Last weekend of canvassing

This weekend of door-to-door campaigning was markedly different from the last time I did this in December, just before the holidays. At that time we were still getting a lot of undecideds, now people had more or less made up their minds. And a lot of them had decided on Obama.

"I voted for Edwards in 2004, but I want to give Obama a chance now", said one. "I really think we should give him a chance".

"I think Obama has all the characteristics that are needed now", said another. "My wife is voting for Clinton, so we are all set".

There were still a small number of undecideds, though.

We kept running into other canvassers - for Obama, Clinton, Ron Paul (who are also targeting independent voters). We kept trying to switch streets so that are not right behind one of them. At almost all homes people had been there before us, leaving fliers at the door. After we got told politely that we are the 25th door bell he was answering and this was just putting him off completely, and got told by another that we were the 3rd or 4th Edwards team to visit in the last 2 weeks we decided to stop. This was just resulting in voter fatigue.

The Edwards' campaign conventional wisdom does not agree - they think saturation brings voters out. I guess the die-hard canvassers agree - I got visits from Ron Paul and Obama volunteers, in spite of having an Edwards sign on the lawn (which the Ron Paul person saw but the Obama person did not notice in the dark). The Ron Paul person thought there might be someone else in the household who might be a Ron Paul supporter :)

A lot of out of state folks have come in to volunteer. The date of the primary also enables political science students to come and be part of the campaign during their winter break. The Edwards office is full of them. One of the things they do is march up and down main street waving Edwards signs, and I joined them for a bit, The press was also marching up and down interviewing volunteers and supporters who were marching up and down :) We got a lot of car honks which was encouraging.