Let me just first say that I'm going to be somewhat vague here about where exactly I've been canvasing. Not really because I think it's some Obama secert but I like my anonymity on the internet and want to keep it.
Also while this is a sort of action report, what evidence I offer is completely antcedonal and should be taken with a metric ton of salt. It is completely possible that what I have to say is a statistical aberation.
But I don't think so, and I've waited a couple weeks to write this so that I had more canvasing activities to compare.
Further at the end I'm going to give just my personal observations as I live in this county and more then just canvassing I've been out around town and such.
Let me start at the begining.
I started canvasing back around the begining of September because I was upset. I was upset that people had seemingly dismissed Missouri as a swing state, I was upset that McCain could pick a complete moron like Palin, a pick that seemed to be a confirmation that McCain really was no longer the seeming maverick I admired in 2000 (yes I liked McCain and had even hoped he'd win in 2000 and even 2008 as he seemed like an acceptable worse case senario).
And so I decided that I had to do something about this because while I am not arrogant enough to think that my actions on thier own could tip a state I did want to do everything I could.
Now I'll be honest I was nervous that Obama was ignoring the state as I signed up as a volunteer back in St Louis over the summer and yet they didn't seem to need me. At least they never called (ironically I just found out 3 days ago they've been calling my parents every week asking if I was around, but that's off topic) and so I had thought that maybe Obama had given up. And if so I wouldn't blame him, for those unaware of Missouri's history we're a strange state; we as a state rank about middle in terms of GOP and democrat (we're like the 24th most republican state and the 26th most democratic state) but Missouri as a state also has a reputation (deservably too) as a dichotomy, we have the way conservative rural and the way liberial cities of St Louis and KCMO (kanas city missouri). Added to that though, I'm rather ashamed to say that to an extent racial segergation still exists. Not by law but by custom, in St Louis city you basically have the blacks in the north and the whites in the south and people tend to want it to stay that way.
Thus given the challenges I could see Obama ignoring Missouri as he is not likely to win the rural areas and there very well could be latent racism in the cities.
Having thought about that, I set aside time from working 20 some hours a week, being a full time college student and all my other responsiblities to volunteer.
I gotta say my first impressions were strong, despite the fact that we're not going to win the county I'm in we have our own full time paid staffer who coridinates our efforts. There was a volunteer acting as sectartary and there was a couple in the office chatting with the paid staffer. I then learned that not only is there a paid staffer for this county but there's a paid staffer in overall charge of several counties here.
As I chatted with the staffer (who might be in his late 20s) I learned that actually as of a couple months ago the guy was in Iraq and had just come back. Due to a little luck the guy ended up with a job for the Obama campaign and no he's not a missourian he's way out of state.
There was also an older couple there (I learned they weren't volunteering today but had come for some of the bigger signs) and chatted a little with them.
After that though we got down to business, having never canvassed before the staffer quickly walked me though not only the interaction and the script but how we were canvasing. I was amazed to learn that they're not just hitting every door, instead they're targeting specific voters identified eitehr from previous visits or from phone banking.
Before I left for my first ever canvase I happened to meet a couple of the other volunteers and they ranged across the spectrum from one elderly fellow who seemed to have been involved in decades of elections and yet still was impressed by the organization Obama had built to a mom who had brought her teenage daughter (she apparently had wanted to come to phone back) to a college student just like me.
As this is running long (and recounting all of the doors I knocked on that day would be boring) let me just say that there's a surprising number of people who are either truely undecided or want to vote for the GOP but just can't cause they think McCain is erratic or Palin is a diaster waiting to happen or any other number of reasons.
Of course I also had the occasional encounter with a voter now for McCain; those ranged from polite but curt 'We're republican good day' to rather rude 'Not him, never no way' (him refering Obama).
And the even less occassional encounter with a now decided Obama voter.
That about sums up my first work as an Obama Volunteer.
Over the last couple weeks I've continued to donate my Saturady afternoon and have gotten to see more of the volunteers. And let me just say that as I have little scope for comparison, I am still impressed. Despite being pretty much overwhelmingly a red county there still seem to be at least 10-20 Obama volunteers in this county giving our time to canvase and phone bank and all of the people I've spoken to seem to be know we're not going to win this specific battle but that we can help over all.
So I would close with this, before people start thinking Obama is not constesting Missouri he is. However he's contesting it not with an ad war but with a ground game and I think that if people knew the exact size of his ground war (and no I only have guesses here) they'd either be impressed or terrified (depending on who you want to win). Further while I know Obama has shot up in the polls and that some would say Missori is close because of that I don't think it's the case. Even driving around town and getting groceries or going out to eat people seem alot less willing to vote Republican, in fact I've walked past more a couple very political discussions between friends at the grocery store where one was agrueing for Obama and the other couldn't believe it. I think even after Obama's numbers stablize and even drop a bit Missouri will stay close.
Well I hope you enjoyed this report and that it was informative and not too much of a ramble.
UPDATE: here's a time's article about Obama's grassroots efforts in MO
h/t to mscharizmaa for poiting it out