Canvassing

We got started around eight, headed from Rye to Concord. The plan was targeted canvassing, so we hit registered republicans and independents which had indicated they were interested in specific issues: health care, taxes, immigration, etc.

Charlie, Carl and I hit up a neighborhood where we had to hit about seventy houses in six hours – or until we ran out of daylight, whichever came first. Charlie, of course, had to stop the car and turn around to fix a crooked sign halfway there.



As we were stopped to fix it, the guy who owned the property pulled up and told us to remove the sign, since it had apparently been put up without his permission. We apologized and removed it, but he was very interested in hearing about Ron Paul. He took a Constitution and a DVD, and (had we asked him in the first place) I'm sure he'd have been thrilled to have the sign in his yard.

Best moment of the day was stopping at a house that had a Hillary sign on the lawn and an Obama bumper sticker on the car. Obama support is “paper thin,” as Ball puts it, so we realized we'd have a chance to convert them if we stopped to drop off some material.

They were, in fact, very interested, and were interested in Ron Paul's views on whether he considered water-boarding to be torture or not. I told her that the first steps that occur when a free society devolves into authoritarianism always involve justifying torture to minorities in a society (“enemy combatants,” in this case), a practice which is eventually justified for use on the rest of its citizens. She was very interested, as did the other fellow out there, and we left—stupidly forgetting to ask if we could remove the Hillary sign from the lawn.

We'll get better. Practice, practice, practice.