My first canvassing

Politics & Elections
1

I’ve been a voter for 50 years and never been canvassed before. My first one was just a few days ago.

The canvassing was done by the campaign of the Republican challenger for the state Senate. I’m not going to tell you who it is, since that’s unimportant. But she’s been running a vigorous campaign, mostly with single sheet flyers in the mail. Since I’m over the age of retirement, they mostly talk about things that are probably important to some retirees, although I didn’t find them at all interesting. Sorry, I can’t remember what they are. But I noticed none of the flyers say that she’s a Republican, which I suppose makes sense, this being a blue state. I had to google her to find that out.

Anyway, I get home from a bike ride and find a couple of these stuck in the door jam. The canvasser must have just stuck them in it, since she was nearby and sees me. So she come up and prattles on about the same stuff that’s in the flyers, which I’m barely listening to. She no doubt notices this, since when she runs down, she asks me what are the important issues to me.

I wish I’d been thinking about this rather than just wanting her to go away. I could have mentioned that I was concerned about politicians of a certain party trying to destroy democracy or something along that line. That’s my second biggest issue. Instead I just tell her it’s climate change, which is in fact my biggest. She must have recorded that, since a couple-three days later, I get a flyer with the candidate’s environmental program:

  1. Plant trees along the freeways and highways using the maintenance budget to pay for them.
  2. Recycling facilities for plastic and metals and especially for wood products.
  3. Have the state buy more locally, especially for things like food in the prison system.

OK, I’m underwhelmed. These are typical throw-a-sop-to-the-environment proposals which is standard Republican environmental thinking, although not exclusive to them. Unfortunately, there’s a lots of Dems who do the same. So I’m definitely not voting for her, although it was unlikely I would anyway.

2

I’m a semi-tribal voter (in UK terms, voting Conservative is almost inconceivable, ever, but I might move my vote between the opposition parties, depending). In any case, I’m used to the notion that canvassing isn’t about persuading people on the doorstep (housebound supporters, if they can’t do anything else, can usefully waste a lot of the other party’s time by seeming frightfully interested in what they have to say about their policy on this and that) - it’s more about identifying supporters that you can chase up to turn out on election day, and afterwards possibly recruit as party members.

3

Should that happen to me, I already have my first question locked and loaded: “Does [candidate] accept the results of the 2020 Presidential election, where Joe Biden won and the other guy lost?” The response to that will tell me if I should bother looking at that candidate any further.