Hey, is my phone ringing? Can you hear that? Oh... sorry, it's just my fear manifesting again.

[timepiececlock]

First, have some political candy floss~


Multi-colored map of current electoral polls: http://www.pollster.com/polls/2008president/

Scatterplot of poll averages from 2007-today: http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php



Update from Voter Registration in Colorado

Average # of voters I personally register: 3.7 voters per hour, in a 2 to 5 hour shift
Average # of hours I work per day: 13.5
# of times I go to Fed Ex: at least 4 trips in a 7-day a week
# of miles driven so far in the cause: 440+


I had a really hard day today. My hardest day yet, actually. I had to drive people around a lot, and we got kicked off or had to leave four sites, so in 5 and a half hours of being in the field, I only got in two hours of actual voter reg canvassing. We were hoping to have at least 3 people at this festival but it was very small, and the one canvasser I sent in was asked to leave after only and hour and a half or so. So we tried a few other backup places, and for various reasons those were unavailable as well. It was incredibly frustrating. I took out two people, one of whom did fairly well and one of whom did poorly, and I don't know how to motivate him to be more assertive and hustle more. A very similar chain of events happened yesterday (at one point my first-day-in-training canvasser was threatened to be arrested for registering people on private property that we believed was a public bus stop, and two hours later someone stole her lunch bag.) It's been a hard week. Productive in pure numbers, but difficult from an administrative perspective. I'm one of two directors in what should be a three-director office, so there's always more we need to do than we have resources to get done.

But there were some good things. Of the seven people I registered today (in two hours), I think at least five of them were brand new voters: a couple young people, an ex-convict, and a very old man who'd never voted in his life. I like helping those people get registered.

I got into a brief "why does it matter" discussion with this idiotic kid (he looked about 20) and came very close to getting him to register, but he was at his work so eventually I gave up and let him be. It's annoying, though, the people who say it doesn't matter. Especially considering what I've already put into this job in just a month.

I'm constantly imagining that I hear my phone ringing.



-Peace

Comments

[irrel.livejournal.com]

It's shame that you've had such a bad day! I hope it gets better. I don't know what's wrong with people, even *I* want to vote, and I'm not even American, but it all seem so exciting! hahaha.

I loved that SNL sketch, btw =D

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing this work. I'm not doing nearly as much, but what gets me through the hangups and rude responses to phone calls is that each refusal gets me closer to the one person on my list whose opinion I may be able to change, and that's worth it.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

I'm an ocean away and totally rooting for you. Like, the part of me that gets happy and not sad over politics is totally geeked out at what you're doing. :-D