My first--and likely last--canvass, and a possibly weird, definitely off-putting experience with the Obama HQ afterwards. Am I just overly sensitive?
So today my husband and I decided to canvass for Obama out of the office in our nearby former hometown, because they contact us more than our new hometown one does. (Background: old hometown is a college town, new hometown is Hamilton, OH, which is very blue-collar and wingnutty. Boehner's our rep, which is pretty telling. We got trained to canvass by a kid who is good friends with my daughter now away at college, and headed off to Hamilton to canvass.
The list contained a lot of people who clearly hadn't been contacted yet, but quite a few "other candidate" voters--weird, since there is no other candidate. We pulled onto a quiet street of tiny, well-kept but old-fashioned looking ranch houses. We were nervous about canvassing--we're not huge extroverts, but we wanted to do something beyond what we've done so far, which is giving money, persuading family and friends to vote Obama or at least consider it, driving students to vote early, and sporting our bumper sticker, buttons and yard signs. Not much compared to many of you, I know, but we're not politics types usually, just engaged voters and we feel the need to do more this time, and we LOVE Obama.
So, the canvass was pretty bad-- several who moved, several who weren't home, all the usual, I guess. But we noticed when we did have voter contact, they either refused to say who they were voting for and were wary (in one case) to hostile (in all the others). The final straw for us was when we went to one door and a big, shirtless guy answered. We were looking for a woman voter who was listed as undecided. My husband asked for her after identifying ourselves as Obama volunteers and the guy said that we had the "wrong tree." My husband, not understanding this--it was kind of mumbled, and he was nervous, asked if she was there the guy said, more menacingly, "She's here, but I said, you've got the wrong tree." My husband said, "So she's made up her mind?"I could see the guy getting annoyed, so I tugged my husband's sleeve and we took off. The rest of the block had McCain Palin signs. I know we're chickens but we gave up. My husband was trying to follow the directions we were given about talking to the actual person on the list, but it seemed too dangerous to keep going.
Now to the more frustrating part. I took the canvass sheets back to HQ and my daughter's friend was disappointed we hadn't finished and had had a rough time, but this other kid was really pushy and annoying about it. He told me, when I offered apologetically to do anything else they needed that all that was left to do was canvass, and in response to my scary half-naked dude story, he said, "But that guy won because he scared you away from canvassing." Which, okay, that's probably true or whatever, but to me, it really smacked of Bushian "the terrorists hate for our freedoms" line of argument. I'm an English professor and I know bullshit when I hear it/see it. Both my husband and I were shaken up by the smoldering hostility we saw out there. I didn't really need a scolding from a child young enough to be my son.
I know canvass is important. They explained--after we returned--that we were clearing the lists for GOTV, and I understand why that's useful. I discovered quickly that people who were listed as "other candidate" were actually saying "I'm not voting for HIM." I don't fault the campaign for wanting to be sure they've covered everyone. But it was also clear to me that these people had been canvassed before at least once, they definitely didn't appreciate it, and it seems to me, at this point, they know McPalin is failin' and they're going to be ruled by the evil black overlord or whatever the hell they think is going to happen. Honestly the people in this neighborhood seemed liek the type who don't bother to vote, because they think it's useless and every politician is a crook.
I'm peeved at the campaign boy's rudeness. I'm wondering if that just some Obama campaign tough love, or was he out of line? And do any of you have thoughts, as the wingnuts get more desperate, as we've seen in the news lately, about whether canvassing a "hard" area is even safe? I think earlier in the cycle some people were more persuadable and not suffering from election fatigue, so it might have been different. These people had all made up their minds not to vote Obama, and they were not going to change their minds.
Anyway, I'd welcome some (kindly) perspective or even support, so go easy on me, 'cuz I feel emotionally drained.