I'm a precinct leader for MoveOn's Leave No Voter Behind project. For the past couple of weeks I've been canvassing in my Cleveland neighborhood to identify Kerry supporters for a GOTV push next weekend. And my experience has made me really optimistic about Kerry's chances here.
I've talked to about 75 voters in my part of Cleveland Heights, a diverse suburb on the East side of Cleveland. In my precinct, we have everything from dilapidated two-family rentals to stately, well-maintained homes. The residents of my precinct are about half African American, half white. Based on what I know about rents and housing prices, we range from working poor to upper-middle-class (I'd guess the income range is $15,000 to $150,000). And this place is crawling with motivated, determined Kerry voters!
In all fairness, I should say that Cleveland Hts. is renowned as a hotbed of liberalism, so that has to be taken into account when trying to translate my experience to other areas. For example, last year Cleveland Hts. became the only city in the USA to enact a domestic partner registry by popular vote -- all others have been implemented through city council or other executive action (and our registry will become illegal if Ohio's anti-gay marriage amendment passes).
Also, the voter list supplied by MoveOn is designed to generate likely Kerry supporters. It consists of registered Democrats plus Independents who have never voted in a Republican primary. So again, that has to be considered when I assess the level of Kerry support I've encountered.
On the other hand, I've been active in political campaigns before, and I have to say that I have never seen this level of enthusiasm in voters! I expect the people with Kerry yard signs to tell me that I don't need to remind them to vote. But almost everyone I've talked to has said that -- not just the ones who are advertising their support for Kerry.
I honestly can't recall talking to a single voter who seemed only lukewarm. In some cases, people were enthusiastic about voting for Kerry. In other cases, they were enthusiastic about voting against Bush. Either way, the bottom line is: they were enthusiastic about voting.
Most exciting, I've talked to at least five newly registered voters who say they registered specifically to get Bush out of office. I find that just amazing!
And one interesting note involves supposedly undecided voters. MoveOn doesn't want us to tell voters who we're working for until we confirm that they're pro-Kerry. The idea is to avoid alerting Bush voters that there's a Dem. GOTV effort in their neighborhood so they won't be motivated to vote just to counter it. So when a voter answers the door, I say I'm doing some volunteer work on the upcoming election and ask who they're supporting. The undecideds I've encountered haven't seemed as much undecided as wary about me and why I might be asking. So I've gone out on a limb and said, "I'm working for John Kerry. Is there any information I can give you to help you make up your mind?" And in every case but one, they have said, "oh, well, I'm voting for Kerry." Once they knew I wasn't going to push them to vote for Bush, they felt comfortable opening up to me. It makes me wonder how many undecideds in the polls are just reluctant to tell a stranger who they're supporting.
As I've said, it's not entirely fair to generalize my experience in liberal Cleveland Heights to the rest of Ohio. BUT, and this is a big but, the more Kerry votes we can generate here in the Cleveland area, the more we can offset Bush votes in more conservative areas like Cincinnati. And from what I've seen, it looks like turnout in my bastion of pro-Kerry voters is going to be huge!!!!!