canvassing for Obama

[anadamous]

I went canvassing in Philly on Saturday. I was surprised at how good I was at it, and how fun it was, especially after Julia's horror stories. My partner and I knocked on over 100 doors, talked to over 50 people, and had long conversations with maybe like 20 of them. Of those 20, 8 were very racist and 3 were sexist, answering that age-old question

Comments

[azelmaroark]

*raises hand* I'm actually just sick to death of his cult following on the internets? All I hear on my flist is how if you don't worship at the altar of Obama, you are a worthless human being, and it's just really getting old. He may indeed be better than I-name-my-kids-after-random-objects-Palin, but that doesn't make him Jesus, last time I checked

[anadamous]

Well... there's worrying that someone will be a victim of a hate crime, and there's there's "I'm not willing to vote for Obama because... I think someone will shoot him." I didn't fully explain the context of the sentiment above; it wasn't just an isolated "I think someone could shoot him" (which is certainly true) - it was "the main reason I'm not voting for him is that I think someone will shoot him." It struck me as really creepy at the time because it came across as this sort of shared subconscious violent fantasy.

Also, I should say that I didn't intend this post to be an endorsement of Obama. It's clear that I Obama strongly, hence the canvassing, but it's not as if I put forth any arguments for voting for him in this post. This post was more about how, during my time spent canvassing, I came across a lot of crazy/twisted racism coming out of otherwise rational people's mouths.

Your comment has made me realize, though, that some people may not want to read this, so I'll edit and add a cut.

[azelmaroark]

Yeah, like I said, I didn't argue that he was probably a douche, but it seemed odd out of context.

I don't see it that way; if I didn't want to read it, I would have skipped it, as I've been skipping most posts on my f-list that have to do with politics. I was just pointing out that not everybody who doesn't like him has no other reason than "OMG HE'S BLAAAAACK D="

[anadamous]

Oh yeah, definitely. There were all sorts of legit to semi-legit policy reasons why people didn't like him: because they were pro-life or because they thought he was inexperienced, would be lax on national security, or revoke the 2nd amendment, or because they didn't like the idea of welfare or because they thought the health plan he was endorsing was "socialist".

Like I said, it was just 8/20 people I had long conversations with where the race issue seemed a major factor.

[once_a_banana]

I doesn't surprise me at all that you are good at canvassing! I wish I coulda been there to observe and learn. It sounds like you're very good thinking quickly on your feet. I canvassed in Reno four years ago (a totally pointless exercise.... everyone in our assigned area had been over-canvassed already by eager Bay Area residents and they were pretty much ready to bust out the shotguns). I might see about canvassing in Vegas this year, since it's actually needed down there, but as I recall I really wasn't very good at it.

[anadamous]

Thanks, Mischa.

Man, Vegas is a weird place. My memory of Nevada, and Vegas especially, is that everyone was poor (meaning lower-middle-class or lower) and most people were sick, some very sick. I remember that every little gas station I stopped in at every little town had a crowd of jars on the counter for various local children dying of various cancers. In Vegas, I remember taking the bus lines around various parts of town that were not the strip and seeing so many young-ish people, like forties and fifties, using respirators, walkers, with weird skin problems, etc. No one really looked healthy anywhere. Admittedly, I was living in Berkeley at the time, where at least a segment of the population is sort of BURSTING with HEALTH, but man oh man, it was disturbing.

Anyway. If you go canvassing there, you should definitely post about it and give us your impressions of the city.

[goldmineguttd]

oh man, kudos. I did my little bit of canvassing during the primaries. If I had to confront people who were actually considering voting for McCain, my head would explode. If someone's that far gone you can't argue with them.

[once_a_banana]

Can't argue with them? I dunno, I think Nada's examples of how she responded in these situations are really awesome and instructive. Nobody likes being told "you're wrong!", of course and that never accomplishes anything -- rather, if one can at least approach it via other issues, like identifying a number of areas which the voter has opinions about, and then mentioning how their views jive with or don't jive with the views and plans of the candidates.... sometimes it actually results in a little spark of thinking on the part of the (normally apathetic and unthoughtful) person being canvassed. Even just helping someone admit to themselves that their current choice is a vote based on something different than what they thought it was seems like progress, to me. Especially when there are really ingrained biases based on race or what have you, just cracking the shell and opening someone's eyes a little bit to their own biases, and the results of having them, might do some good.

[goldmineguttd]

I would completely agree with you... until McCain put Palin on the ticket. If someone is still considering voting GOP, at this stage, I really do think they're past the point of rational discourse. Latent racism is just one of many possibilities.

[anadamous]

If someone is totally uninformed, though, Palin just seems like a down-to-earth sweetheart. People just like the woman, which is natural enough, especially if they don't know about things like, oh, the librarian she tried to have fired, the bridge-to-nowhere she endorsed for a while, then kept the money for after she stopped endorsing it, etc

[tonapah]

Well, at least no one said they hated him because he's a Muslim. Progress? :-p

[anadamous]

Uhh... I left out the part where one guy asked me if it's true that he can't swear on the bible because of his religion. I sort of think/hope he might have been half-kidding.

[gut]

Thank You for canvasing!

[anadamous]

It's my kind of (political) party.