On the Ground in PA

Today, we continued our persuasive canvassing of Central PA. Before I go any further, I have to tell you that the Harrisburg area is Obama territory for a couple of reasons: 1.) it has a very high African-American population in the city and 2.) There are Republicans here who very much want Hillary to lose. That probably harshed your mellow, right? Well, it shouldn’t.

My partner, P., and I did an upscale neighborhood in the suburb of Camp Hill, right across the river. And although there were a lot of not-at-homes and a few die hard Obamaphiles, voters were open and wanted to talk. That’s always a good sign when they want to talk. Undecideds are precious. I absolutely love them. They are hashing things out and with the right positive message, you can almost see them coming over to you. Something in their eyes looks like it’s unlocking a puzzle. As a canvasser, I want to give the voter a reason to vote *for* my candidate, not against the other guy. I try very hard to not fall into the trap of going for the jugular with Obama. There are so many positive things about Clinton that there really is no need to go there. One thing I did find helpful was relaying my experience of seeing all of the candidates together at YearlyKos and having the opportunity to ask Hillary a question. First hand experiences do seem to count and when the voters asked me what Obama was like, I can tell them honestly. He was aloof, not terribly animated and didn’t have much to say. I think he would be a great presidential candidate in a few years but he didn’t have the same fluidity and comfort with the material as Hillary.

My partner, P., has a marketing person in her family and recommended that we write little “Sorry I missed you” notes on yellow stickies to be left with our literature. The phrasing and words used on the stickies counts too. Like, never say, “We need your support.” Say instead. “She needs *your* vote.”

As we were walking the neighborhood, an SUV slowed down and a man with shades stuck his head out the window and said, “We’re Hillary supporters!” He and his wife took stickers and ordered a yard sign and then pointed out to the several Obama signs in the neighborhood and told us those houses were Republican. The homeowners were petty and malicious and wanted to hurt her, they said. Yeah, these are the Democrats for a Day that Obama supporters worked so hard to recruit. They’re not voting for a Democrat in November no matter who it is.

I was surprised at the number of mixed households there were. Invariably, the wife was a Hillary supporter, her husband was either an Obamaphile or a Republican. One guy answered for his wife, “She’s voting for Hillary. I’m actually a Republican. {{pause, sotto voce}} but I registered to vote for her too” *wink*, “NOOO, we don’t want a yard sign. Not in *this* neighborhood.”

Everyone who took literature was incredibly nice about it. There were several times when I thought I had really interrupted something, but the voter was still interested and polite and seemed happy to see us. They were just undecided.

Back at HQ, canvassers from the day before told us of having territories in the rural famlands where they had to drive between houses. Democrats there are few and far between. But most striking to them were the number of confederate flags. They were on REPUBLICAN houses. I think this is the part that Obama doesn’t get about small town and rural voters. The nasty bitter ones are the Republicans. You know, the ones that register for Democrat for a Day to vote for Obama so they can knock Clinton out? The swing Dems, like my mother, voted for Bush because of religious reasons, like abortion. She’s anti but has come to realize that Republicans were using the issue to get everything else they wanted. She’s no longer a single issue voter and she’s voting for Hillary for all the right reasons.

As for the others, well, even my Republican brother and sister are seeing the light. Racism was NEVER an issue for them. They were all about small government, patriotism and fitting in with the herd. Central PA *is* very conservative. There’s nothing but Rush and Glenn Beck 24/7 and for my brother, who is in the Army Reserves, he was surrounded by it. If you want to get along, get ahead, fit in, you do as the Romans do. You adopt their attitude if not their hatreds. But the possibility of going to Iraq has started to have an effect on him. He snapped out of it. The constant barrage and conditioning of rightwing speech just stopped making sense. Now, they can see the width of the gulf that lay between the values they were raised with and radical Republicanism. Obama’s stupid remark threatens to undo all of that and reinforce what Rush has been saying about Democrats all along- we’re elitist snobs who don’t understand the regular guy. We just want to lord it over them. If that notion starts to take hold, they might think that maybe Rush was right about a whole lot of other stuff too. Maybe they *do* want to raise our taxes and take away our guns and impose a nanny state. Its baaaaad!

But I’m getting away from the canvass. We got back to HQ and dropped off our sheets and Maya did her job very well and sneakily got us to commit to more work next weekend. I was going to do it anyway but P. has small children at home and wasn’t planning on coming back. Maya might have changed that. We’ll see.

Next weekend is going to be very intense. The more visibility we can get the better. We need canvassers and people just holding up signs at intersections. If you can make it you won’t be sorry. Clinton voters are resolute but Obama supporters seem soft to me, like they are repeating the “He’s going to change the world” mantra but they don’t quite believe it. They doubt. Why else would they ask questions about Hillary and stand there listening patiently? There is a chink in Obama’s armor.

Anyway, we’re making progress but it’s still going to be tough in Central PA and every vote counts. She’s doing well but that’s not going to be good enough. We want to stun Obama with a loss he will never forget. We want to make history. So, get out there!