canvassing
Oct. 14th, 2018 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chhotiiI am finding canvassing to be exhausting.
Yesterday's canvassing was wearing for all sorts of reasons having nothing to do with the actual talking to voters. It was raining. Back in the summer, rain was actually fairly pleasant; a break from the heat, makes you look like a trooper without any actual suffering involved. This rain was dreary and chilly. I was slightly cold and my hands were really cold. The rain on my iPhone screen made the touch screen not so responsive-- very frustrating-- and made me worry about it getting water damage. (The LifeProof case might be water-proof for about 5 minutes after you buy it; then it starts to break down.) This time I had many different flyers to potentially hand out: Warren, Gonzalez, Deb Goldberg, Yes on #3, and a paper will Gonzalez bullet points. Since I had a huge messy pile of lit, not a small homogeneous pile that I could clutch to my chest, the lit was in a tote bag which kept letting in raindrops and getting the lit wet.
I choose a very spread-out turf, which required a lot of walking around and navigating. I thought I was used to spread-out suburban-type turf from canvassing in the Suburbs of Despair a few years ago; but back then I was not using MiniVan (the iPhone app) so I had a paper map. Doing it all without paper required navigating with the iPhone, very frustrating because if you zoom out too far in the map view in MiniVan it doesn't show all the pins, and if you zoom in too far you can't get a good overview of the turf. So I switched to the "Find My Next Door" function, which must have a bug, because whenever I do this my iPhone's battery charge drops from healthy to nearly dead terrifyingly rapidly. After 5 houses, I had to go back to my car to charge my phone. The car does not power the USB port when it's off. I didn't want to idle the car until the phone was charged-- this seemed like a really wasteful way to charge the phone-- so I drove home, plugged in the phone, ate an early lunch, checked in on Vic, and studied the layout of the streets on Google Maps on my computer until the phone was charged. Vic claimed they were doing OK so I headed back out again. Two hours after heading out of the house the first time, ready to do door #6 out of 60.
Prepared with a full iPhone charge and a mental map of the territory, things went pretty well for a while, except for the continued wetness and chilliness. Then Vic started to text me, saying they were really sick, wanting attention. So that was it for canvassing for the day. I gave Vic some cuddles and attention (all they really needed) and we both fell asleep for epic naps.
Cold, wet, sore feet, navigation difficulties, iPhone woes, neglecting my kid-- that's what's hard about canvassing. Actual talking to voters, not actually the hard part. First off, hardly anyone is ever home. Unbelievable what percentage of people are out of the house during the day. Mostly I'm just wedging flyers into doorknobs of dark quiet houses.
When people are home, they are mostly polite and pleasant. A few swiftly close the door with pointed "go away" gestures but most people are not unpleasant to talk to, regardless of their political leanings. I spoke with many people who are planning to vote for Charlie Baker, and a few who dislike Elizabeth Warren. Fortunately, it's not my job as a canvasser to argue with anyone. All I really need to do is mark them as such in the database, so that the campaign knows to not waste any more time on them; but we have some interesting discussions.
Today was hard because in a more urban area, with lots of apartment buildings. Apartment buildings are usually hard to get into. If someone has a buzzer with an intercom, they might ask you who you are over the intercom, and rarely will they let you in after finding out that you're a political campaigner. One has to leave the lit in the foyer, where it probably just goes straight into the recycling. If one does get into the building, it can feel kind of intrusive and scary and socially out of bounds to be inside a private building. But that's the only way to get to their actual doors, the boundary to their personal space where they might actually interact. Otherwise, one might as well be phonebanking, and get hung up on in the comfort of a warm and cozy space and a good chair.
I am really fucking bad at canvassing, and yet I am, once again, considered one of the all-star canvassers. This should worry y'all. Y'all who give a fuck about whether our democracy or our planet survives the Reign of Trump, do not think "I don't need to campaign-- Alex the Wonder Volunteer is on it! Every weekend day!" I destroy myself each day to talk to about 5 voters, maybe one of whom might be swayed towards voting the right way. I am really slow. Me, peering over my bifocals at my iPhone screen, trying to figure out where the next house is, is not the picture of a smoothly functioning Democratic Machine. I am timid about getting into apartment buildings. I am too slow to figure out what to say next in a conversation; if anything unanticipated is tossed my way in a conversation with a voter, it doesn't occur to me what I should've said in reply until the conversation is well over. Someone is rooting for Charlie Baker-- I don't think of the question I should've asked about Baker, to get them thinking. Someone is super enthusiastic about the whole Democratic slate-- I forget to ask them if they will volunteer.
I would wish for this election season to be over and done with instantly. But. I fear that if the Blue Wave doesn't happen, or if it's thwarted by voter suppression and hacked polling machines, the Republicans are going to get worse. Any hesitation they might have had for fear of consequences in the election will be gone, and 2017 will look like the good old days.
Yesterday's canvassing was wearing for all sorts of reasons having nothing to do with the actual talking to voters. It was raining. Back in the summer, rain was actually fairly pleasant; a break from the heat, makes you look like a trooper without any actual suffering involved. This rain was dreary and chilly. I was slightly cold and my hands were really cold. The rain on my iPhone screen made the touch screen not so responsive-- very frustrating-- and made me worry about it getting water damage. (The LifeProof case might be water-proof for about 5 minutes after you buy it; then it starts to break down.) This time I had many different flyers to potentially hand out: Warren, Gonzalez, Deb Goldberg, Yes on #3, and a paper will Gonzalez bullet points. Since I had a huge messy pile of lit, not a small homogeneous pile that I could clutch to my chest, the lit was in a tote bag which kept letting in raindrops and getting the lit wet.
I choose a very spread-out turf, which required a lot of walking around and navigating. I thought I was used to spread-out suburban-type turf from canvassing in the Suburbs of Despair a few years ago; but back then I was not using MiniVan (the iPhone app) so I had a paper map. Doing it all without paper required navigating with the iPhone, very frustrating because if you zoom out too far in the map view in MiniVan it doesn't show all the pins, and if you zoom in too far you can't get a good overview of the turf. So I switched to the "Find My Next Door" function, which must have a bug, because whenever I do this my iPhone's battery charge drops from healthy to nearly dead terrifyingly rapidly. After 5 houses, I had to go back to my car to charge my phone. The car does not power the USB port when it's off. I didn't want to idle the car until the phone was charged-- this seemed like a really wasteful way to charge the phone-- so I drove home, plugged in the phone, ate an early lunch, checked in on Vic, and studied the layout of the streets on Google Maps on my computer until the phone was charged. Vic claimed they were doing OK so I headed back out again. Two hours after heading out of the house the first time, ready to do door #6 out of 60.
Prepared with a full iPhone charge and a mental map of the territory, things went pretty well for a while, except for the continued wetness and chilliness. Then Vic started to text me, saying they were really sick, wanting attention. So that was it for canvassing for the day. I gave Vic some cuddles and attention (all they really needed) and we both fell asleep for epic naps.
Cold, wet, sore feet, navigation difficulties, iPhone woes, neglecting my kid-- that's what's hard about canvassing. Actual talking to voters, not actually the hard part. First off, hardly anyone is ever home. Unbelievable what percentage of people are out of the house during the day. Mostly I'm just wedging flyers into doorknobs of dark quiet houses.
When people are home, they are mostly polite and pleasant. A few swiftly close the door with pointed "go away" gestures but most people are not unpleasant to talk to, regardless of their political leanings. I spoke with many people who are planning to vote for Charlie Baker, and a few who dislike Elizabeth Warren. Fortunately, it's not my job as a canvasser to argue with anyone. All I really need to do is mark them as such in the database, so that the campaign knows to not waste any more time on them; but we have some interesting discussions.
Today was hard because in a more urban area, with lots of apartment buildings. Apartment buildings are usually hard to get into. If someone has a buzzer with an intercom, they might ask you who you are over the intercom, and rarely will they let you in after finding out that you're a political campaigner. One has to leave the lit in the foyer, where it probably just goes straight into the recycling. If one does get into the building, it can feel kind of intrusive and scary and socially out of bounds to be inside a private building. But that's the only way to get to their actual doors, the boundary to their personal space where they might actually interact. Otherwise, one might as well be phonebanking, and get hung up on in the comfort of a warm and cozy space and a good chair.
I am really fucking bad at canvassing, and yet I am, once again, considered one of the all-star canvassers. This should worry y'all. Y'all who give a fuck about whether our democracy or our planet survives the Reign of Trump, do not think "I don't need to campaign-- Alex the Wonder Volunteer is on it! Every weekend day!" I destroy myself each day to talk to about 5 voters, maybe one of whom might be swayed towards voting the right way. I am really slow. Me, peering over my bifocals at my iPhone screen, trying to figure out where the next house is, is not the picture of a smoothly functioning Democratic Machine. I am timid about getting into apartment buildings. I am too slow to figure out what to say next in a conversation; if anything unanticipated is tossed my way in a conversation with a voter, it doesn't occur to me what I should've said in reply until the conversation is well over. Someone is rooting for Charlie Baker-- I don't think of the question I should've asked about Baker, to get them thinking. Someone is super enthusiastic about the whole Democratic slate-- I forget to ask them if they will volunteer.
I would wish for this election season to be over and done with instantly. But. I fear that if the Blue Wave doesn't happen, or if it's thwarted by voter suppression and hacked polling machines, the Republicans are going to get worse. Any hesitation they might have had for fear of consequences in the election will be gone, and 2017 will look like the good old days.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-16 05:02 pm (UTC)Ingress pro tip - get a thin sandwich bag and stick your phone in that. The touch will still work (don't use the thick ziplock ones) and your phone stays dry. Not sure what to do about the lit, tho.
I would totally have punted doing canvassing in the rain. Also, apartment buildings - in terms of time for reward I can't see how they're worthwhile.