Philocrites

Philocrites:

October 23, 2004 05:58 PM | Permalink for this comment

The short trek up to Nashua, New Hampshire, was a lot of fun. There must have been at least 100 volunteers crammed into the Nashua Democratic Party office this morning learning about the door-to-door work the campaign is doing to identify still-undecided voters. I drove up with a Kennedy School student and we covered a couple of neighborhoods in the nearby town of Hudson. Everyone we spoke with was friendly, and to our surprise no one seemed to have been over-visited by the Bush or Kerry campaigns. Since it is Saturday, we weren't too surprised that a lot of the people we were looking for weren't home — but of the folks who were, it was clear that Kerry had won over many of the women on our undecided list. The gender gap, however, is alive and well in New Hampshire: I had a very nice conversation with a woman (and her mother and daughters) who were all cheering on Kerry, but whose husband was leaning toward Bush. (No lawn sign for them!) Several other women reported split votes in their households.

We also came across a few undecideds who had picked Bush. People didn't seem to want to talk about specific issues, but I was banking on the idea that a friendly encounter with a volunteer is worth a lot more than an attempt to draw perfect strangers into a policy conversation. Only two of the people we talked to gave us a chilly reception, so it was a really very pleasant and rewarding three hours of political volunteering.

There are all sorts of volunteer opportunities available in the next nine days. Sign up! You can make phone calls from anywhere.