After reading PastorDan's sermon this week, I decided to get off my tush and volunteer with Kerry/Edwards in Arlington to do phone banking. Last night was my first night and below are my impressions.
And if anyone in the No. VA, DC, MD area want to volunteer, they really need people to help out in any capacity necessary. The Arlington office is right near the Clarendon Metro off the Orange line.
Update [2004-9-18 11:56:15 by mlk]: For those interested in volunteering, you can call (703) 248-9330
More below.
I got there a little early, as I work only a few blocks from the K/E office in Clarendon. When I got there, I saw this life-size cardboard cutout of John Kerry. I think it is really cheesy. It reminds me of the people that hang outside the White House and charge people to have their picture taken with cardboard cutouts of the Resident-in-Chief or Big Dawg. Anyway...
The other phone bank volunteers were really nice. Obviously we were all there for the common cause. And that made me feel really good.
The office was a bit disorganized. The call sheets weren't there on time and we started calling about 20 minutes late (we were supposed to start calling at 6 PM).
K/E is sharing space with Jim Moran, our congressman, and there were several of his people there. Our congressman has a serious PR problem and many people (Democrats) are dissatisfied with him, including me. So when we'd call people the caller ID would say "Jim Moran" and several people just picked up the phone, told us there was no way in hell they'd vote for Moran and hang up on us. The Jim Moran people really need to work on his image. It is detrimental to the cause. He'll be re-elected, but he won't be helping the K/E cause.
As expected, the Republicans were the rudest. While none of them verbally abused me, they were very derisive. And all men, at least from my list. It was really discouraging, either no one was home or I got several Republicans in a row. When I did talk to a Democrat, it was like getting a drink of water in the desert. I could have stayed on the phone with these people if I was allowed. BTW, all of the Kerry supporters on my list were women.
I don't know the final totals, but from my list, Kerry did get slightly more support than Bush.
For some reason, last night really depressed me. I'm not sure why, maybe I was expecting that since I live in what I thought was a solidly Blue county that I would have gotten a better response. I honestly don't know. I'm going back in Sunday for more and hopefully I'll have a better experience than yesterday.
Sorry if this is disjointed and rambling, but I guess I just needed to vent a bit and try to work out some of my anxiety. Thanks for reading.
[Update] I shot off an e-mail to a local Dem coordinator to work at the local Farmers Market. Maybe having people volunteerily come up to talk will salve some of my anxiety,