This past Saturday, I went canvassing in a low-income neighborhood for Barack's campaign in Allentown, PA. The area demographically is comprised mostly of Hispanic, Black, and a sporadic number of White folks. I've heard of countless stories of people who had threatening moments but thought to myself that my experience would never be as interesting.
The first door my cohort and I knocked on we encountered a plump White bald-headed male with a large cross tattoo on right-arm who broke the threshold of his door and came outside. We then started to discuss the issues at stake in this election cycle and who he was going to vote for this November 4th. He stated that he was treading towards Obama but he seemed hesitant on giving his full endorsement. The voter stated that he was an Irish-Catholic, life-long Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary and voted for Kerry, Gore in the two preceding Presidential elections. One of voter's major concerns was in regards to healthcare. At this point my cohort and I discussed how Barack considered healthcare to be a fundamental right and re-stated Barack's message every man woman and child will have affordable access to proper healthcare no matter what their circumstances may entail. At this point, the voter was nodding his head up and down in agreement that we do need this type of change. So with all the agreement on the issues, I then asked, "then what are your reservations about Barack Obama?"
The voter hesitated for awhile (being that I am an Indian male, I knew why he was hesitating and thus knew what was coming) and he stated in a lower less confident tone -- "He talks to Muslims." Even though he didn't make any sense, I thought at first that the voter was really trying to say that he didn't agree on Barack's stance of holding direct-talks with the leaders of Iran. Well later on in our conversation, the voter meant something else too. I could have taken any number of approaches, such as stopping the conversation and going to the next residence on our list or calling him an outright racist but let's face it, there's a good number of voters who harbor similar if not worse thoughts about Barack Obama -- it was my goal to inject some practical truths in this voter's mind.
I then responded to him simply by stating in a kind way "you negotiate with your enemies, not with your friends." The voter responding saying that yeah Iraq is a mess and we should not have been there in the first place because Iran has pretty much taken control of that region. I went on further to discuss the need for diplomacy first before fighting and then the voter nodded and said well, this is how I negotiate with my enemies. He then lifted his loose arm-cutoff t-shirt and showed us his handgun where the grip was visible while the rest of the weapon remained in his jean-pocket.
At that point my cohort and I weren't feeling threatened in any way but felt somewhat confused as to why he showed us his gun especially while he stated that we should have never gone into Iraq (especially with the way George W. Bush "negotiated" going into Iraq). It just seemed like he was looking for the attention.
So as my cohort and I segued and tried to wrap up the discussion the voter went a bit further and stated that he heard somewhere that Barack Obama had changed his name from "Peter-something" implying that he has secretly converted to Islam. We responded, by saying absolutely not, that his name Barack Obama had been with him since his birth. The voter said "OK." I then casually responded that "you gotta watch out what you hear in the media. There's a degree of racism out there" Further I added, "In regards to his name, as a matter of fact, while Barack was growing up, folks use to call him Barry for short." The voter then responded, "ohhh yeah, that was the name."
Later on, after my cohort and I finished canvassing the block, the same voter appeared again while going out to his car and approached and said "you know guys, I was thinking about the racism thing and I'm not a racist, my nephew is half-back, half-white and I love the kid." I then responded by stating that there are no accusations here, we are just trying to emphasize that there are a lot of mixed-messages out there and we as a nation have to be very careful as to what we absorb to be the truth. The voter then made a conciliatory yet weak plea by stating that "why don't we elect both of em!" "Obama should handle domestic affairs while McCain handles foreign."
Finally, now that we had some time to digest our experience with this particular voter, we figured (for the sake of our lives) the best way out of the situation was by giving McCain some credit by stating "He sure was a good soldier" and rolling on to the next block.
All-in-all, I think Barack can make out-of-touch voters get back in-touch by reaching out to them on a personal level. That doesn't mean that Barack has to knock on everyone's door but if reach-out strategies such as his upcoming half-hour special on basic TV are effective, he may very well shut the door on the 80's Bradley effect.