I traveled from Los Angeles to Douglas County, Nevada (just south of Reno, just east of Lake Tahoe) to Get Out The Vote for Obama today. Douglas county is rural, for the most part, and rural Nevada may be pivotal in electing our next president. Really? But Obama's going to win in a landslide, isn't he? If you let yourself think this is going to be easy between now and November 4th, think again.
The race is tightening up, as evidenced even by the poll conducted by dKos. Many people say this is a normal phenomenon at the close of hard- fought campaign. I have no reason to doubt that statement. Here's what I experienced in rural Nevada today.
At the end of the day Obama wins, but it's close. That's not my prediction, just the numbers crunched from a survey of about 67 people in a small slice of the state.
Those who won't vote for Obama gave their reasons as (1) his position on guns and (2) his rejection of "trickle down" economics. This last bit sounds odd, but it fits the wingnut meme that Obama is a "socialist." The far right truly believes that re-distribution of wealth, even if it might benefit the middle class, is part of the black helicopter-new world order looney-verse. As for Obama's position on guns, a former law enforcement officer I spoke too waved at the big sky setting we were in and asked "how long it take for a first responder to get out here?" He believed that Obama would take his guns away and that would impact his ability to defend himself. I said I hadn't heard that about Obama's position and left it at that. We'd been instructed by the office not to argue, and that was fine with me. I just thanked him for his time, wished him a good day, and moved on.
I met many enthusiastic supporters of Obama up in the hills. This alone should be encouraging news, but there's a lot of work to be done. Today was the first day of "early voting" in Nevada (not to be confused with absentee voting, as is offered in neighboring California). Obama's field operation is strong in the rural parts of Nevada, if today was any indication. A rough count of the number of people showing up in this small field office in the middle of a traditionally Republican-voting county yielded over 75 people coming in from out of state this weekend to GOTV. That number of people could produce 1200 or more face-to-face contacts with potential voters. As our field office leader said, it's an established fact that face-to-face contact by the campaign with voters is THE most powerful tool in the persuasion toolbox. I'm glad I did it and I strongly encourage everyone to give it a try. Barack Obama can, and with everyone's help, will become the next president of the United States of America.