A bunch of us from the Bay Area- 200 at least- drove up to the Reno area last weekend to volunteer with ACT. I traveled up there with the League of Pissed Off Voters, a group that's trying to get young voters more involved.
So I spent 7 hours on Saturday walking around a heavily Republican neighborhood of Sparks, Nevada (pronounced, I know now, Ne-Vaaad-a (Vad rhymes with Dad), not Ne-Vah-Da) knocking on the doors of registered Democrats, trying to get them to the polls. Nevada has early voting, so the goal was to bank some votes.
My story after the jump...
So my friend Mike and I went around with our instruments (we're in a
bluegrass band). When people came to the door, we would break into song (to the tune of
She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain):
Oh, we want you to come and vote today! (vote today!)
We want you to come and vote today!
We can take you to the polls,
Bring it on! Let's Roll!
We want you to come and vote today!
We got a pretty wide range of responses. Most people smiled, and assured us that they were excited to go down to the polls on 11/2 (but not today) to vote Bush out. One man was so excited to see us that he tried to start singing along with us. After we finished, he said that he was 80 years old, a veteran of WWII, and that he and all his friends were voting Kerry. But not today. He did say, though, "Never stop playing that music!"
Yes, a few people just slammed the door in our faces, with fear in their eyes. I think most of them were just freaked out by my banjo... we would knock on the door again, explain why we were there, and remind them to vote. I think we had outdated addresses for some people though... After I said "Hi, my name is Jordan, and I'm here with America Votes, an organization committed to electing Democrats and progressives on November 2" to one guy, he responded "You came to the wrong place, boy!" and shut the door with a disgusted look. Yikes!
On the previous trips I went on, I was there to register voters. At the end of the day I could say, "Today I registered 10 Democrats! In your face Karl Rove!" This time, our progress was more difficult to quantify. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to convince anyone to actually get in the car and go to the polls with me. As Mike put it when trying to imagine what these people were thinking, "Why would I want to get in a van with some crazy afro Klein guy?"
Anyway, even though we didn't actually take anyone to the polls, we did speak to a whole lot of people on Saturday. Maybe a couple of those people were sitting on the fence regarding whether or not they would vote. Next Tuesday, maybe they'll think of those two wierdos who came to their door and reminded them that this is the most important election of our lifetime. And maybe they'll vote.