I aver that for the rest of my days, I will never again participate in political phonebanking.
Ever.
I will plant yard signs. I will hand-address postcards and even use my own stamps. I will stand outside in a stinging blizzard to hand out campaign literature at the polls. I will drive people to the polls. I may even knock on doors.
But I refuse to disturb the peace of my fellow citizens by making a series of scripted phone calls for a politician.
I called on behalf of three campaigns this season, and they became more and more obsessive with phone banking as the election neared. My group was even pushed to make calls in the last 30 minutes before the polls closed yesterday.
I can't see how this is not counterproductive. The people I talked to were pissed. All of them. Seething. They had been getting calls all day and all week from us, from them, from robots and humans. Many of the people who were able to articulate their rage at me said they had been called at least a half a dozen times yesterday.
I kept hearing from the campaign managers that studies show that phonebanking works. That may be true, but they are going to have to get along without me the next time. I'll be putting stamps on postcards.
And by the way, dude, keeping your ears clean is considered proper hygiene. Nothing like using a phone for a couple of hours before realizing that the earpiece is smeared with somebody else's ear wax. No, it wasn't mine.