Canvassing --Sunday, October 2nd
Overview: rural area in NW North Carolina Appalachian Mts. Houses range from shacks and run down trailers to lower middle class type dwellings. Some better off older people, but none live in fancy houses. Mostly farm landscape, some roads hard to get to, lots of rocks and ravines. Roads may also be bad because we just experienced Ivan a few weeks ago. It's best to have four wheel drive. Some land has multiple members of the same family living there. Our county and district generally go Republican. We've been registering many many new Democrats, including many students at the local University.
162 LC Rd NH
132 LC Rd Young man in his 20s, mowing lawn. His grandpa owned this house and also 128 Lck Road. He said, the most important issue is Iraq. His best friend is in Iraq. He and his whole family are voting for Kerry.
1681 LC Rd (numbers suddenly changed)
We registered a young woman to vote. She was ecstatic. She has two little kids and was going to try to register on Monday. She was very happy to see us. She thinks the strongest issue is the war. She is strong Democrat and so is her husband.
1655 LC Rd Mr. and Mrs. __. They own most of the area and have a number of rental houses. He is 92 (we didn't speak to her) but looks 80. He said the issues were: 1. losing employment/outsourcing, 2. losing prestige worldwide and 3. the deficit. Both he and his wife are registered Democrats. They fully intend to vote. He was very happy with Kerry's performance in the debate.
1062 LC Rd Young man in his 20s. Mexican in origin. Says he has been a citizen for one year and 8 mos. We registered him as a Democrat. Told him where to vote and said he could vote early. Sheila knew him as they both used to work at G Bros. He may need follow up.
145 LC Rd We backtracked to a house we missed because no one was home earlier.  . She just moved here from Florida, in part because she didn't like living somewhere where they steal elections. She is a Kerry voter (as is her family, who don't live in the house with her but elsewhere). She wants two bumperstickers.
Behind 145 LC Rd. was another house we didn't go into due to unhappy dog.
1493 LC Rd NH
1372 LC Rd Republicans. Refused to talk to us. Lived in ugly brick house with American flag outside and rutted driveway. Clearly not well off. These people have no business voting for Bush against their own best interests.
Across the street Didn't get address. Also Republicans. Had signs in yard so we didn't bother.
Ooops We were so busy registering these people that we didn't write down the address or their names. But there were three of them: a guy and two women. They lived in a trailer house.
At first a young woman with children answered the door and said she wasn't interested in voting. I then said to her that poor people should be interested because the Republicans would make their lives worse. I showed her an article the headline of which stated that "Bush's Tax Cuts Hurt Working Poor." She seemed more interested. I then told her my son was in Iraq and hadn't seen his little children in almost a year and he really wanted her to vote for Kerry. I had her then. It was helped by the fact that a guy then came to the door, a friend, who said he had registered somewhere else eight years ago but wasn't registered here. We registered him, her and his wife. All were in their twenties. They registered Democrat and promised to vote. We left them sample ballots and instructions on how and where to vote early, etc. They might need follow up calls, but since I didn't write down their names here, I'll have to check in the headquarters .
142 RB Road. Republican. Most important issue is Iraq. he brought it up and then started talking about how he doesn't like it. He doesn't know what can be done. I said yes, my son was there. He said he watched the video on the internet of one of those guys getting his head cut off and he said it affected him so badly he was getting nightmares. I brought out my literature.I talked about how Eisenhower's son was voting for Kerry and I had a Military News article that denounced Bush and also the Crawford, TX newspaper's endorsement of Kerry. I left him all this to read. He said his mother in law is a Democrat and she's leaning on them. He was upset. He said he came from a family of Republicans but he didn't know anymore. I said "me too." So did Sheila. When we left we were his friends. I think he's going to vote for Kerry.
268 RB Road NH
270 RB Road Trailer. We woke these two young people up from an afternoon nap. Man and woman. She answered the door sleepily, but he spoke from behind the scenes, answering our questions. Said most important issue "Stop the murder in Iraq." I asked if they were Democrats. They said unaffiliated. I asked if they were voting for Kerry. The guy said, "you get us one way or another," which I took for yes.
357 RB road Two houses. The one in front, an older man and woman, both voting for the Democrats. They also had a friend visiting. He said he is a straight Democrat as is his wife and all in all nine members of his family.
In the back the first man's daughter was a hard sell. She said she thought she'd vote for Bush. She didn't like Kerry and she didn't like Clinton. She thought they were all crooks. I brought out my article about how Bush's tax cuts hurt the working poor, talked about the draft (she has daughters in their late teens), talked about my son in Iraq and so on. She was a tough nut to crack, but eventually she said well, she might not vote for Kerry, but she wouldn't vote for Bush.
180 RB Road NH