I'm worried that interactive polls on the web don't tap into the worries and concerns (and sometimes vast confusion) of people who don't own a computer.
These were my observations from canvassing in a rural area in Western NC yesterday. There were 20 of us and we all took different sections of the county. We will continue to do this to election day. I reported this so it can get back to our state party. But I think this information needs to get out more widely. BTW, this is the good news -- we also had students canvassing and registering students living off campus. Their report said that even when the students were registering Republican (like their families in this conservative, Christian area), they said they weren't going to vote for Bush. The consensus of the student report was that "It's cool on campus to hate George W. Bush." I'd love to know if anyone else has data on that.
My Report
Unfortunately many people were not home because it started out as a beautiful sunny Saturday morning in the 70s, even though it got rainy later. We were in a rural area of mostly low income homes, modular homes and trailers mixed in with two or three newer and nicer homes. Some of the houses were very hard to get to on rough rocky driveways that went up steep hills. Some were right on the road. Many of the residents are old time mountain residents, whose extended families continue to build houses or put trailers right next to each other on property they've had in the family for many many years and which represents their major financial asset in this area of rapidly rising land prices.
The people we met and talked to (very few) were all registered Democrat or Unaffiliated. We did hit a couple of homes with Republicans because the Democrats in those houses had moved but we didn't speak to them, just excused ourselves. We also spoke to an Hispanic family, not on our list, who were living in a modest but very pleasant and well-cared for (in the process of being remodeled) house with a big porch and lots of children, ranging in age from babies to older teenagers. The mother did not speak English. I managed to communicate with her in Spanish. She said she was not "legal" and couldn't vote although she was very interested in doing so. She said she couldn't until she got her papers. She said none of the other people in the house could vote either as only the babies were American citizens.
The first family we spoke to --an extended one -- living in trailers or modular homes right next to each other-- was fervently pro-Democrat. One of the members of the family works at the university as staff (probably the biggest employer in the county of low and modest income people). They provided the first glimpse of what most people felt was the most important issue facing them --health care. This was repeated over and over by most of those with whom we spoke. Other issues --were zoning and the environment (two very pro-zoning and environmental issues, the other against zoning, even though they said they would vote Democratic). The zoning issue is a big one in this area because, as I said, their land is the only asset these poor people have and thus they are very suspicious when rich "tourists" as they called them, come in the area, jack up the property values and start trying to tell them what they can and cannot do on their land. From their point of view, this is a huge threat. The possibility of money obtained from leasing billboard rights or putting a bunch of trailers on your land and renting them out is very important to them. What might seem like a small amount to a middle income person looms large to them and they are very emotional on this subject.
The other important issue that most people brought up is jobs. They are highly upset that jobs are going out of the country and they know from first hand experience how hard it is to get a job that pays a living wage in this county.
In terms of which party can deal best with these issues ( a question we asked), there seemed to be a division between those who were highly informed (most of the Democrats we spoke to) and fervently against Bush and those who had confused or muddled ideas about what the different parties did or stood for or said they didn't know (mainly the unaffiliated). One of the Democrats said that the county (and the country --almost everyone was more interested in the country than the county) was going in the wrong direction. When asked how he felt things would be next year for his family, he said "it can't get much worse. It depends on who gets in (the presidency). He said things were good with Clinton but it's gone downhill the last four years. We need to get jobs."
One of the families that most affected us emotionally was an older couple who invited us in warmly. They were unaffiliated. When we told them we were from the Democratic party I felt they initially were a little sorry they had invited us in but they continued to be friendly and we got into a long discussion. At first, the man said that he liked Bush because "he stands up to foreign countries. He doesn't deal with them. Everything we buy is from a foreign country." He showed us a package of crackers made in Canada. He said "we need jobs at home and we should cut places off that aren't for us and that's most of them."
Then as we continued talking, it turned out that his wife has cancer and that they are suffering badly from prescription drug prices. He said his doctor prescribes him medicines that are advertised on TV instead of the generic ones (he didn't use the latter term) and that they cost a lot of money and that he can't afford them and so he takes Tylenol instead. They don't like or understand the new prescription drug card. "It tells you what you pay but it doesn't tell you what the government pays" --so they were suspicious of whether it was worth anything and they didn't understand why they should get one card over another.
As we continued to speak, the man and the woman felt that they needed lower taxes, lower health care and drug costs. They said they were on fixed incomes and poor people and couldn't afford these prices. He was very angry that the candidates were spending so much money on the elections when there were so many needy people in the country.
When we asked what party did they think could make difference in their problems, they said they couldn't say. They just hoped that whoever comes in will do the right thing.
I felt the need to speak to them about my own beliefs as their situation was so blighted and they were about to vote for Bush (my feeling from his comments) and the Republicans who would only make it worse. So I made a few comments about how Democrats generally approach these kinds of problems more sympathetically. I also spoke up about my son being in Iraq and said that neither he nor I wanted to see Bush back in and hoped that they would consider that. But they were very cynical and didn't believe either party's promises and didn't seem to have the logical skills or concrete knowledge to sort out what is really going on in the country between the parties right now.
I think it is really important, if the Democrats want to make headway with these kinds of people, not just in this election but in the long run, not to assume that they understand that the Democratic Party will help them more than the Republicans. I think that the Party needs to be much more SPECIFIC in its advertising and outreach about what it will do to help people like this who are helpless and overwhelmed with the problems of being old and poor.
Since I teach for a living, I know that communicating is difficult and that it requires the most important messages to be simple and stated over and over many more times than you feel is necessary. Otherwise, half your audience still will not have listened or understood, even though you think you are repeating yourself endlessly. The Republicans seem to understand this completely and that is why they are outdoing the Democrats in this area. Kerry, especially, needs to be clear, simple, direct and repetitive in his message. Not doing so is costing him votes.
If we do this again, we need to have a simple sheet of talking points, stating exactly what the Democratic party stands for and, hopefully, how the Democrats intend to help people if they are elected.
