An intrepid group of 8 of us from my town in Massachusetts gave up our Saturday and journeyed North to Concord NH to knock on doors for our candidate. Much was learned about NH voters and the Obama ground game. Join me below the fold for the good, bad, and ugly of it all.
I am a town coordinator for the Obama campaign in Massachusetts. We will undoubtedly vote for Barack on Tuesday, so the campaign has made it clear that the most important thing we can do as MA volunteers is to go to NH and knock on doors. Each part of MA has been assigned a NH field office where we report for canvassing. Ours is in Concord NH. On Saturday a group of 8 of us from my town and environs piled into 2 cars for the 90 minute drive north to Concord.
The Good
The Obama ground game is an awesome thing. When we arrived at canvassing HQ in Concord there were dozens of volunteers directing the auto and people traffic. We were quickly signed in, offered food and drink, and were trained in how to canvass and fill out our forms. Right after we got there a busload of 50+ people from MA rolled in. There were hundreds of canvassers who left from this one field office alone. Multiply that by 20 field offices in NH and it means there were thousands of us knocking on doors in this important swing state yesterday.
The staff has the area divided into "turfs". Each turf is a neighborhood with 20+ doors in it that need knocking upon. Each carload of us took responsibility for two turfs, and then we were on our way. My car's two turfs were in a middle-class neighborhood in northern Concord of single family detached houses. It was a sunny but cool fall day. The locals were out working in their yards, walking their dogs, and their kids were playing football in front yards. My friend and I knocked on ~50 doors and found many people not at home or already voting for Obama. We also observed, true to the stereotype, that many New Hampshirites cherish their privacy and are not willing to talk about their vote. I believe "we are all set" is New Hampshireese for, "Get the f*** off my lawn!"
The other pair in our car had a more interesting experience. They came across several undecided voters who spent some time talking about their concerns. Fortunately, the most politically informed of our bunch was there and I think she and her colleague were able to persuade several fence sitters to vote for Obama. We found out that we were the third group of people to canvass in this neighborhood. I assume this means every neighborhood in town has been canvassed at least once. It says great things about the Obama ground game if they have the organization and resources to canvass multiple times in each neighborhood. All told, our group of 8 knocked on 200+ doors yesterday.
The Bad
The last house of the day was an elderly woman who has lost much of her retirement nest egg courtesy of the stock market crash. She is very concerned about how she is going to continue to make ends meet. She was leaning towards Obama, but has heard the baloney from the McCain campaign about how Obama is a socialist liberal who is going to raise her taxes. It took 15 minutes, but the pair from my car who talked to her got her calmed down by simply pointing out that it was the Republicans that got us into this mess, so why would you trust them to get us out of this mess? Hopefully she will be voting for Obama on Tuesday.
This experience gave me pause. Of all the random garbage that the McCain campaign has flung at us, the "he will raise your taxes" idea is the first one that seems to have stuck. Of course it is all utter nonsense as 95% of Americans will get a tax cut under an Obama administration. However, people are so anxious about money right now that any whisper that they might have to pay more taxes could be enough to send them screaming towards the exits for McCain. I am glad the election is soon, a few more weeks of this and things could get scary.
The Ugly
It will not be a pretty sight when we kick John McCain's posterior in NH on Tuesday night.