Hi Kossacks,
First, an update on my $5,000 Blogging Scholarship contest; I'm at 46% currently, with my nearest opponent at 18% in a field of ten. While my chances of winning are strong, every vote counts, so head over to http://www.scholarships-ar-us.org/... to help me earn this distinction. You can also read more about why I deserve your support at http://www.dailykos.com/... (although the headline is inaccurate, in that I goofed on the prize).
As for today, I got up early to take part in the canvassing for Linda Stender's campaign for Congress (http://www.lindastenderforcongress.com)in NJ-07. She's one of our netroots candidates, and hopefully my next Congresswoman.
But first, I wanted to give some good news from the US Senate race. Democratic US Senator Bob Menendez has finally reached the 50% mark, this time from the Marist Poll. Menendez leads his GOP opponent, Tom "Mini T" Kean, Jr. by a 50-42% margin, which is the first time either candidate has hit 50% during the campaign. Menendez leads among Independent voters by an even bigger margin of 51-39%, while winning 82% of Democrats as well.
This race isn't over yet, but with the heavy Democratic GOTV operation on his side, look for Senator Menendez to be the likely victor on Tuesday.
Now, on to my canvassing efforts. A little after 9AM I was picked up (along with 3 other Drew University students) at Drew by a Stender campaign van, with another Drew student and a Stender staffer driving. Mike Ferguson (the incumbent in NJ-07)'s campaign was also supposed to arrive to pick up Republicans, but they never showed.
Our canvassing system worked like this: we were given a map of our targeted area (the streets being highlighted), a list of houses to knock on and a bundle of campaign literature to dole out to the interested. The four of us were split into pairs, with each pair being sent off to a different part of Springfield, New Jersey (a key town in the district). We were told that we'd be speaking with voters leaning towards Linda (as per our "support calls" beforehand), but who needed to be visited to seal the deal.
I drew Precinct Six, Section B of Springfield, along with my partner for the day, Paula. Paula is a freshman like me at Drew, and while outgoing was initially very nervous about talking to total strangers in what was to her the middle of nowhere. So, in a sense, I trained her on the go to be a canvasser, with excellent results. While at first we went to each door together, with me doing the talking, by the end she was hitting more houses successfully than I was!
Armed with our equipment, Paula and I were dropped off at the beginning of our route. Bundled up as we were (it was 35 degrees out and windy initially, but the weather warmed up to a decent level by the end), we began our trek down Short Hills Road, our first street. Some houses didn't have anyone home, whereupon we simply left our pamphlets (filled with newspaper quotes endorsing Linda, who swept the endorsement race in the district) wedged into screen doors, pinned securely under objects, etc. I would say that about half of our visits were like this, which is to be expected.
The other half were more interesting, since we obviously got to talk to real people on our trip. We would introduce ourselves ("Hi, I'm Stephen - and I'm Paula"), then remind the person to vote on Tuesday the 7th ("Between 6AM and 8PM"), and to vote for Linda at the same time. With just 1 exception, everyone we talked to was interested. While some people simply took our brochures and promised to take a look at them, some were quite glad to see us! One elderly woman actually hugged Paula!
"It's so nice to see young people like you doing something nice like this," one lady said to us. A guy who had seen Ferguson's inane "Linda Stender is a Spender" commericals asked us about them. I replied, "I think it's a shame that Ferguson wants to attack Linda about spending, when Congress has given us an $8 trillion national debt." He was happy to tell us that he'd vote for Linda, as he thought the ads were awful, too. Another, elderly gentleman complained about the negative ads in the Senate race (which are pretty brutal), and was relieved to see a positive brochure coming from me. He, too pledged his vote.
The best memory of today that I have came from a little cul-de-sac along Morris Avenue in Springfield. This area, called "The Baltusrol Resident Center" was mostly a senior citizen living center, but the woman in question was not old. She was a registered Democrat, and wanted to vote, but didn't know where her polling place was! I was able to give her the number for the Stender campaign, and the look of gratitude she gave us made my day. As I said to Paula, "That's one vote we can count on".
We finished up after about 2 1/2 hours after we started, having covered over 150 houses in Springfield. Together with the other Drew team, it's likely that almost 1,000 Springfield residents will read or have already read the brochures we left for them today. And in this important election year, every vote counts.
Oh, and as a postscript: one of the girls waiting for the Republican GOTV program came up to when I came back and asked if she could help the Democrats the next day. When I asked why, she said, "I'm clearly not getting money's worth with the Republicans!" That could be a motto for the entire nation come Tuesday. Let's make it happen!