I've done bits and pieces of phonebanking over the past few days. The terrifying polls forced me back into (!!!!)election(!!!!) mode, so I signed up for the campaign's "Neighbor-to-neighbor" program, making calls from home. That started on Wednesday, and I continued over this week. Today I left the house and went to the basement of a local realtor's office and did collective phoning using a predictive dialing system.
I was in the office from about 10 am to 5 pm, and for almost all of that time I had a phone on my ear. The predictive dialing system doesn't give you the name of the person you're talking to ("Hi...is this Mrs. Johnson?" is no longer possible) but it eliminates unanswered phones entirely and voice mail almost entirely.
It requires a different set of reflexes and responses.
...
When I had an actual voter's name up on the screen, I was often able to tell a little bit about the person I was calling. The listing frequently included other residents of the house, so I had a better sense, for example, that I was likely to be talking to a middle-aged man, a young woman, or an elder. I was expected to ask for an individual by name. "Is this Mrs. McGuire?" No more of that with this system.
With predictive dialing, you log your telephone into a computerized system, and keep the headset pressed against your ear. The system dials hundreds of the numbers on its internal list, while you (and presumably everyone else on the system) wait. When one of the calls is answered in a way that seems sufficiently human to the audio recognition algorithms (by Thomas J. Randomvoter lifting the receiver, clearing his throat and saying "hello"), it will get sent to the phonebanker who's next in the queue. At which point You hear a beep, and suddenly find Yourself exchanging hellos with Mr. or Ms. Randomvoter.
I spoke to a lot of people today. Predictive dialing speeds up the process incredibly. I think I had about 50-60 human connections an hour, and I'd phone for about an hour at a stretch before taking a break, ranging from 5 to 20 minutes (gotta have lunch). So I probably did a little under six and a half hours today, which, hmmm, lessee, works out to around 350 actual voters.
Damn.
That's a lot.
Of course, it's not nearly enough.
I had a script, but I can't stick to a script.
Very rapidly it became clear that people found the campaign calls to be a general irritation. Several people voiced anger at the number of calls from both candidates.
So I worked off that idea.
"Hi, my name is WarrenS, and I'm a volunteer for the Coakley Senate campaign. And I bet that you've gotten at least two hundred calls from the campaign so far this week."
Often, that made them chuckle. Once I got the chuckle, I knew any anger was at least partially dissipated, which made it easier to continue with the rest of the call.
"I'm calling to remind you to vote on Tuesday, January 19, and I hope that we can count on your support for Martha Coakley."
That was the short version. Sometimes they'd want to talk, and I'd let them.
I got:
Two disgusted progressive Dems who told me pretty much what I can read (and what I most of the time agree with) in Dem-bashing diaries here on Kos;
about eight or nine people who said they were going to vote for Brown;
one elderly man who ranted very satisfyingly about the general incompetence of the Democrats before saying that he "had half a mind to go down to the goddamned polls and throw my vote away.";
about fifteen or twenty feisty old ladies who said things like, "Isn't that Brown fellow disgusting. Well, you don't need to worry about me. I'm voting Democratic and so is everybody in my family." One of them, I swear, said "Brown makes me as mad as a speckled hen!";
a woman who said, "forget it! I wouldn't vote for Martha Coakley if she were the last dog on earth!";
a huge number of people who hated hated hated hated the negative campaign ads and talked to me at some length about them;
a wonderful woman who sounded about sixty: "Well, of course I'm voting for Martha. Look at me! I'm from Massachusetts, I'm a woman, I'm a Democrat. And I'm smart! Of course I'm voting for her." To which I replied, "Are you my mother?" Her response: "I'm not your mother, but I'd be proud to have you as a son." Aw, shucks.
Sometimes I could tell they didn't want to waste time talking with me, and I'd shorten my pitch into one sentence.
And sometimes it sounded like they wanted to stretch out a bit, or maybe I needed to.
So I joked about getting robo-calls, and about hearing from Clinton and Obama.
"Hi, my name is WarrenS, and I'm a real live human being, volunteering for the Coakley Senate campaign. And I bet that you've gotten at least two hundred calls from the campaign so far this week. Why, President Obama interrupted my dinner last night, and I didn't think it was polite to hang up on him. Well, I'm not Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, but I'm not a robot, and I hope we can count on your support on Tuesday."
After each contact, I hit the * key on the phone, and entered a code number giving the best description of what had happened: Strong Coakley, Yes Coakley, Not Sure, No Coakley, No Response, Answering Machine, Language Problem, etc.
It was weirdly addictive.
I'm not going to do it tomorrow, because I have to work. But Monday I'll be able to put in a few hours, though not as many as today.
What about you? Please feel free to use this diary as a phone-banking open thread. I am going to watch "Some Like it Hot" with my wife, and I'll look in from time to time.
