I have received emails asking me to phone bank for candidates all over the country, but since I live in Arizona, one of the target states this year, I have been phone banking for the AZ Democratic party and for a group that is concentrating on the state legislature, taking about three shifts a week. I have been phone banking since 2008, going back to a time when the branch office was set up with a number of landlines, and we used printed lists organized numerically by phone number.
We’ve come a long way. I have always preferred going to the office to make calls — I don’t do well making calls on my own at home. I need to be with other people, it seems, so I was concerned what this year would be like, making calls while sheltering in place. I needn’t have worried — Zoom makes all things possible, so I am at home by myself but also with other people doing the same thing.
Yesterday my shift began with maybe 20 minutes of answering machines, with the only person answering being a Spanish speaker, which I am not. But the people I reached after that were a mix — several had already voted, a number of people just hung up, a couple more needed a Spanish speaker, some were rude. The usual.
I talked to one woman who said she already voted. I said I hoped she had voted for the Democrats. She hesitated, then said she doesn’t talk about these things, and I was getting ready to thank her for voting and hang up. Then she fairly exploded, “but we really need to stop this shit. I mean it. So I voted that way all up and down. I was in the military — Army all the way, and I didn’t fight to protect this shit.” Her rant lasted several minutes, with me agreeing at several points. At the end she surprised me by saying she was volunteering with one of the groups protecting the election. I thanked her for that, saying that was so necessary this year, and she closed again with “We have to get rid of this shit.”
Made my day.