Sunday, March 8, 2020

Nobody's home

It was a weird sunny warm day and I was walking up and down the street ringing doorbells and carrying my clipboard. Canvassing has gotten more high tech since the last time I did it. Instead of a paper map, we get an app on our phone. Swipe when the voter isn't home. Check a box if he doesn't support your candidate. Make a note if he has a sign: NO SOLICITING!

My candidate was Elizabeth Warren and this was last Sunday, a few days before she dropped out of the race, and I was trying to feel optimistic. Reading the news and ranting to friends wasn't working for me. I needed to be out there. DOING something--

but I was dragging my feet up and down the street, not sure if I wanted people to be home or not. No one likes opening their doors to strangers and I don't blame them.

Please vote for Elizabeth Warren I wanted to beg people. But on the off chance that someone opened the door, all I could manage was a shy smile.

Have you made up your mind yet?

No.

Are you going to vote in the primary?

Yes.

Great!

Then I'd go on to the next house, dutifully checking off names on my list. Noting the Bernie sign in someone's yard. Shuffling around awkwardly whenever I saw that I was being recorded by one of those camera doorbells. Laughing at the no soliciting sign on someone's door:

Absolutely no soliciting. That means no knocking. I mean it. Just don't. It will be weird for both of us. 

I had a momentary desire to knock anyway, just so I could tell the woman I liked her sign. (I knew it was a woman because my phone app told me. Also, I knew her name and age. I know I know. Should I know this about a stranger?)

Something I know about Elizabeth Warren was how she had plans for everything. How she took the time to talk to people, one on one, and take smile-y photos with them. She grew up poor and married and had children young and was a teacher of students with disabilities before going to law school. She was a law professor and is an expert in economics and finance and bankruptcy regulation and consumer protection.

People tried to make her seem like a leftist extremist, but interestingly enough, she had been a registered Republican for years because she believed they were the party who supported the free market. And then she could see that their policies were actually putting the finger on the market to benefit wealthy people only and so she switched parties.

Her mission after that was supporting consumers and protecting the environment and standing up for women, fighting for public education and advocating for healthcare for all.

She has more stamina than me.

I know this because when I was finished with the street, the app asked me if I wanted to load another list and I said no. 

I drove back to the campaign headquarters (someone's small house) and returned my clipboard.

Driving home I felt like I was stepping out of a bubble. Leaving behind the type of person who walks up and down streets knocking on strangers' doors,

and returning to the person who walks up and down the same streets with my dog, the type of person who hesitates to open the door when a stranger rings the bell.

thank-you post-its around Elizabeth Warren's photo at Harvard






4 comments:

  1. I wonder if canvassing will evolve to the point where people carry a sign with their message on it (something like, "Primary day is ___, please vote for ___") and hold it up to the doorbell camera?

    Warren has more stamina than me, too. I saw her charging around those stages, inspiring audiences, developing plans for EVERYTHING, and thought, "How does she do it?? I'm a couple of decades younger and way more tired."

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    Replies
    1. I like your sign idea. I have been thinking of better ways to reach people, who, understandably, don't want to answer the door or take a phone call from a number they don't know.

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  2. I canvassed and phone banked for Elizabeth too, and had similar feelings about it!

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