My Secret Life As A Canvasser

*Disclaimer – there are no politics discussed in this post*

                This election cycle, one of the candidates raised my hackles with a badly worded comment.  And so, I found myself (uncharacteristically) volunteering for a political campaign.   I wasn’t so much supporting a particular candidate as I was working to defeat a complete imbecile in what (sadly) has turned out to be a hotly contested race.  My contribution to this effort was to go canvassing door to door, an activity that took me from as far north as St. Ann, down to South County and from Maplewood in the east to Chesterfield in the west.

                While I can’t say that I saw “everything” while out canvassing, each trip out had the potential for a bit of adventure.   My very first evening out canvassing was closed out when a man met me at the door while holding a ball-peen hammer.  No, I’m not really sure why he was holding a hammer, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t using it to make artsy copper jewelry. 

                When they send you out canvassing, they give you a list of voters to ask for at each home.  One of my favorite experiences occurred when I asked a lady whether her daughter was home.  She got all excited and asked “are you here to talk to her about voting?”  Umm… Yes.  I was.  She invited me in and went and got her daughter, who had recently turned 18 and was voting for the first time.  The mother was more excited about the whole process than the daughter, and I was glad that I was supposed to be doing the “get out and vote” version of the script rather than the “persuade voters” version.  As ugly as this year’s election has been, I’d rather talk to a new voter about the process than be another discordant voice in the cacophony.

                On the head-shaking and eyeball rolling front, I ran into one gentleman who was so firmly committed to the other party that when I attempted to hand him a piece of literature, reacted as though I had cooties.  Seriously, was he afraid that looking at a flyer would shake the bedrock of his political beliefs?  Or that gazing at a photo of the opposing candidate might move him to question how he intended to vote?  I imagine him going out to the sidewalk with a bucket of bleach water to wash the germs off from my passing…

                And of course, I discovered once again that it’s a small world after all.  At one home that I visited, I met a lady that I go to church with.  In a back of the envelope calculation, I figure I knocked on approximately 300 doors, and spoke to 100 people, from which I extrapolate that I know approximately 1% of registered voters.  Given that there are approximately 700,000 registered voters in St. Louis County, I think I can safely say that I have met approximately 7,000 people over the last several months.  Okay, so maybe not “safely”- but out of the 700,000 potential voters on my list, it is a bit wild that I ran into someone I know.

                In the end, all I have to say is get out and vote.  Whatever your political views, angst about the ugliness of this year’s campaign, beef about the economy, annoyance about whoever’s handling of whatever social issue, make sure your vote is counted.