Halloween Canvass-style

Today is the buzzkill of the get out the vote project for me. I wake up shivering, still clinging to nightmares and visions of door to door canvassing and barcoded papers flying everywhere. I have this spot on my cheek that isn’t getting better, so that I feel like a leper when I go up each door and greet the inhabitants. Even a shower doesn’t really help. The minute I get to the office I realize that I forgot my cell phone and have to go back to the house. Thus starts the day.

Ryan and I depart to canvas in the eastside. We listen to great music in Ryan’s car. He drops me off in ward 19 and I begin to canvas. The problem is that everything is grey; I can’t tell where the pavement ends and the subdivisions and condos begin, and where these two story holding boxes for human lives end and the drab slate sky begins. All the streets have names like “Meadowbrook” and “Dayflower,” “Dawn” and “Sunfield.” And some of the addresses I have are for places like “2236 Dawn Apt. #4.” The only problem is that the apartments in 2236 Dawn are lettered, not numbered! I feel the kind of mass replica closterphobia that I feel when I’m in a mall for over twenty minutes. Never ending suburbia is swallowing me up. I ground myself by sitting under a tree, eating a pbj sandwich, and calling Tzadik, who tells me that a Congressman and family friend just told his (Tzadik’s) dad that Kerry is going to win for sure. This is one of four things that I hear this morning that encourages me keep on trucking. The other three are: My mom tells me that folks in California have resorted to dousing their Kerry/Edwards signs in itching powder to punish stealthy sign thieves. My Canadian friend Alon calls to tell me that he did a dedication in a sweat lodge to honor the “hard work our brothers and sisters are doing down south for the election,” and he tells me that he is going to have a healing circle on Tuesday morning. And, Josh expresses how good it is that I am in Wisconsin. Without these inspiring, humorous, and empassioned comments, I may have never made it to writing this journal entry.

Somehow, I continue going door to door, until I am dizzy with disorientation in the burbs of affluenza. Every door I go to is already papered with ACT, MoveOn, and/or Kerry propaganda. The day only worsens. Once I go into the neighborhood with older, middle class homes, each person who answers the door is disgruntled, and then outraged, that I am there. I have never had so many doors slammed in my face. One woman even says that if another person comes calling, she will “change her vote.” I don’t have time to tell her that we are non-partisan (for what it’s worth), because the door promptly slams shut. At one point I am canvassing steadily two houses behind the two young Democrat women putting Kerry door hangers up. We even introduce ourselves to each other.

As the night wears on, Halloween commences, and little kids troupe around with their buckets, while I mourn the lack of my rockin’ pink slip costume. Parents answering the doors seem horrified that I would even be out on a night like this—on a holiday—and they look at me with disgust. Some are friendly and give me candy, which I eat hungrily, and then feel super-sick. There are four options for a person on my list of names to contact: totally dark house with no signs of life, Yes! definitely voting, bad address, and in college (which is also a bad address.) None of these options really does us any good.

At the very end of the night I get to an apartment complex full of young people. Would have been good to be there all day! I meet a man from Puebla, Mexico, and we talk for a bit. Finally, it is time to go, and Ryan picks me up. We leave suburbia and head back to the office. I will write the full story of this insane day when the election is over. When I return to NVP headquarters, I decide to catch the bus to Milwaukee, where my efforts may be far more needed.