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View Full Version : Poll Greeting in Mobile Yesterday




Jobarra
01-31-2008, 12:46 PM
Beginning the day before, my meetup group actually put out about 15 large 4X8 Paul signs with some serious wood frames backing them at the larger polling places. We found out later that evening that some of them had been taken down because they weren't supposed to be up before the day of the election. A few of the polling places didn't want people to think they supported any of the candidates because the sign was pretty big and looked like a permanent fixture. They put up a sign at my polling place, a baptist church, and the church kindly explained they didn't want to seem to be supporting Ron Paul so they laid the sign down but didn't dismantle it or anything. Some of the meetup group guys volunteered to go put them up again early in the morning. Apparently when they went to put it up at my polling place, they found some Romney supporters there putting up a banner of their own on a big clump of trees. The Romney supporters were very cordial and actually shined their headlights on the sign while our guys nailed it back to the frame.

Well, I only got about 3 hours sleep yesterday morning due to nervousness and a questionable dinner(leftover KFC hot wings and Krispy Kreme donuts are NOT a good mixture before going to bed :p), so I ended up getting up a little too late to make it to the polls before they opened. After grabbing a folding chair and some posterboard and drawing supplies at Wal-Mart, I finally made it to my precinct polling place(one of the top 4 precincts in the city by turnout) about 8am, one hour after the polls had opened.

On the way up to the polling place I passed a friendly Romney greeter. I went inside and voted for Paul and myself on the ballot(At-Large delegate, Place 3). I was allowed inside even though I was wearing a Ron Paul shirt, which I didn't think was allowed, but apparently it is as long as you don't loiter around in the polling place. I asked one of the poll workers if it would be okay to setup a small table outside the polling place. He said it was and confirmed that it would be okay with another poll worker. They just said I had to be outside of the "No polling beyond this point" signs.

Outside, I told the Romney greeter I would be back and went to get my stuff. I took 2 yard signs I still had and taped them to the back of my tailgate so that people saw them when they first drove in(I parked near the entrance on purpose). I grabbed my table, chair, and supplies and set them up right next to the Romney guy. He introduced himself as Josh and was friendly all day talking back and forth and discussing politics. He seemed to just be trying to follow the GOP party because he talked about campaigning for a local state senator he liked. This same senator is a Ron Paul fan and even attends some of our meetup meetings with tips on how to campaign effectively.

I set up my table and chair and shoved my last yard sign in next to the table. Then I took the posterboard and wrote "Ask Me About Ron Paul" on it and taped it to the table. I knew from other exit polls that about 30% of people still don't seem to have their mind made up at the poll so I was ready to have alot of people come by and ask me stuff. I had printed out all of the issues from the website and put them in a binder. I had all manner of slim jims and bumper stickers there. I never used any of the info since noone came by to ask me any questions. It was usually either "I'm voting for him"(at which point I asked them to vote for me too) or "I like what he says"(at which point I could tell they were of the "but he can't win" mentality and couldn't even argue the point with them because they said it while walking by and not stopping). I gave away 2 bumper stickers.

It had rained the night before so the chair kept sinking into the ground, but it was a sunny if somewhat cold day all day. In the morning and the evening it was especially cold because there was a fairly heavy wind that kept blowing. I had to tape the yard sign to the table to get it to stop blowing everywhere. In fact, the most people talked with me and Josh was to mention how cold it was.

Josh was there until about 10am at which point he left to go vote in another city about 20 miles away. I was there alone until a Hillary greeter showed up. She sounded like a professional of some sort and said that she had been at a few of the other polling places already. She was polite and would respond as such to questions. She said she would be at their convention as a non-voting observer so I definitely think she was part of a professional organization. She left after about 30 minutes to go to another polling place. Josh came back after about an hour and a half and said his precinct was pretty empty. We had a steady stream of cars all day with no real dead times. It never got as busy as I've seen it during general elections, but I imagine it was busier than previous primaries even though I've never voted in them. We saw no other greeters that day. It was just him and me representing Romney and Paul except for the Hillary greeter. More of my meetup members came by during the day at various times, but that was it.

Josh and I talked for most of the day about various things. We both agreed that we couldn't see why people voted for McCain. I'll give Romney one thing that I never thought I would have said at the beginning of these campaigns. He actually seems LESS liberal than McCain. I could never vote for him, but I would rather he was in the White House than McCain if those were the ONLY two choices. We discussed McCain's liberalness for most of the day and Josh said if Paul ran third party and McCain was on the ticket as the GOP candidate, he would vote for Paul. I told him while I wanted Paul to run third party if he didn't get the nomination, I seriously doubted he would do it even though it would be the perfect time for any third party candidate if it was Hillary vs. McCain. I think we'll see Bloomberg jump in for sure if noone else does.

Well, the day ended and the Hillary supporter came back and asked what the results were. I told her that I didn't think they could release the results because they were supposed to keep them sealed until next Tuesday when the rest of the state votes. She said she knew that, but that we could still get the number of ballots cast. I never thought to ask that, so we didn't have that info. I would guess maybe a thousand votes for the day though. It was a fairly steady stream of cars and the parking lot by the entrance could probably fit about 50 cars in it. It was continuously filled most of the day. Josh and I got to see 2 fender benders in the parking lot(it was a long parking lot with poorly marked lines and not a lot of room to get out of it), although none were very serious, just a dent and some paint scraped off.

Here is what I learned at least for my precinct:
1) People may be undecided at the poll, but they really don't want to talk with anyone about it. I noticed when I went in to vote there was a crowd of people around the sample ballot figuring out who they were going to vote for or how to vote on the ballot. Not sure which case it was, but for the most part people tried to ignore the greeters except for politely returning our "good evening/morning".

2) College kids just don't vote. It was really sad because there were more people with walkers and canes out voting than spry young kids who could run laps around them all. If they can go to the effort to make it out, college kids have no excuse at all. I would say that 97% of the voters I saw were 30+ years old and of that amount, about 60% were 50+ years old. Rough guestimations, but that's how it felt. Oh, and my precinct borders on the largest university in town(University of South Alabama). It includes quite a few neighborhoods that I KNOW have lots of college students in them, so I know that there should be way more college voters. Maybe they had classes today and figured they would do it next Tuesday when they were out of school, but I somehow doubt college kids are going to show up to vote when they could be out drinking and partying in one of the biggest parade days.

3) Name recognition is key to any public office. Josh and I were talking about delegates and he mentioned that another Romney supporter was on the ballot contesting one of the delegate spots. He is apparently a VERY well known figure in many of the circles around the state, so he is going to definitely get the spot just because people know who it is on the ballot. Unless you're running for president(and possibly even if you are), people seem to be willing to vote just because they know the name. I know this is common sense stuff, but it just never really clicks. I bet Howard Stern could run for public office at most any place in the country and probably get a large amount of votes just due to people recognizing him.

4) Do NOT talk about conspiracy type stuff in Meetup groups. I had a supporter come out for the last 30 minutes of the day and introduce himself to us and then stand with us to greet people. He said he joined the meetup group a few months before I did(I think he said back in June) and during the first meeting he went to, somebody was really pushing conspiracy type stuff(talking about Jews and stuff, and this supporter said he was originally from New York, so it probably offended the crap out of him). He said he just got up, walked out, and never came back. You can have whatever views you want to, but do NOT associate them with Ron Paul. Ron Paul meetups are for getting Paul elected on HIS platform, not yours.

Dave39168
01-31-2008, 02:06 PM
one thing about the college age voters to consider:

I might be a college student attending USA at mobile. BUT i may be from a town hours away. And probably still registered to vote in my hometown rather than in mobile. I never took the time to change my registration to mobile. And i am busy (go to class/study/work/etc etc) and forget to even think about driving home to vote when the time comes.

I'm not trying to excuse their poor citizenship, I am just saying that this is a reason i have seen for college students not voting. I am a college student myself, and my precint is an hour away from where i go to school, but personally, I always make the effort and go vote.

Jobarra
01-31-2008, 02:22 PM
After seeing elderly men and women obviously making a huge effort just to walk with their walkers, there is no valid excuse to me for not voting from young people. I've given those same excuses before and I'm ashamed now after seeing the effort the elderly make to vote. I will shame any young person who tells me they didn't vote for some stupid excuse such as "I had school/work/forgot". Sorry, but that image is now galvanized in my head and shows how pathetic those excuses are. Maybe if someone had shamed me earlier I would have been more politically active earlier.

This doesn't negate your point, but I'm not going to excuse their bad citizenship in light of what I saw yesterday either.

Jobarra
01-31-2008, 04:35 PM
Sorry if I seemed negative in the first post about the effect of being there, but I guess I was way more optimistic than I should have been and was a bit dejected when I didn't seem to be all that DIRECTLY effective(who knows, maybe someone didn't feel like stopping to talk but saw support for only two candidates and decided to vote for Ron Paul).

Here is a snippet from an email that I just got from someone in our meetup and it sounds like they got to interact with voters and make a difference. Maybe it was just me. I DID miss my haircut so maybe it was that :D



I was able to spend about 3 hours total yesterday morning and afternoon at the Satsuma precinct, basically just being “present” holding and waving a sign, and speaking to anybody who would listen. I know for sure of at least three people who arrived undecided but with a gentle mention of Dr. Paul’s plans to reduce taxes and cut government became RP voters. These people had never heard of him before and were disgusted by the candidates they did know.

jacque
01-31-2008, 06:37 PM
My son is GunnyFreedom. He is out canvassing and talking almost 20 hours a day. If you can talk to at least 10 people and they talk to 10 people, Ron Paul will get the vote.

I am so tired of people saying he won't win anyway so why vote for him. If all these people voted for him, by now he would be on top not the liberal McCann or liberal Romney.

Jobarra
01-31-2008, 07:39 PM
My son is GunnyFreedom. He is out canvassing and talking almost 20 hours a day. If you can talk to at least 10 people and they talk to 10 people, Ron Paul will get the vote.

I am so tired of people saying he won't win anyway so why vote for him. If all these people voted for him, by now he would be on top not the liberal McCann or liberal Romney.
Unfortunately, the "but can he win" argument is the strongest reason he isn't winning. I've tried and gotten a few to understand how stupid this argument is, but the media is REALLY powerful.

I agree though, if all the people I've talked with who said "but can he win" voted, it would easily double his vote at least with those I've talked with.

GunnyFreedom
02-01-2008, 10:34 AM
Unfortunately, the "but can he win" argument is the strongest reason he isn't winning. I've tried and gotten a few to understand how stupid this argument is, but the media is REALLY powerful.

I agree though, if all the people I've talked with who said "but can he win" voted, it would easily double his vote at least with those I've talked with.

the statistics returned from early primary states show that the precincts we canvass yeild at least 200% of non-canvassed areas. This has been demonstrated in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida. That is not speculation, but demonstrated and repeated fact.

In the light of that, and the fact that there is not a member here who has not seen the statistical and anecdotal evidence for that, I have to wonder why you are here at all.

Do you really believe that you will help Ron Paul win, or help spread freedom by sitting on your rear end and demoralizing the people who are actually out there doing the work?

jdmetz
02-01-2008, 10:59 AM
Just to encourage you, I stood outside my precinct in Michigan for 3 hours (over lunch time) with a Ron Paul sign. I only had about 4 people actually talk to me about it, and of those 1 was negative and another was voting for Kucinich. So, I was somewhat discouraged. But, my precinct voted 15% for Ron Paul compared to a county wide average of 8%. So, it is quite possible that your being there made a difference even if people weren't talking to you about it.

Jobarra
02-01-2008, 03:50 PM
the statistics returned from early primary states show that the precincts we canvass yeild at least 200% of non-canvassed areas. This has been demonstrated in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida. That is not speculation, but demonstrated and repeated fact.

In the light of that, and the fact that there is not a member here who has not seen the statistical and anecdotal evidence for that, I have to wonder why you are here at all.

Do you really believe that you will help Ron Paul win, or help spread freedom by sitting on your rear end and demoralizing the people who are actually out there doing the work?
Strange. I was agreeing with what your mom said and even related above her post that my first post may have sounded a bit too negative while giving positive reinforcement that greeting DID work at other precincts yet you still come here and bash me acting like I'm "sitting on my ass". I canvassed my precinct whenever I could. I've related how it has gone and that the "but can he win" mentality is the biggest problem to overcome other than the lack of name recognition. Did I ever say I gave up? Nope. In fact I went and sat at the polling place for 10 hours trying to entice people to talk to me. I have the sunburned face and chapped lips to prove it(a reminder to greeters, put on sunblock and lip balm if it's windy. A hat didn't help as much as I thought it would for protecting my face)

I have no clue why you bring up statistics at all. I don't disagree with any of them and in fact signed up for the precinct leader program in order to increase the percentage of votes. Yet you gladly associate an opposing viewpoint to me. It smacks of marginalizing tactics that the MSM uses on Ron Paul. You ask me why I'm even here. I would ask why you use those smear type tactics on a fellow Ron Paul supporter.

Sorry, but in my experience, anyone out there actually canvassing is going to already know about the "but can he win" mentality. I'm hoping that others who are starting to canvass will read this and be encouraged to be ready for the attitude and maybe read up on the arguments against it. However, what I said is absolutely true and not defeatist. If you think merely talking about it is somehow giving up, then you haven't been paying attention to these forums for the past few months with other canvassing or personal stories.

I find it sad that you ask for help everyday and then bash someone who DID and HAS volunteered their time to help elect Ron Paul. Are you actually talking to voters like this? If so, calm down. I don't know if it was some perceived attack on your mother or if you have just spent a little bit too much time canvassing today and need sleep. BTW, bashing Alabama members for their time spent REALLY isn't going to get you any help here.


Just to encourage you, I stood outside my precinct in Michigan for 3 hours (over lunch time) with a Ron Paul sign. I only had about 4 people actually talk to me about it, and of those 1 was negative and another was voting for Kucinich. So, I was somewhat discouraged. But, my precinct voted 15% for Ron Paul compared to a county wide average of 8%. So, it is quite possible that your being there made a difference even if people weren't talking to you about it.
Thanks for the encouragement and I hope your right. The only negative person I saw all day was a man who walked by, smiled, and gave a thumbs down. Hardly a demoralizing incident I assure you. I just smiled right back and shrugged. My precinct had 7200+ names on it and is one of the top four precincts in voting turnout in the city. My meetup group helped me a little bit the first day canvassing and with later sessions we probably hit 500+ houses all told. I was probably spending way too much time talking to people trying to get their vote. I thought that would be the best way to insure votes, but truthfully, with that many houses to hit in such a short time, I should have probably just did lit drops to get name recognition out. I'm hoping we'll see the difference in precinct results due to our canvassing efforts. I know I got a few extra votes for Dr. Paul at least just from the canvassing efforts. Hopefully my greeting efforts also added on some votes. At the very least I had a good learning experience for who really votes.