A Conversation in My Precinct This Weekend

MineralMan

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Wed Sep-08-10 01:07 PM
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A Conversation in My Precinct This Weekend

Edited on Wed Sep-08-10 01:24 PM by MineralMan

As usual, this close to an election, I took a few hours over the weekend and took a walk in my precinct, carrying campaign literature from all the DFL (Democratic) candidates who will be on the ballot in this precinct in November. Right now, I'm not knocking on doors, but am talking to folks who are out in their yards doing stuff. The door-knocking comes later, closer to the election.

So, I was about three blocks away from my Saint Paul, MN home, and found a guy who was working on his boat in his driveway, so I stopped to chat. We talked about this year's fishing season and boats for a bit. It turned out that we both often fish the same lake, and he actually thought he recognized me from the lake. Then, I asked him what he was thinking about the election in November. He said, "What's the point, really?" I asked him why he felt that way. He said that he normally voted for Republicans, but he didn't like the Republican candidate for Governor, Tom Emmer. I asked him why. His answer had to do with Emmer's anti-immigrant rhetoric. He told me that he worked with a bunch of guys from West Africa and liked them for being hard workers and easy to get along with. He said that he got a bad feeling about Emmer, and that he thought the guy just didn't like anyone who wasn't a typical white Minnesotan.

So, I talked to him a bit about Mark Dayton, the DFL candidate for that office, and how he didn't have that attitude at all. I also discussed a couple of other DFL candidates and talked about their commitment to support of immigrants in the Twin Cities. He gave me a couple of "What about..." questions, but seemed satisfied with my explanations of Dayton's and the other candidates' positions on those issues. I gave him the candidates' literature and said that I sure hoped he'd show up on Nov. 2 and support the candidates who actually felt like he did about those issues. His answer was, "Well, you know...I think I just might do that." I'll drop in and chat with him again about a week before the election. He's on my "go back" list.

I talked to about a dozen other folks in the precinct on the same day. Some are regular Democratic voters who said that they'd be there on November. A couple were right wingers who will probably vote for Republicans. But, I even got them to take a couple of candidate flyers. A couple claimed to be Democrats but didn't think they'd bother to vote. I chatted with them a bit, and put them on the "go back" list for closer to Election Day.

It's a blue collar neighborhood, and very diverse, so we have just about every demographic segment in the precinct. I'll be walking with a Hmong friend next weekend, so we'll stop at homes where he's known to the residents and probably get fed a spring roll or something while we chat with them.

This is a fun process, precinct walking. If you do it over a two-month period, it's not exhausting, and you can actually talk to almost every voter in the precinct. I'm not the only one walking, and we coordinate our efforts so we don't wear folks out with duplicate visits. It's working. This is a high-percentage turnout district that almost always produces a Democratic majority, but every voter we can pull will help in the statewide races. Plus, it looks like some of the Republican voters are not unwilling to consider the DFL candidates this election. I'm very hopeful that we'll make some converts. Most importantly of all, though, we'll get people to the polls who might have skipped voting this year. that's crucial.

I hope everyone will consider doing some precinct walking before the election. Your local party organization is putting together precinct walking schedules and has the information you'll need, brochures to hand out, and all that good stuff. Give them a call. Ask if you can help, wherever you are. Every vote counts, and you could convince people to show up and vote.