A brief insight into phonebanking phor the phirst-timers.
Today, I visited an aircraft carrier and even prepared some flight plans for an attack. Not a literal carrier, mind you: a figurative one, anchored just outside of the Virginia state line.
Team Obama has installed a great aircraft carrier 6 subway stops away from the Commonwealth of Virginia, the scene of the Mother of all Purple State Battles. The newly inaugurated Obama for America DC office is located at 803 Florida Avenue, NW at the confluence of the up-and-coming U Street dining and entertainment district, DC's "Shaw" neighborhood rich with African-American history and Howard University. For locals or non-locals who may want to help out, take the Green or Yellow line to U-Street/Cardozo, exit at 10th Street, walk east along U St. past the African-American Civil War Memorial until you hit 9th Street, then walk 250 yards down Florida Avenue until you almost reach 8th St. You can reach them at 202-579-2584 to schedule your volunteering but they seem somewhat able to accommodate walk-ins, for now.
I have done donation solicitation work before for my college but never campaign phonebanking for volunteers. The goal is no surprise or secret: get as many "Sister Cities" volunteers from DC to go into the vote-rich DC suburbs in Virginia to canvass. Virginia matters because it's very purple whereas it perhaps wasn't when Kerry and especially Gore ran in 2004 and 2000. It's big: a net delta of 26 electoral votes whereas Bush in 2004 won only by 35 (34 if you treat Minnesota's maverick vote for Edwards as a Dem vote.) The District of Columbia is safer territory for Team Obama than is the city of Chicago, and over 2 million Virginians live within 45 (weekend) minutes of the Jefferson Memorial alongside I-395 crossing the Potomac. Hence the phonebank effort to get out DC volunteers to help canvass Northern Virginia so that Obama for Virginia can focus on other parts of the state, parts that prior Democratic presidential candidates might perhaps have neglected out of despair.
Today is a day between job assignments for me, so I arrived at 9 AM ready to go as part of the morning. I was politely told that the campaign could not accommodate volunteers daily until 10 AM. (In my view, a mild mistake: never let a willing volunteer walk away from the campaign office without contributing, even if it violates "procedure.") So I killed an hour looking for a Starbucks near Howard University and came back.
When I arrived back, I got a set of sheets of DC volunteers to call for this effort and also simply to announce the new opening of this DC office. The reception was overwhelmingly positive, with two exceptions. One was someone who objected to my interrupting a Rosh Hashana greeting phone call to her family member. It was fairly early in the morning, not the evening, but I still felt very bad about it, since I had made a similar misfire almost 20 years before when Princeton foolishly did phonebanking for its Annual Giving on the first night of Passover and I almost interrupted the beginning of a Seder of a nice family on the West Coast. (PLEASE NOTE: If you are doing any phonebanking for anyone in the next 11-12 days, please use maximum respectful discretion re: the Jewish High Holidays especially if the Jewish community is of significant size in your applicable state or district, and consult your team leader for advice as applicable.)
The other was one person who was a strong Obama supporter, but did not want to get political calls on his phone - an extremely fair request.
But here's the GOOD calls that happened.
One was an 87-year old woman (!!) who wanted not only to go canvassing on foot two counties away from home for Senator Obama, but to bring her friends! I have met less hearty souls my own age, and I am 39. She could not stop talking about how wonderful Team Obama was, and even asked me if I knew whether senior Team Obama adviser David Axelrod might have an older brother who was single!! (Alas, that was not information I could provide her as a phonebank volunteer.)
I spoke with multiple Obama supporters who were physically disabled but were very strong supporters, and wanted to do phonebanking or, if unable, donate cash and spread the word.
I spoke with an elderly Washingtonian who was donating $35.00 a week to Team Obama. Let that sink in a bit. $35.00 a week. This is someone who is earning by the week. A well-heeled attorney would write a $2,300.00 check and be done. But her money is water from the rock. Anybody "doing" $35.00 weekly is probably close to strapped financially, and probably wishes she could "do" $40.00. If you paid $5.00 for a cup of coffee and a muffin today, and I did, it should hit you in the heart.
I spoke to one Washingtonian who turned down the DC office's request because she and her friends were already riding circuit between canvassing in Northeast Philly (about 150 miles from DC) and the more distant Virginia suburbs. May she and hers go from strength to strength!! I spoke to others who were canvassing not in nice, easy convenient Fairfax County but in Lynchburg - hundreds of miles away, Jerry Falwell country. Others were already going down to Charlottesville - an island of Blue surrounded mostly by Red.
I spoke to a number of people who jumped at the chance to canvass, including one who wanted to organize a group of friends and asked whether we would have the room since they had no cars. (The answer is YES, but volunteers with cars are most welcome - they help out a great deal.)
Among my favorite canvass phonebank calls today was a former Democratic president's press secretary. I won't name her, but you know who she is. I was quite pleased to see her name. When I called her, I told her that it was an honor to speak to her (to let her know that I was old enough to remember...) I won't repeat the conversation, except to note that my opinion of her increased even more after the conversation.
There were many other positive calls that made me more glad than ever that I had done the phonebanking. Due to weekend childcare responsibilities for two toddlers, my ability to go to Virginia over the weekend is limited, but I was so glad to pitch in this way.
I won't give away all of the operational details of the DC-to-Virginia canvassing operation, but it can handle riders who arrive by transit and those who have cars. And it will happen every week until Please call 202-579-2584 to get the details on how you can help the DC office if that applies to you. If you are elsewhere in the region, here are the other local offices:
Obama for Maryland
1101 Mercantile Lane, 2nd Floor
Largo, Maryland 20774
Phone: 240.345.5839
Obama for Virginia:
Too many to list, happily!
703-741-0295 is their office in Arlington.
Good luck, and have phun!!