anyway because I just vote for whoever doesn't kill babies.
I: All right.
Postscript: I realize part of what's kinda exhilarating doing this is talking to people I would never otherwise talk to about politics. Like this woman. It wasn't particularly fun to talk to her, but I had the adrenaline to do it, and I learned something, in a way (that is, I did and will do some thinking about abortion politics as a result). Maybe election time is the time we're given the tacit license to talk to people we don't know about politics. And that's why (per my previous post) the door-to-door stuff can't happen all year round. What do you think, dear reader?
I didn't manage to put as many hours in, because I had other things to attend to in the morning. We were doing "lit drop only," i.e. not talking to people, just leaving brochures. It was not as cold and windy as yesterday. There were a lot of Kerry signs. I managed to talk to some passersby, which was gratifying. Walking on the street, nobody is a Republican. I gave one woman a phone number to call to figure out whether she had appropriate ID to register to vote. One girl asked me for a flyer to give to her older sister. I gave some costumed kids flyers to give their parents. I shared some camaraderie with a guy who asked me what candidate I was supporting -- as if there was an option.
Then we went to a supermarket to put flyers on windshields. The first car I went to had people in it, so I tried to give them a flyer.
I: Are you voting on Tuesday?
She: Yes, I'm voting for Bush. He doesn't kill babies.
I: He kills our soldiers!
She: That's OK, because they're fighting a war for our freedom. And for other people's freedom. But that really doesn't matter anyway because I just vote for whoever doesn't kill babies.
I: All right.
Postscript: I realize part of what's kinda exhilarating doing this is talking to people I would never otherwise talk to about politics. Like this woman. It wasn't particularly fun to talk to her, but I had the adrenaline to do it, and I learned something, in a way (that is, I did and will do some thinking about abortion politics as a result). Maybe election time is the time we're given the tacit license to talk to people we don't know about politics. And that's why (per my previous post) the door-to-door stuff can't happen all year round. What do you think, dear reader?
