I live in the northwest outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, at the northern border of Pima County. Politically, it’s a mixed area. We have several large retirement communities nearby, and a lot of conservative and religious right people, but also a number of liberal voters. In the last two presidential elections, Pima County voted for Obama, even though the state went Republican. I used to be in Gabby Giffords’ district, but after 2010’s census this area was made part of the state’s first Congressional district that extends all the way to the Utah border and includes the Navajo reservation and Flagstaff. This district was drawn to be competitive by the non-partisan redistricting commission. We are currently represented by centrist Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick. She is running for John McCain’s Senate seat, this year.
I phone bank every two years, and this year I was phone banking for Bernie Sanders during the primary season as well as my usual party office general election routine. This year the Arizona Democratic Party was later than usual opening its northwest Tucson campaign office, so I only did a couple of early events. But recently I’ve been going in a few times a week.
If you’ve ever phone banked, you know that most people are not home when you call, and a certain number of people will always just hang up. In a two hour session you talk to a few people briefly, but it isn’t usually very substantive talk.
Yesterday I had two very interesting conversations, both with women who began by saying they usually voted for Democrats. Our script was to support Tom O’Halleran, who is running for Kirkpatrick’s seat, and to ask if people were voting for him and for Hillary Clinton. The first woman didn’t know anything about him, and I could tell her something about his record as a state Senator (a Republican until the tea party primaried him out) which included getting full day kindergarten funding, and fighting corruption in the legislature. Also, I have talked to him about women’s health issues including abortion, and he’s pro-choice, in spite of one or two votes in the past. Planned Parenthood endorsed him.
After I talked to her about O’Halleran, I asked if she plans to vote for Clinton. She said she guessed so, she always votes for the Democrat. Then she raised a concern that surprised me. She said that was even though the Justices were getting so liberal they were taking the country apart. I asked in what way, and she brought up gay marriage and not allowing school prayer. Well, she’s 80 years old and I think was registered as a Republican — obviously from a long time ago. “We’ve always been a Christian nation,” she said.
I let the gay marriage thing pass, but we did discuss school prayer. I began by saying that I always thought what was revolutionary when this country was founded was that we didn’t have an official religion. She agreed with this, but didn’t see what was wrong with saying a prayer in school. I said there’s nothing wrong with saying a prayer quietly — I joked about kids often praying during tests — but that teachers work for the government, and so they are not allowed to lead prayer in school. The 10 Commandments also came up. I said there were different versions, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant. She said she wouldn’t mind a Jewish version. But saw, I think, that some people might be offended by one being chosen over another. We discussed prayers in school when we were growing up.
Anyway, I thanked her for talking to me, and we said good-bye cordially.
A little while later, I had a second surprising conversation. This was also an older woman, closer to my own age at 70. She didn’t need to hear about O’Halleran, but said she really doesn’t like Clinton, so she doesn’t know what she’s going to do about voting for president. She agreed with me that Trump becoming president was a frightening thought — how, she wondered, with all the people in this country, did we end up with these two as the choices?
I said I had friends who felt the same way. And most years, when we knew the state would go Republican, it didn’t particularly matter. But this year we have a real chance to win the state for the Democratic candidate, so it seemed to me better to “hold your nose and vote for her,” as some people so elegantly put it. And I pointed out that Clinton has more relevant experience for the office than anyone I can think of in my lifetime with the possible exception of the first Bush.
In any event, at one point she muttered something about Obamacare being terrible. I asked her how, and she told me a story about someone she knows who pays something like $800 a month, and when he was hospitalized, he had to pay $6000. I said that was terrible, but I thought Obamacare was supposed to see that insurance companies couldn’t do that sort of thing. We lamented that it’s still happening, and she also said she’s from England (I didn’t hear any accent), and saw that socialized medicine can be terrible — she had aunts and uncles who died while waiting for surgeries. I asked if she has Medicare. She said she does, and also her husband has a private policy. I told her how Medicare saved my life when I CAT scan for something else found cancer, and that without my subsidized Medicare I would not have had the scan. She said that was good, and she has no problems with Medicare.
So I mentioned that one thing the Democratic platform includes allowing those 55 and over to buy into Medicare. She thought that was a good idea. I said I’d like to see everyone be able to do that, but 55 is a start, and she agreed.
Again, I thanked her for talking with me.
I can’t help wondering if these conversations will have any effect on these voters’ decisions. But I came away feeling energized.