A Blank Canvass


After weeks of emails to the PTB, I finally got my chance to Do The Right Thing, To Make A Difference. I went door to door for the Democrats and learned that there was no one at home.

Once I got to the office and finally found some one willing to tell me what to do, I get a brief How To lessen and a partner. I thought we would go door to door together, so that later on we could present an aligned front, so that I wouldn’t get stuck discussing the candidates religion and their church going schedule with little old ladies.

I thought that residential properties had to have their address out where they could be clearly visible - No, they do not. You don’t have to, not in the suburb I spent the day in. You don’t have to have it on your house, or on your curb or even on your mail box. I know why postal employees go postal - they can’t find the damn address’s of the homes they are supposed to deliver mail to and it makes them crazy. I was very crazy by the end of the day.

I learned that many, many, many people may not realize that they are actually registered as Democrats. I came to this conclusion after asking people “If The General Election Was Held Today, Would You Support The Kerry/Edwards Ticket or the Bush/Cheney Ticket? and having these registered Democrats tell me to my face they would vote Bush/Cheney.

We took the lists to our assigned neighborhoods and did our thing. My partner had done this before and didn’t have a problem standing at the door while the people tried to make him go away, I did have a problem with that. He got more complete data then I did but nobody told me to go to hell, so I think I won.

Moving on. At every door we were supposed to ask the following questions

Who are you going to vote for?
Do you really like him?
Kind of like him?
Sorta like him?
Really kind of not like him?
Hate him?
Would not piss on him if he were on fire.

At every door the same set questions for the candidates for senator and governor. It didn’t take many doors before I edited the questions down to “Who are you voting for?” if they answered Bush/Cheney I took off immediately and if they answered Kerry/Edwards I thanked them and took off immediately. I was there for the big election , I wasn’t fooling around with local issues. I decided they could extrapolate, Kerry = Democrat= Support for Dem candidates, Bush= Rethuglican=Support for Evil . I wasn’t going to try to throw holy water on those people.

We had about eighteen sheets of paper and a form to fill out on every person we talked to. The forms were designed for telephone canvassing and were not even trying to be what some one who was door to door canvassing might find in the least useful. I didn’t need a clip board I needed a desk and a couple of chairs.

Every door was another set of data points.

Home
Not at home
Call Back Later
Not Interested
Unavailable
Ordered off property
Set dogs on
Fired weapon

And if you couldn’t or wouldn’t answer your door

Moved
Out Of Town
Dead
Radio playing, no answer
Hiding behind drapes
Fallen and can’t get up

Raw Data

70 no answer
19 Kerry Voters
18 Bush Voters
1 Nader Voter
1 argument over heard where family members threatened to call "The Law" on each other over the custody of a computer
1 teary announcement of a newly deceased brother in law


Oldest voter on list - 90
Youngest voter on list - 38
Average age of voter on lists - 64

Amount of material on hand to give to senior voters on topic of interest to their demographic? None.

Amount of time spent out in heat , walking on pavement - 6 hours

As we were driving back to the office I asked if someone else was going back to talk to the many, many, many people we were not able to reach - my partner answered that he didn’t think so. We reached so few of them, why if we don’t really care? What is the point?

Interest in plodding around another distant neighborhood? None.
Interest in doing canvass in own neighborhood? Some