Some Truth About Canvassing

I know, from personal experience, that one of the biggest things inhibiting involvement is the idea of walking door to door or making phone calls. It can be quite intimidating to knock on an unknown door, or call someone without apparent reason. In my head, before last year, canvassers and telemarketers were completely the same. But as it turns out, they’re not.

And that’s the key.

So let me reassure you, canvassing for our Democratic candidates is very different from the people coming to your door selling security systems, or FiOS. And making get-out-the-vote calls is very different from telemarketing. Here are some things to know.

• If you're canvassing for a candidate, you will probably be talking to people who are pre-disposed to listen to you. As a general rule, the list of doors you'll be knocking on will be known Democrats, or people with a tendency to vote Democratic. In my experience, people are grateful to know who the Democratic candidate in the race is, or they will politely say thank you when you're done.
• If you're making candidate phone calls, the candidates will give you lists of probable supporters to call, perhaps with independent voters with a tendency to vote Democratic thrown in. These are people who will probably want to know the information you're providing. And even if they don't, the fact that they don't is ultimately helpful to your candidate and our team, because it means we don't waste resources on that voter later.

• If you're making get out the vote calls, you are calling people we know are pre-disposed to vote for us. And the extra push from a single phone call is sometimes all it takes to get a household to the polls. In some cases, three phone calls can mean nine or twelve votes. And when we multiply that by five or ten people working the phone bank, that's the difference between winning or losing a local election.

And finally, if you're doing this for the first time, realize that no one is perfect, everyone did it for the first time at one time. By going out and canvassing for our candidates, by making even one set of phone calls, you're making a difference.