3 Saturdays ago I spent the day in Hammond, Indiana canvassing for Barack Obama. It was an interesting experience. We met at 8am in a McDonald's parking lot and then got organized into cars to drive down from Chicago to Hammond. I drove down with a friend of mine. When we arrived at the Hammond Headquarters we were greeted by a very energetic college student who is the field organizer for the Hammond area. He waited a little while then gave some very basic training/direction and gave out nifty clipboards with assigned areas to canvass and all the info necessary to do so. You can see the pamphlets we handed out below.
He explained that we were targeting "undecided voters" and not everyone on the block. Which would make the job much easier. We were supposed to register them if they needed to be registered and ask them to rate on a 1-5 scale their support for any candidate. I didn't like this, we were actually supposed to ask who someone was voting for. I found that a little invasive and uncomfortable. We also had some documents to explain how to answer specific questions someone might have. So our training was over and it was time to move on and get the job done. I had to stop and make a bathroom break before heading to my area to canvass. Thanks to the Obama campaign for having nice toilet paper, none of that bulk crap.
My friend and I headed to our area where we had to start the hard part of being that jerk who is knocking on your door bothering you. I have to say everyone in Hammond was very nice and only 1 person shut their door on us once we said we were from the Obama Campaign. Most people weren't home so we just left the pamphlets for them. Some others when we knocked and asked for them stated "that person hasn't lived here in 25 years" or "they're dead" which is pretty uncomfortable. I don't know where the lists we were working from came from but they were dated to say the least. Others replied with "I'm a teamster and will be voting for Obama." Most people we talked to were Democratic supporters and quite chatty. We even had someone pull their car over to ask what campaign we were with and wanted to know if we needed any directions or anything. I'm not sure as to what the latest polling data is saying but from I saw in Hammand, Obama has a good chance of winning Indiana. Once we finished our few blocks we headed back to the headquarters to hand in our info. A lot of people got voters registered except for me and my friend because we weren't sure how to fill out the forms. We then headed to Popeye's for some fried chicken before the long drive home.
I prefer the bulk style TP, the fluffy kind leaves lots of "residue", if you catch my drift.
Posted by: Matt | October 08, 2008 at 01:15 AM