Tales from the Ground Game: Political Volunteering in 2016 - your stories here!

Politics & Elections
1

So, as I may have mentioned, I do volunteer work for the HRC campaign here in Bexar County, San Antonio, Texas.

Some info: Bexar County went for Obama in '08 and '12, slightly higher % in 08 than 12. Almost 70% Hispanic and 70% Catholic, this is poor ground for the sort of White Protestant vs. Swarthy non-Protestants crap that Trump is brewing. More Hillary signs than Trump, especially outside the “Platinum Triangle”, the wealthy, whiter section of SA bounded by I-10 and I-35 on the north side.

I do phone bank work and canvassing - walking around and pitching HRC, voter registration, stuff like that. The scripts are easy and they are definitely for a single purpose: To make sure as many Democrats vote as possible. Period.

“Are you going to vote by mail? Do you need a driver scheduled during early voting, election day? Would you like for us to mail you a registration packet? Do you need to have your ballot mailed to you?” We ask anything and everything to ensure that this Democrat is going to fill out a ballot (leave a message if have to). Then we call the next, and repeat the process. About 30 times per hour, per volunteer.

The responses I get are… different… than the responses I got in 2012, 2000, 1996 (the other Presidential races I did phone work for):

… 3 people have discussed with me that Trump is the anti-Christ. This, shall I say, is new: in 2012, religion came up once: one person thought Romney wasn’t a Christian to which I replied “No, he’s just as Christian as every other Protestant, from Methodists to snake handlers.” (Like I said - Catholic country.)
… Far, far more people are doing, and organizing, voluntary voting drives in their neighborhoods. “I’m telling all my neighbors that I will drive them to vote if they need the help - I’m taking the 8th off to do this” is what I heard from at least 10 people. Again, this is much higher than last go around.
… Actually, my favorite part is the end, when I close with “Don’t forget to vote - last thing we need is a man married to a woman born and raised a Communist to be put in the White House” or “Don’t forget to vote: If he gets his way, he will remove 1 of every 5 Latino and 1 in every 9 Catholic from the country in his deportation plan.”

Clinton and the DNC is putting $ into Texas. We’re getting checks, support (signs, bumper stickers), advertisements. Women and Hispanic messaging.

Canvassing can be a blast: Trump supporters, unlike Romney supporters, have no desire to discuss anything. Younger ones can be engaged though: I got one group of Trump waverer’s to get their phones out so we can run some numbers on his immigration plan. They were amazed when, by their own estimates, they were looking at jailing and transporting 150,000 people every day for a 2 year period. (Our canvassing lists are of registered Dems, but there are times that they’ve moved, etc, which is why we occasionally run into Trump supporters).

Hillary supporters are fired up. Can be tiring to get them to be quiet at times when they go off about Trump. Can be tiring to get me quiet when they go off about Trump. :wink: Again, lot more people saying their GOTV’ing in their neighborhoods than in 2012.

My plan for route optimization is going to have to wait until 2020, but I’m not at all worried, not from what I see.

How about y’all? I’ve seen people mention phone bank work, canvassing, more - tell us what you’re seeing.

2

Just back home from a few hours doorknocking for a local Legislator & suburban mayor running for County Commissioner.

About 80% of people not home in the afternoon, so I just wrote a note & left the literature. Of those home, most were undecided about these races – hadn’t considered them yet. All they wanted to talk about was Trump and how awful he was. And how could any woman or any tax-paying citizen ever vote for him?

3

I’m heading labor’s program in a portion of Michigan. We’re focusing hard on down-ballot races this year. Hillary is not part of our day-to-day script, unless we get a local that specifically wants its members doing labor-to-labor stuff for Hillary.

That being said, when Hills does come up on the doors, there’s been more push-back from union folk than past years. For every presidential race I’ve worked-- going back to '04-- I’ve never seen so many anti-Democratic Presidential candidate union households. That’s not to say they *all *are, but a much higher percentage than in the past.

Volunteers have been hit or miss too. No one’s exactly excited to go out and knock this year-- those couple of weeks when Hillary’s numbers tanked notwithstanding. In past years, people were much more interested in working on presidential campaigns. This year, it’s harder.

As a result, I’ve changed our script lately. In addition to talking about whatever local candidate we’re canvassing for, we’re going to start having our volunteers (in targeted areas) ask people “What race do you think will have the greatest impact on working families in Michigan-- local/county, state legislature, Congressional or Presidential?” Whatever answer they give is the race we’ll GOTV them around. We’ll find their motivation, then cater our GOTV message around that for each household.

4

3 hour period today, calling Sr Independent voters:

150 dials: 16 for HRC, 2 for DJT, 0 Stein, 2 Johnson.

Converted 1 Trump person, at least back to the “WTF am I going to do” camp.

5

Bravo, sir! Well done!

6

Since I was calling 64+yo Independents, I really enjoyed all the answering machines I got, closing off my messages with:

“… And, please, remember two things: one, we are stronger together, and two, there is only one vote that keeps nuclear weapons out of the hands of Donald Trump, and that vote is for Hillary Ciinton. <pause> Please, think about that, have a good night, we ask you for your support this November and God bless you and God bless the United States of America.”

My Trump convert was kind of funny. When asked, she was a bit uncertain about Trump, but clearly said his name. Seeing she was 87 (thereby 62 when the Soviet Union fell) I asked

“It doesn’t bother you that he’s married to a woman born and raised a Communist… and is going to have his hand on the nuclear button?”
“No, after all, it’s not her hand on the button.”
“True that. But it is odd isn’t it… two of his wives were, in fact, born and raised Communists.”
“I didn’t think about that.”
“Well, add it with this Russian hacking in his favor, this love of Putin, breaking the Cuban embargo, and now a step away from the Presidency… You know what it’s like? It’s like a Robert Ludlum novel, but with the most incompetent villain ever written in fiction” <laughs> “Instead of going against Carlos the Jackal in the Bourne Identity, we’re fighting Don the Jackass.” <laughter>
“OK, I’ll think about it. I don’t think I can vote for Hillary, though.”
“That’s fine, just don’t vote for the Presidential candidate who asked the world to find some poor woman’s sex tape, only to have the world find his.” <chuckles> “Good bye.”

7

I think hammering on his “communist wife” is rather vile, honestly. I believe you wouldn’t respect an attack on Hillary via her husbands issues. But hey, both sides do it so…

8

And what did you do today, Carnal? Please share how you ventured outside the internet to spread your preferred message.

Anyway, had a 80yo-odd vet. Took a chance. Got a double. Sorry it didn’t meet your standards, but all’s fair, guy…

9

Me too. And it’s not even like a person can control how they are raised or where they were born. Or necessarily agrees with the beliefs they were raised with.

Frankly, it’s the kind of message that would make me hang up on a person. But I’ll admit, I’m not 64+.

10

I played golf. Broke 90 on my first walking round in months as it is often too hot here to not ride. Was paired with a couple of retired Black gentlemen and I figured the odds were my campaigning was not required.

Look, I do respect your conviction and action. You should be proud, but maybe drop the holier than thou. I just commented that I thought that was an ugly tactic. “At least I’m doing something” falls a little flat as a response.

11

IMO: Anything to makes sure that orange maniac doesn’t win is fair game.

12

I think **CK **is telling you that resorting to Trump’s level of half-truths and demagoguery is lowering yourself to half-truths and demagoguery.

13

Is there really any chance or reasonable expectation of keeping Bill Clinton out of the campaign discussion? I mean, a fair fraction of Hillary’s supporters support her because of her husband.

Back to the OP, I’m not involved in any formal ground-game operations. And most of the people I interact with are my students, and it’s unethical and against the rules for me to advocate any candidate or political position to them. But I can, may, and do encourage them to vote, at least those of them who are 18, or at least to urge their parents to vote. I’m sure there’s a few Trump supporters among the lot of them, but given both age and local demographics, I’m sure the numbers skew strongly towards Clinton.

14

Thirded. I think it’s the kind of message that, when it gets back to the Trump campaign, will be used as ammunition against Hillary - “See? She’s got bigots working for her! My wife, and the mother of my sons and my daughter Ivanka, they escaped, they survived communism, and this is the welcome they get?”

So, bad politics, and despicable to boot.

15

I’ve lost track of how many political campaigns I’ve worked on, but I was taught to stay positive, and not make personal attacks like that. If you were one of my volunteers, you’d be corrected and if you kept it up, not invited back. Sure we say snarky stuff behind closed door or to our trusted folks, but publicly we keep it positive. But, that’s here and you’re there, so whatever.

This cycle I’ve done nothing except donate to my state rep. I’m just burned out on the hours it takes away from the family. If any of my chosen candidates had a real race I’d probably make the time, but I’m in a solidly blue city in a solidly blue state.

16

Agreed. So Ivana got out from communism and came to the US to build a life. Why is that a bad thing?

And Melania left after the Wall came down and communism fell apart.

Might be different if either had actually been involved in a communist party, but attacking them because they were born in a communist country and got out?

Low and irrelevant.

17

Basically these kinds of attacks on Melania and Ivana are absolutely no different than Trump attacking Mexicans, and more to the point, it’s going to turn neutral voters off, which is not what we want. I view these tactics the way I view a cheap shot by a member of the Dallas Cowboys. I want my team to win, but I want to win with class and not hurting someone else. I think it’s great you’re out there fighting for Hillary but I’m in agreement that you oughtta lay of the the commie comments.

18

Perhaps. But this is an ugly campaign where Trump had already made his opponents marriage an issue. Tit for tat and all that.

Guy I was talking to was a Vietnam vet. Took a swing, got a double. Yeah, ugly, but so are the consequences of a Trump victory. I don’t feel at all guilty beating up on Trump cause he likes fucking commies, not in self-described “Military City”. It’s a winning topic here.

19

Perhaps where you live, Asahi. Here in a town where 10%+ of the populace are military vets, 70% of people are Hispanics witb strong family values, beating up on this guy for sleeping with the enemy is a message that works.

20

People have these things called smartphones – they can record what you say and upload the video and share it with millions of others within, what, a minute? What if voters in other states see it? What if they see others doing it? Kinda takes away the “Don’t vote for the bigoted scumbag” advantage, doesn’t it?