Canvassing with Lamont campaign

So in the theory of adding a little bit more to the election than some cash and many hours boring anyone who will listen about the importance of the Illinois 6th (go tammy duckworth!), I took the train out to Stamford, and spent a day canvassing/phone banking for the Ned campaign. Those of you who know me best know that it takes a lot to get me outside of city lines...and even more to get me to the Nutmeg State. Here's the story of a rainy day in Connecticut...

I had been in touch with Ned's 4th CD volunteer coordination staff about at least helping out on election day. They responded immediately and enthusiastically, and also suggested I get out and do some canvassing pre-election if i could. I got in touch with the proper people at the Stamford office, drank 6 beers and caught the early train.

Unfortunately, it was raining when I got out there, so we would be phone banking rather than canvassing. Phone banking, for those not familiar, involves getting a list of names that are presumed to be friendly-ish, and calling the people on the list. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of this is not really to try to persuade - it is really to try to identify a list of people who are going to vote for Ned, and should get a reminder to vote on election day. Cold calling is not a massively fun activity; out of 50 names, 30 don't pick up when they see "Democratic Headquarters" on their caller ID. Of the other 20, 10 refuse to answer. Of those 10, 8 will answer, but are just trying to get to you off the phone as quickly as possible. One of the other 2 will be a "leaning Joe", and that person will have some ridiculous story...such as they oppose bush, oppose the war but would not really consider voting for Ned. But as I was told...if they are gonna vote for Joe, there usually isn't anything you can do about it.

When the rain stopped for a few minutes, we did make an attempt at canvassing (same as phone banking, but knocking on doors)...unfortunately by the time a second downpour began, we only had spoken to 3 people (out of maybe 30 doors), all of whom were strong Joe supporters...one was even intentionally rude to us - i figure that inability to think about the upcoming election with people from the other camp is a hallmark of bush/lieberman supporter.

Morale at the HQ was very high among both the Ned and Diane campaigns (the Dem party shares an office in Stamford). They don't believe the polls (there are many reasons to take them with a grain of salt), and truly feel that their GOTV and ballot placement is worth 3-5 pts. Based on the people i met, these are all true progressives; speaking to them you really would think you are reading dKos. Seeing so many people in there on a Saturday showed me that this election is not over; that Ned still has a real shot going into the last week; that election will truly be decided by the support of the people, rather than the support of the big-money out of state GOP donors!