They’re Not Supposed to Answer the Phones.
I made some calls for Obama again last night and it was brutal. People aren’t supposed to answer their phones at this point in the election. They’re supposed to be so sick of getting calls that when they see the caller ID pop up with a number they don’t recognize, they’re supposed to mutter, “Dadgum political calls!” and walk away. How else can people like me feel like we’re helping the campaign without really doing anything? I love leaving messages and stuff, but I’m not so good with the talking to strangers.
I don’t want to discourage people from volunteering, but last night was hard. The first time I did it, I talked to about 7 people out of almost 70. Last night, almost half of my 48 calls were answered. By grumpy people. There were some bright spots, but my very first call started with, “That bastard isn’t getting my vote!” which I thought was rude even for a McCain supporter. Some of the people who answered just wanted to keep their vote private, which I understand so we just chatted a little bit, and I tried to suck up to them and make rainbows and unicorns travel through the phone lines, but I don’t know if that works when I’m calling from a cell phone. (By the way, Lena drew a picture yesterday and the caption was, “I HATE UNICORNS!” Is this the beginning of the slippery slope to being goth?) Sometimes I found myself randomly shouting, “COLIN POWELL!” which would make the person kind of stutter and say, “Uh, yeah, he’s a…he’s a real good guy…and I respect him a lot,” and then I would try to convince them that if Colin Powell says so, we should vote for Obama. But most of the people I talked to claimed to be undecided. And when I was talking to those people, I really wished I hadn’t seen this clip from The Daily Show because I really felt like saying the things that Samantha Bee and Jason Jones start saying at about 2:30 in this video:
October 21st, 2008 at 10:04 am
Someone called me from that office last night and I said, “Oh my friend Abby is working on the phones there right now!” And he tried to act like, “Oh sure! Abby! right!” But then I said I WOULD volunteer 11/3 to hang doortags and that the three of us WOULD be volunteering election day but would need to figure out shifts and then he said, “You can canvass in Worthington but we really need people to canvass in umm, areas that, umm, well, have greater need.” And I knew he probably meant like Linden and I was all, “Get me OUT of Worthington, sure thing! Because all my neighbors have McCain signs anyway! And I’m not afraid of poor people!”
I think I made his night.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:46 am
Dawn - I volunteered for ACT in 2004 in areas south of downtown, and it was a little scary. People saying things like, “Don’t go to his door. He’ll shoot you. Seriously, he’s got a gun and he’ll use it.” And people yelling at us to get off their property and they weren’t voting because when did voting ever change anything? Anyway, not friendly for the most part, unfortunately. Actually, an experience I enjoyed in hindsight, after surviving.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I have a hard time comprehending how anyone could be undecided at this point in the game. I completely respect independent voters who don’t automatically align themselves with a party, but by now isn’t it quite clear what each one of these guys is going to do for/to us?
I like this bit, re: undecided voters, from David Sedaris:
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’m not undecided anymore, but I normally tell people I am to avoid political discussions. If they get pushy, I tell them I’m voting for Chuck Baldwin (I’m actually not) and they go, who’s he? Then I start going into a long speech about how there are more than two political parties in America and how that’s a good thing. By then they are normally happy to stop talking politics with me.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
P.S. I admire those of you who can believe in a candidate enough to go out and campaign for him/her. I have a lot of reservations about all of the people and parties involved in this election.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 am
YAY for you!
I immediately think of the Daily Show’s bit on the undecideds divided into a pie chart of “fucktards” and I forget what else (because that one implanted deeply into my brain).
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Abby, if you want someone not to answer, come knock on our door one afternoon. Poor Debbie is trying to sleep and cannot stop answering the doorbell. Everyone wants her to vote.
I told her to put a sign on the door that she already voted in the early session.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:49 am
[...] who have absentee ballots and telling them to mail the suckers in. It was way more fun than last week because everybody was all, GOBAMA! and [...]