So today I did my first round of neighborhood canvassing for Barack Obama. Pretty interesting.
First, his website is awesome. They have this “Neighbor to Neighbor” tool where you sign up with your name, address, email and then they give you a list of 25 people that live nearby you that you can go talk to. They also give you a sample script for starting you conversation and they give you a .pdf flyer you can print out and give to people. Then you go back to the website after you’ve knocked on doors and input what happened with each person – not home, not interested, strong supporter, willing to volunteer, etc.
I’ve been reading the campaign expects to have 3+ million volunteers in the field on November 4th.
What I discovered in my little 2 hour stroll through my neighborhood was that Barack Obama might have an old, white person problem. Everyone I met today was white. Everyone over 50 was anti-Obama. One guy came to his door, saw my t-shirt and said, “Obama? Get oughta here. I ain’t no communist.” Now, I had memorized a bunch of crap about the Iraq war, taxes, healthcare, and the ethics and nuclear proliferation bills to discuss with people when I explained why I supported Obama, but I didn’t even get that far because this guy is still stuck in the 1950s McCarthy-induced communist panic. Oh well.
I know a few people on our block with Obama signs up already and they are under 40 white working class people. Anecdotally, this leads me to believe that this election is much more generational than racial – and I think that’s a good thing.