I'm curious about your political canvassing experiences. Were they solo or with a team? Volunteer or paid? What happened?
Political canvassing does take someone with a very special personality, I've found, ESPECIALLY when doing it solo. I've done it a few times solo, mostly door-hanging or registering Democratic voters -- safer forms of canvassing for a liberal like me -- and I still ran into ALL kinds.
Unless I have a partner with me at all times, never again. Solo canvassing ia nasty work.
Canvassing for donations for the Sierra Club in Santa Cruz, for pay. Got dropped off in unfamiliar neighborhoods, went door-to-door solo.
This soured me on "volunteering" for years; as I've expressed before, I find unsolicited phone calls and knocks on the door offensive and intrusive, and this experience showed me that almost everyone else does, too, so I simply can't believe anyone else is swayed by them.
You'd be amazed at how effective canvassing is politically, when it comes to getting voters to the damned polls. However, it hugely depends on how well targeted it is. My canvassing runs were fairly well targeted, but I ran into some serious teabagger cranks that somehow still made the "D" voter rolls.
Going into so-called "independent" canvassing, I would NEVER do that without someone at my side. The first D canvassing wasn't all that awesome solo either -- I was sent straight into the (student) slums, and I didn't hang around there long, believe me. Got a few D voters registered, though it wasn't enough; my candidate lost that election. :P
Donations? Er...not as much as it used to be. People are just so saturated with sales pitches these days, I think they automatically reject them.
Well, I can say that my stories were mixed. Political canvassing can be quite rewarding, if you do it for a campaign that knows what the hell they are doing, and ALWAYS go out with a partner into questionable territory.
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Political canvassing does take someone with a very special personality, I've found, ESPECIALLY when doing it solo. I've done it a few times solo, mostly door-hanging or registering Democratic voters -- safer forms of canvassing for a liberal like me -- and I still ran into ALL kinds.
Unless I have a partner with me at all times, never again. Solo canvassing ia nasty work.
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This soured me on "volunteering" for years; as I've expressed before, I find unsolicited phone calls and knocks on the door offensive and intrusive, and this experience showed me that almost everyone else does, too, so I simply can't believe anyone else is swayed by them.
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Going into so-called "independent" canvassing, I would NEVER do that without someone at my side. The first D canvassing wasn't all that awesome solo either -- I was sent straight into the (student) slums, and I didn't hang around there long, believe me. Got a few D voters registered, though it wasn't enough; my candidate lost that election. :P
Donations? Er...not as much as it used to be. People are just so saturated with sales pitches these days, I think they automatically reject them.
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