My SwingLeft VotePA Phone Banking Experience Tonight
Let me begin w/ a confession that this was just my second night of phone banking in this cycle. I'm not really much for this sort of thing. As a yankee, it strikes me a somewhat pushy, and I've always hated being on the receiving end of cold-calls. Previous experience had also not proven to be much fun. But times being what they are, and after reading an account someone posted of their experience doing it, I figured I had to get off my ass and help out w/ the all important task GOTV. Better late than never, right?
So, I swung over to Swingleft and chose PA, cuz being from Vermont it seemed like the most important state for Joe that was relatively close to home. Besides, I was born there, and later lived there for year or so after college, so I have some connections.
The evening started w/ a kick-off Zoom meeting that included the Northeast volunteer coordinator for Joe, accompanied by Crooked Media co-founded and former Barack & Hillary staffer & speech writer, Jon Lovett. They were both actually pretty inspiring and funny. So, off I went to Truetalk-land and the call queue...
An hour or so later, needed a break. What an intense and draining, but ultimately rewarding experience it was. More answering machines and hang-ups than people who wanted to talk, and those who did were not always happy to do so. One man was pretty hostile. He didn't cuss me out, but he was pissed. How dare I call on a night like this when our President was in the hospital? He was quite clear he would never vote for a Democrat. I managed to remain curt but calm and polite. Another when given the scripted prompt that "I understand you support Joe & Kamala" replied "how do you know that!?" To which I could only think to reply, "well, it's what my screen is telling me".
As I kept going, I learned the hard way by trial and error to internalize the script, work hard to get the person's first name right on the first try, and stay calm while navigating the script buttons, prompts & response codes. This effort was made worthwhile by even a few touching calls.
There was the old man who answered, and when I asked if -insert woman's name- was available, he asked who I was. When I identified myself and my purpose, he quickly said, oh my wife I already voted. I then asked him, as instructed, to give me 3 names of others he could get vote, too. To which he explained that they live on a farm on top of hill, in a remote place and are eighty, so I'd just have to be content w/ their 2 votes, adding, "don't worry, it's already 2 to nothing for our side". To which the was nothing to do but chuckle, thank and wish him well.
Another woman was very patient w/ me as I fumbled w/ the iwillvote.com website trying to get her the location of her local polling station, after explaining that these places have a tendency to change these days. (Note to self, practice these thing a little ahead of time, next time.) In the end, sure enough, it turned out that her polling place had indeed been moved from where she was used to it being so lo these many years. So, it seems I may have actually help one person to get to the polls. Well, maybe 2 because she did say her daughter would join her.
I realized, in way that for some reason I hadn't before, that calling people is very personal thing to do. It's intimate, immediate and in the moment, exhilarating and exhausting all at once. I think I'm hooked! Tomorrow I'll copy down the Truecall login creds so that when I get logged out by the system after a short break I can get back (oops). Thanks for listening, I guess I really had to vent.
Cheers,
Al
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Thanks for the info.
Thank you...
Thanks for all you do on the behalf of the Democratic party! The world needs more people like you. I know it was difficult for you, which makes it even a bigger sacrifice.
