I spent Saturday canvassing a suburb of Lancaster PA
Saturday was gorgeous. Sunny, cool and the last of the trees had finally turned from green. I have lived in Lancaster for the last year, and this was probably one the five nicest days I have seen. My wife dropped me off at the Satellite Headquarters in Lititz, and at 9:30 a.m. it was crowded with people signing in. The people from out of state outnumbered locals by 3 to 1. Someone had contributed the use of a converted shop in their backyard to a satellite headquarters in the reddest part of a red county.
I was quickly paired with Brad, a college professor from Baltimore, who had been traveling daily from his home in northern Maryland to volunteer at the Lancaster HQ. We received a packet that sent us to an older neighborhood which we split streets since there were only two or three houses on each block, and we had been assigned about 30 blocks. I had no problems, even though the yard signs were evenly split, however Brad had "outed" 2 wives to their husbands by showing up. We were very targeted, and did not visit every home. In fact, a couple of people who had been out raking their lawns asked why I wasn't talking to them.
Our second and third packets were in newer developments, and here we started getting people who had no intention of voting Obama. Made the note and moved on.
Out Fourth packet had over 120 addresses on it in a neighborhood closer to Lancaster city. The neighborhood was diverse, both in ethnicity and incomes, but was almost universal in it's support for Obama. The Lancaster Democrats had just swept through the neighborhood an hour or two before leaving door hangers with the down ticket names, but headlined by Obama/Biden. In the apartment complexes we had run out of materials, but went door to door together. A number of people had moved on, but a lot of people had questions on times, how to vote, and ID. Brad and I had hit over 300 doors, my pedometer said that I had walked about 9 miles, and we had confirmed 146 people who are going to vote for Obama. It was a good day.