I live in Illinois, so in 2008 I decided my time would be best spent canvassing Indiana for Obama. It was a terrific experience, but it was a very mixed electorate. There were times when it took a while to find an Obama supporter, then I might run into a string of them. Of course there were thousands of volunteers and I believe it was their hard work which allowed us to carry Indiana. I only mention this because yesterday I canvassed a local neighborhood in Illinois, and it was quite a contrast, and in the most Democratic friendly way.
When I got my canvas sheet yesterday, I immediately saw this was a friendly neighborhood, because some prior voting information for the residents is included. I was helping a local committee person canvas her precinct. You go down the street and knock on every door asking if their is support for the Democratic candidates in the household. This is unlike 2008 when we targeted only a few houses on every block. Perhaps, in 2008, work by the local committee people, as I did yesterday, had weeded out many of the houses, as either unfriendly or already safely in our corner, and we were left to canvas only the persuadable.
So in 2008, the typical results for a canvas would be that 15% to 20% of the residents were home and of that 15 to 20 percent about one third were supporters, one third were non supporters and a third were undecided or refused to state a preference.
Yesterday's results were as follows. From a canvas list of about 35 households with about 70 to 75 residents, I got information on 30 residents. Of those 30, 22 were strong Democratic supporters, 7 were persuadable and only 1 was not persuadable, and she might not even vote.
After 2008, I did not believe such neighborhoods existed. The good news is there was a firm commitment on the part of all the strong Democrats and all the persuadable ones to vote. There was some apprehension about the election, but no discouragement. In fact several said they could not understand why any Democrat should be discouraged or unwilling to vote. They all felt the election was too important and the alternative was too nightmarish for anyone to even consider not voting.
I don't want to mislead anyone. This is and has been a thoroughly Democratic neighborhood. So after I looked at my canvas sheet, I wasn't entirely surprised by the warm response. But I was impressed by the commitment of the residents to vote. There was no democratic malaise, just some justifiable apprehension. It is only fair to say I am sure I can go to some neighborhoods of my county and find a similarly heavily Republican presence.
I also want to mention one of the Democratic candidates who is running for election in my district, Dr. David Gill. He is challenging incumbent Tim Johnson in the 15th congressional district. I think he has a shot at pulling an upset, provided he gets some strong assistance from volunteers. He is the type of progressive we can get behind. His opponent is the definition of a professional Republican politician. He started his political career with a strong term limits agenda. As soon as he got into office, in typical hypocritical Republican fashion, he had a bout of selective amnesia and he has been feeding at the public trough ever since. He is a Republican congressman, need I say more. Well I could say more, but this is supposed to be an upbeat diary, so I'll leave it at that.
I encourage anyone who wants to learn more about Dr. Gill to read this Huffpo article. And maybe help the doctor in any way you can.
I hope you can take some encouragement from this diary. I will be out canvassing this afternoon again. If all neighborhoods were like this, you couldn't stop me if you tried.