Canvassing In Danville For The Democratic Ticket

By: Lee Diamond
Published On: 9/25/2008 4:51:21 PM

I went door-to-door yesterday for our three big candidates in the 5th Congressional District:  Barack Obama for President, Mark Warner for Senate & Tom Perriello for Congress.  Tom is running against good ol' Virgil Goode.

I am down here because I heard that there are a lot of African-Americans in this district who are not registered to vote.  While canvassing for our candidates, I registered.......
.........three voters yesterday.  I am excited about seeing the results of all our work.

I have done a lot of canvassing in my time.  The experience yesterday was unique.  The first area I worked was basically African-American.  Talked with a bunch of people, registered one lady and moved on.

Then, I went to a street on the other side of the road.  When I turned in there was a house with two McCain signs and a bumpersticker on the door.  Not great start, good ending.  As I worked both sides of the street, I did not notice a literal divide between one side of the street and the other, but it felt that way.
All the African-American folks except for one were enthusiastic about Barack.  

The white voters except for a small handful were for McCain.  A few of the McCain voters were polite to me and the rest exhibited varying degrees of rudeness.  One person said "We're not voting for Obama because we know what he's about."  I thought to myself, yeah you know the latest internet rumor about how he is part Arab.  We just gather up the voters we can in a neighborhood such as this one and move on.  It was weird though.

I am glad that I encountered the diversity of Virginia.  Is this what George Allen was talking about in 2006 when he welcomed the Webb campaign volunteer to the "real Virginia?"   It is valuable to learn about where people are at in different parts of the country.

The day had a positive ending on this same street.  I walked by two neighbors, a young black woman and an elderly white woman, who were talking.  The white woman recently got out of the hospital and has not voted before.  With an assist from the younger woman, I got this new voter registered.  She is going to get a ride to the polls from her neighbor.  I ended up feeling like there is some HOPE on that street.

Comments



Good work. (Tiderion - 9/26/2008 11:33:14 AM)
The 4th and 5th are tough nuts to crack because of the poverty levels and such. Tom is making great progress though. I'd expect the Dems to pick up 4 seats in Virginia this year. Let's try for 7.


Lee (KathyinBlacksburg - 9/26/2008 5:02:03 PM)
You are an inspiration.  One concern I have is the push by the GOP for early voting.  Last week my husband got a push poll telling him Barack Obama would raise taxes.  Then the call (robo) said he'd receive an absentee ballot in a few days.  It never came.  And my husband is an Obama supporter anyway.  But this kind of effort should be banned.  Are you finding voters who've gotten this kind of call and/or an absentee ballot mailed to them?  Legally one has to apply for an absentee ballot.  So how can they do this?

Also, if you don't include a photocopy of your driver's license, the Help America vote act says the absentee ballot can be rejected.  I will follow up with our local registrar.  But our former (gutless) electoral board, which was mostly democrat chose a Republican registrar.  We now have new reps to the board.  I'll write more about this when I research it.