I spent the past hour making phone calls to registered voters who MoveOn tells us will likely vote democratic but who do not reliably show up at the polls. For those who have not tried this, you can find out about it
here. In this case, I was calling people in Ohio about the Brown-DeWine race.
I believe this is an important strategy and I'll continue to participate, but I'm wondering what others think. Of the six or so people with whome I could actually speak (out of 20 calls attempted), none seemed on the fence. One said she was "not into politics." Another said she would vote according to the recommendations of her union. Another was going to vote democratic anyway, and another (the first person I reached) agreed entirely with everything I had to say.
I figure it's not that much time and that I can live with feeling awkward for a few hours a week for several weeks. But it is a pretty stressful process for me, and it's difficult for me to encourage friends to sign up for this as well. I'm wondering about other people's experience phonebanking for the progressives has been. Mine in 2006 reminds me a lot of the experience I had doing the same thing in 2004.
Update Oct 22, 2006:
First I want to thank all the folks who responded, especially tohse with encouraging anecdotes.
Second, I did my second shift today -- another 40 calls. I receive several sorts of responses: 1) S/he already has my vote; 2) I'm not into politics; 3) This is a bad time; 4) Hang up on me. Of the bunch, (2) is the most bizarre. What do they mean? Do they mean "I don't care if I live in a democracy and in fact am not even aware of that fact?" That's how it sounds to me. I always respond by saying thanks and wishing them a good evening (if they don't hang up before I have a chance to do so). But I'm left wondering; how would they have responded if I'd pressed the point a little bit -- by noting, for example, a couple of examples of the ways the Bush administration's policies have influenced their lives.
I reached one fellow who actually volunteered a lot of information. He was very disillusioned with the rhetoric around the race in CT, and dismayed about the use of sound-bites to discuss very important policy issues. Although I was calling about a race in the House he also volunteered thoughts about Lieberman. After the fact, I wish I'd responded a little bit about Lieberman because I think he might have been persuaded to vote for Lamont (he may anyhow). But I thought the best strategy at that point might be to let him know that there was one person supporting the dems who was going to listen and not be at all pushy with him. So I made sure he got that I'd heard what he said, expressed agreement with some of it, and wished him a good evening.
I'm still not sure how much good these calls do and I wonder quite a bit about what the GOP does that is different. Do GOP voters answer their phones more often? Does the GOP just have more accurate lists? Do they make their calls at more opportune times of day than I've been able to do? How different is the GOP GOTV strategy from what I've been helping with?