Windham, New Hampshire is a lovely little community of 10,700 or so people adjacent to Salem, in the Southern part of the state. Like much of this part of the state, its residents may well go to determine the next President of the United States.
I had one of the best days canvassing Sagturday there I can ever remember for a Presidential election, across four campaigns and five states. In the continuing spirit of a number of invaluable diaries on Kos with shared experiences, notes, and what worked, I wanted to share what happened over the weekend below the flip.
Fundamentally, a large part of NH (I'm coming to this conclusion with things canvassers in other part of the state have told me, and the story checks out), large parts of New Hampshire are unashamedly undecided. Windham may be a perfect microcosm (if your "cosm" is the boundaries of the Granite State). It's statistically a pretty Republican community, as reflected through the partisan affiliation of those we spoke to.
I should say at the outset--my liability or upside as a canvasser is that I am not the greatest at quantity, but strive for quality. If I get the sense that someone is on the fence and receptive to my message, I'll gladly spend a half hour with them if they don't mind.
My cavassing partner (who I'd never met before Saturday) made this easy, since she was a perfect and highly intelligent human complement to my wonky, statistics-laden Uzi of an approach.
So, the absolute numbers here may not be staggering, but the percentages are, in a little over 3 hours on this campaign
- 22 houses approached
- 5 not home or they're busy eating dinner or whatever
- 3 confirmed McCain voters
- 1 that was a dyed in the wool "I never vote and won't vote this time" type
- 1 confirmed Obama
- 12 who started out completely undecided. Not really leaning Obama (and in many cases, harboring serious Obama reservations which we took aim at--see below)
- Zero that were just "leaning" McCain. Looks like folks have either cast their lot with McPalin come hell or high water, or are looking for a reason to find their way to Obama, is my read.
Of those, by the time my canvassing partner and I were done, I'm absolutely convinced all but one of the undecided's (who I'd give anything to be able to talk to again, but who promised us she and her husband will watch the Friday debate) was a leaning or confirmed Obama voter. There's nothing particularly special about, well at least me, but here are the tools we ended up improvising to make this happen.
Now, canvassing is all about being an informational pro-Obama advocate, not bashing John McCain, Sarah Palin, GWB, or whatever as your initial approach. Your regional coordinator will tell you that, and it's absolutely true.
That being said, first of all, there's no such thing as an undecided voter who thinks the Bush Administration has been a good thing for the United States. That's an understatement. This is why, as often as we reflect on it here on Kos or as often as Barack repeats it, there's no substitute for the ultimate maverick-seeking missile that
John McCain has voted with George W. Bush 91% of the time in the last eight years.
(Corroboration. Until I checked this, by the way, I didn't have the analogous statistic for Obama: it's 40%.)
The general reaction is an eyebrow-raise, a stunned silence, or a slow nod of the head. If there's a single statistic that every undecided voter you talk to should remember, and be able to reflect to their friends and family, it is this. Frequent readers of DK know this like they know their middle name, but don't assume that anybody who, you know, has a life (not like us) and we're targetting has grasped this statistic.
We all know the meme on the Obama position on the Iraq War, and the intended rededication of forces yielded from a responsible drawdown of the pointless engagement of forces in Iraq (where Maliki himself is demanding a withdrawal timeline the presumably McCain is unwilling to provide!) to the deteriorating frontier on what is the only remotely legitimate front on the War on Terror, in Eastern Afghanistan.
Another fudamental point has been presented with shocking clarity as we've watched our 401K's drift into marginal worthlessness over the last two weeks. And again, this is hardly news for regular DK readers, but this is a lethal point to make with any undecided voter over 60. As some folks have noted....
Barack Obama has resisted what was a very strong push from the White House and Republican Congress to migrate what we know now as Social Security to a privatized system of investment accounts. (always lead with a positive for Barack, not a negative for McCain, OK, you knew that -- ed).
John McCain fully supported those efforts to immediately privatize Social Security.
Had those efforts gone through, the conversion would likely have gone something like this. A set of investment-bank-offered low-risk, medium-to-high-dividend yield accounts would have been established to convert existing SSA-managed Social Security accounts. Likely investment targets, low-risk in late-2007 terms would likely have included
- Merrill-Lynch
- American International Group (AIG)
- Lehmann Bros. Holdings
- Citigroup
To summarize, had George Bush and John McCain gotten their way in 2006/2007, Social Security would be insolvent today as a direct result of their actions. Because of Barack Obama and other Senate Democrats, it is not.
These are a few lines of discussion that pretty much put undecided voters I spoke with in a position where they really couldn't consider anything other than not voting (if they were so [not] inclined) as an alternative to voting for Obama/Biden, depsite those reservations.
Finally, at least in my experience, the debate on Friday may be the single most significant debate of my lifetime if its viewership shapes up to what it's looking like in New Hampshire. We got virtually every undecided to agree to watch the debates, and at the end of the day, if I can deliver a voter away from viral emails and instead to a debate, with an open mind, to let Senator Obama make his case, I'm pretty confident that my man Barack will close the deal decisively.
Now, of course, the Democratic reaction (and Sen. Obama's) to the financial bailout deal--along with what actually happens in the 9/26 debate--will probably be key talking points in next week's canvassing, so make sure you have your spiel on those two points firmly in tow for next week's canvassing.
As I've been working on this since Saturday evening, I'd better post it now. :)