Spent my weekend again in NH with MoveOn volunteers, even though I had to miss both the Patriots-Jets game and part of the Sox game 2, it was all worth it.
I went to the same area I did canvassing last week, Enfield, NH. This week we were picking what we left off last week, trying to find those who were not at home last week and knocked on their doors again.
This week we have better routes and more efficient way to track down names and addresses. But again, it was the weekend so still there were lots of people not at home. But for those whom we had talked to, I would say 60% of them were very strong Kerry, about 20%-25% said they were strong Bush. Still there is about 10%-20% of undecided or rather not say.
Although I am quite confident that NH will turn blue on Nov 2, there are a few hurdles we need to clear and I don't quite know how to swing voters to our side especially for the "rather not say' people when they say "I am a union work and they endorse Kerry but I am a military man so I really can't say", or "I am an independent who agrees with Kerry but just can't vote for him because of abortion or gay-marrage issue". "I just can't put a Kerry lawn sign cos most of my diner clients are republicans." Remember, lot of NH "group of folks" also love their guns and pickup trucks. Oh, we cover a part of the mobile homes area as well and those people just say "we are just not into these things, no matter what."
New Hampshire, from what I understand, is a very libetarian state, very much like Colorado. I wonder if anyone here who did Colorado canvassing or other rural areas had similar experience. Maybe you guys can give me a few pointers.
In the mean time, GOTV! All DNC, ACT and MoveOn are running phone banks non-stop so please help. I practically donate all my cell-phone minutes to calling Ohio, Florida and Iowa the past two months. It really wouldn't cost you much time or money. And hopefully, this coming "long weekend" we all will spend some time in swing states, GOTV. Guys, I already wrote down a long shopping list for the party on Nov 3rd. I really really need that drink.