Last day of door knocking

Just a quick post on yesterday, Day 3.  It was slightly shorter since we didn’t get going until about noon (we don’t want to bother people Sunday morning and many of them would be away at church).

On the way in, I saw people standing on the grassy median in the road, waving McCain/Palin signs.  Like other people I talked to, my first thought on seeing them was, “What a waste of scarce volunteer resources”.  Why aren’t those people knocking on doors or at least making phone calls?  There’s no way that McCain has too many volunteers in the area.  Research shows that canvassing is at least 4 times more effective than phone calls which have got to be several times more effective than waving signs on the road.

Here’s a fun picture from the Ashburn office:

Favorite conversation of the day:  “It’s like a company re-org.  When your company’s failing, you don’t re-org with the same people who ran the company down”

Funny moment of the day:  Young woman answers the door.  I introduce myself and ask her if Fred and Mary are home (not the real names).  She closes the door to go get them.  Fred comes to the door, opens it, says “We’re watching football”, shuts the door.  I stand for a moment surprised in mid-sentence.  Then as I’m about to leave, a young boy (maybe 8 yrs old) opens the door to say hi.  I hand him some of my literature and ask him if he could give it to Fred.  He says ok and shuts the door.

Overall, the energy of the day was great.  I went out 3 times with different teams, probably totaling around 120 doors.  Each time I came back, the office was teeming with volunteers.  In the neighborhoods, didn’t see a single McCain/Palin canvasser.

This was the last day of door knocking.  Monday is just about dropping off literature and giving that last little nudge to go out and vote.