Fear and suspicion in N.H.

I had hoped that my day of canvassing in N.H. would be exhilarating, but instead I ended up feeling a bit down, due to all the fear and suspicion that I encountered. It might have been due to the area we were assigned - we had a suburban townhouse condo complex that was mostly populated by retired elderly. 

But starting from the beginning....

We gathered at 8:30 in the morning at the home of Susan F, a local town councillor. I had said I would be willing to drive if necessary, but it turned out that there were enough drivers, so I went in a car of 4 with David, Charlie, and Mary. I'd seen Charlie at meetings of the local environmental group, and I think I'd seen Mary somewhere before, but didn't know them really well before the start of the trip. One of my goals in doing this was to start to get to know more of my neighbors, so that was a nice part of the day.

We took the Google directions that Susan had printed out for us and headed up to Salem. David had a "Yes We Can" mix tape that his son had downloaded from the internet which he played in the car radio on the way up. It was a lovely sunny warm day, so the scenery was great. 

We arrived at headquarters, which was a VFW post on the outskirts of Salem. We signed in and got our packets. We had a clipboard with a map, a list of people to contact with their addresses, and a whole bunch of checkboxes. We were supposed to determine who they were planning to vote for, whether they planned to vote or already had voted, whether they needed a ride or might volunteer to help. There were also ways to indicate "Not Home", "Refused" or "Moved". And also a bag of literature.

They wanted us to go in pairs, so Mary and I took one list and Charlie and David took another. Luckily they were adjoining territories, so we could drive together the 8 or 9 miles. Then David dropped us off at the start of our route and we planned to communicate via cell phone for pickup.

Most of our addresses were in the condo community I mentioned earlier. It was a very pleasant rural site, with a nice walking trail and a pond around the outskirts, and a golf course across the street. We had about 50 addresses, and most of them were "Not Home". In fact, I suspect many of them were actually home but just chose not to answer the door. We had 10 "Refusals", most of which were probably McCain voters. We had a lot of Undecideds, some of which were clearly McCain voters and some of which seemed sincerely undecided. But most of them didn't want to talk, although were willing to take literature. I think we had 6 or 7 people who admitted to being for McCain and all of 6 who said they were for Obama. 

There was one woman we spent some time talking to, and I think she was the source of my sad feelings about the day. She said she was a Democrat, but she wasn't going to vote for Obama because she was afraid of him. She was afraid he was a socialist and would raise taxes and redistribute wealth, she was afraid that he was friends with terrorists, she thought his wife didn't love America, it was just one thing after another from the McCain negative campaign playbook. It felt sad, because she seemed to be generally conflicted. I asked her how she felt about Sarah Palin and that seemed to almost get through to her - she admitted that was a big mistake. I also talked a bit about McCain's lack of support for funding for veterans (since she had a sign on her door indicating support for veteran's affairs). But she responded that was just one issue, and she was genuinely afraid of what Obama would do if he were elected. She couldn't understand why other people didn't see this. 

I wonder afterward if this is the manifestation of racism. Not any sort of overt "I won't vote for him because he's black" racism, but rather the fact that people are just more willing to believe the smears and, as a result, fear that a President Obama would to do crazy things because he's not "one of us". This, I think, is what Clinton was talking about when he said "he can't win". This is spite of Obama being one of the most non-threatening, non-angry black men you could possibly imagine. This in spite of the fact that he has gathered around him a brain trust, mostly white, and has received endorsements from many top Republicans for his calm and measured leadership style.

It's not easy to be a melting pot country. We've accepted black people as athletes and entertainers and at some level in politics. But there is still so much fear of having a black person at the highest level. I think we need an Obama win to set an example and to show these otherwise reasonable people that they don't have to be afraid of people who don't look like them.

Well, getting back to the canvassing... It wasn't all bad. We did find a few Obama supporters, including one guy who thought Obama had the potential to be a "really great" president. That was encouraging. But, interestingly enough, he had only lived in N.H. for a year - he was originally from Massachusetts. He asked how we were doing and we admitted not so well in that particular area. We told him to talk to his friends, and that every vote counted.

 As I mentioned, most of our houses were in the condominium complex, but the last handful were scattered on a couple of roads some distance away. David and Charlie's houses were also in a fairly tight cluster. So we had arranged to call them when we were done with the condos, and they would pick us up and drive us down to the other site. While waiting, we sat on the side of the road and had some granola bars and water, as we'd been door-knocking for several hours by that point.

Then David and Charlie came by and we shared the last few houses. They had had better luck in their neighborhood, so I think that our particular area was just a tough one. And the last house we visited was a woman with two nice young girls who was very enthused about Obama. So at least we ended on a positive note. 

We drove back to headquarters, added up our results onto a tally sheet, and turned everything in. It was after 2 by then, so we went off to look for a restaurant and ended up finding a very nice seafood place across from the old Rockingham Park racetrack on Route 28. I indulged in a lobster roll, and it was excellent- packed full of lobster and not drenched in mayonnaise. So we had a nice chance to eat and talk and unwind. David, who is an election commissioner tried to recruit me to work on election day, since they were short 3 people. I had considered it in the past, but it involves working from 6am to 9pm and I am just unsure as to whether I can really hold up for that long. Besides, I want to be home watching election results, since some states start coming in at 7. So I told him probably not, but he could call me on Monday if he was still desperate and I would consider it.

Then we drove back to Watertown, he dropped me off an Susan's and I headed on home. I didn't do much the rest of the day and went to bed early. So now with the time change I am awake too darn early in the morning. I am feeling tense, and will probably continue feeling tense until Tuesday night. Everyone in my car, though, thought that Obama would win, so I am trying to be cautiously optimistic.