I spent Sunday night and Monday day (bemoaning the Saints football loss) and brushing up on Obama-lore. Well I should say I attempted to brush up on lore. I went to the Obama website and flipped around, feeling I should be memorizing some numbers, specifics! But I found it somewhat interesting that none of that stuff seemed to stick. Instead I just thought about, what was most important to me, what made me want to support Obama.
So I got my outfit together, something comfortable, relatively warm, business casual-y. I went for some blue cord pants, with a black longsleeved shirt (and another longsleeved shirt underneath!) black comfortable shoes, and a scarf, oh, and a simple silver chain. I tried to blow dry my hair (new experience) and I pulled it back with a barrette, it looked ok. I did my makeup obediently as the MAX cosmetics girl showed me a few years ago during a makeup consultation. I didn't want to be encumbered so I put my Driver's License, bank card(s), and AAA card (you never know what you might need!) in my back pocket and some Chapstick in my front pocket. Then I kissed my husband goodbye and went to drive to the meeting place, a storefront in downtown Grants Pass.
As soon as I pulled onto the road it started pouring rain! But I was getting excited and didn't care. I knew I didn't have an umbrella but I did have a big hooded coat in the car in case of emergency, tho that wasn't the look I wanted to convey when people opened their doors; luckily the rain stopped after a couple of minutes. So, I drove the 15 minutes into town via Lower River Road, I was listening to public radio and feeling pretty pleased with myself. I was out! I was going to do something that mattered!
I navigated myself through downtown to the storefront and went inside. I met Will who was Max's intern. I was the first canvasser there. Will was cool, knowledgeable, he showed me the information, which was a LOT. I was secretly thinking, how am I going to memorize this whole sheet of conversation, holy CRAP. But Will said, this is long and boring, you can take from it as you will and do what you feel is right (I'm paraphrasing.) So, I was pretty nervous. He asked if I ever did this before and I told him, "A long time ago I did go door to door once regarding a small town development project." I guess I was pretty nervous then too.
Then my canvassing partner walked in, thankfully she had done this before. We discussed the map of houses and she asked me if I thought we should start over here
So we took my car, from the storefront to our starting intersection of 2nd and A streets. I asked her to be my navigator and tell me which way to go. I've lived here less than a year and don't live in town. I live in Merlin and only come to town when I have to, once maybe every two weeks. I felt our teamwork was good in that little exercise. We communicated well (I'm comparing this to my husband and I in the car doing the same task, what can I say, I love him but we have different views on how to communicate during driving.)
Finally we were on foot. We agreed to switch off being the clipboard-holder/main-talker house to house. I said, "Great, you've done this before so you go first!" She grinned and took the clipboard. I'm going to guess that we knocked on 40 doors and more than half were home (slightly less than that answered the door, and that's fine with me, I completely understand.) There were two people who opened their doors and were not happy to see us. The first door was one of them. This was my biggest fear, what would happen if we knocked on a door and the person on the other side of it was not happy to see us. What would be the extent of their unhappiness and how would it manifest itself? In this case, he just said, "We are not interested," and shut the door as we issued our apologies through the ever-narrowing crack for bothering him.
Let me say here that our list allegedly consisted of already identified Obama supporters and our mission (in my interpretation) was to identify if they had, A) received their ballot, B) turned in their ballot, C) politely inquire if they thought they were going to support Obama. Ok so, next house, was mine, my first door! I took the clipboard, and walked up onto their porch. I saw a little bowl with kitty food in it, I was slightly encouraged. I knocked and gripped my clipboard tightly. A man in his mid twenties answered the door and opened the outer screen to walk out onto the porch.
"Hi! I'm Catherine and this is Lori and we are volunteers with the Obama campaign. I just wanted to find out if you had received your ballot already?" He grinned, "Actually we are volunteers too." Ohhh snapp! So we chatted a bit and a woman about the same age came out and we were all smiles. I told them they were my first door knocking! And they laughed and were glad. So, really in those two doors we had the two ends of the spectrum of what I experienced that night. It was really fun to meet people who were excited about voting (even when they wouldn't say who they would vote for, and I respect that, it is a secret ballot after all!)
We walked and walked, and we didn't hit all the houses on our map. Once it hit 7pm it was just too dark to even find addresses (in the daylight it wasn't easy either, but at least then you could see the addresses of surrounding houses from the street to hone in on. When it got dark, we probably looked like crazy women burglars with our flashlights going up to houses to look at their house numbers.....) so we called it a night, and got back in the car to turn in our clipboard back at the storefront.
We walked in and Will was on the phone, and so were two women who had arrived at 5:30 to do the phone 'canvassing'. We handed over our stuff to Will and explained why we didn't finish. One of the ladies between phone calls, smiled at us exclaiming our bravery! It made me feel good. (Tho I suspect calling people at home has it's own level of bravery.) Lori and I both signed up for a weekend door-knocking shift so we could do it during the day. We said our goodbyes and got into our own cars and I drove back through town, to G Street to go down the back way home to my house, along Lower River Road.
If I came to your house, I appreciate you. I appreciate you whether you were nice to me, or tolerant of me, or unhappy to see me. I hope you understand that I only went to your house because I thought you were already a supporter of Obama, and had I known you weren't I would not have bothered you. If you were an Obama supporter and don't like being bothered, please forgive us and know that I indicated that on the sheets I was given that you felt that way.
Things I learned that I didn't know before:
- If you turn in your ballot, it can take 4 days before it shows up on whatever database these campaigns use to develop their call/door-knocking lists. These lists are generated based on (among other things) some list the Secretary of State puts out. If you turn in your ballot they (happily) remove you from their list so they can focus on other people via the get out the vote campaign.
- If you don't receive your ballot by this Wednesday, October 22 (in Josephine County) something is wrong and you need to contact the County Clerk at: Josephine County Clerk & Recorder’s Office, Josephine County Courthouse, 500 NW 6th Street, Grants Pass, OR 97526, Phone: 541-474-5240, Fax: 541-474-5246
In the end, I felt I was encouraging people to vote. That is a good thing, no matter which side you are on. Votes are precious and I am personally thankful I live in a country where I have one. I will not waste it.
This process helped me come to terms with why I was voting for Obama. Was it purely partisan? No, I don't think so. The common denominator of my voting decision was the war for me. That's what I decided was the basic issue for this election. I mean the Iraq War. I feel there was not only mishandled 'intelligence' there but lack of intelligence in those who received the intelligence. I demand more from my elected officials. I certainly expect the Commander in Chief to know the basics of The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Don't fight a war on two fronts (unless you have to.) We didn't have to. Some people just wanted to. Our soldiers are paying the price for that horrible strategy. John McCain, for all of his military experience, went along with that. So, in this situation, I'll take a guy who read the book about war over a guy who fought a war. There are other reasons to vote for Obama, but, this process for me, got me to admit to myself, why fundamentally I was voting for Obama...that is why.
Movie Quote Spoiler! "My own nervousness exists on many levels." Is from The American President, spoken by Michael Douglas. Good movie.
