Yesterday I was out going door-to-door for Mark Pera, who is running for Congress in IL-03, a seat currently held by pro-war, anti-choice, machine "Democrat" Dan Lipinski. Our Northside DFA group has been canvassing precincts for Mark in Chicago's 11th Ward for a while now, but yesterday was my first time going out in the new year. Below are a few random stories/observations.
One of the first things we did when we got there was deliver window signs. At the first address the owner of the house was standing out on the front steps with her young child chatting with a neighbor. When we handed her the sign the child asked, "Mom, who's Mark Pera?" and she replied, "He's the one that's going to get rid of that lisping fool."
Speaking of window signs, yesterday we saw our very first Lipinski sign -- one lone sign pressed up to the dirty glass of a side window. So far that's the sole piece of physical evidence we have had to confirm that any of the other campaigns even exist. I have worked enough campaigns to know that it is not uncommon to see your opponents literature tucked under people's doors or sticking out of people's mail boxes. Or to have people say, "Oh yes, we had someone from the other campaign knock on our door last week." But so far we have seen absolutely nothing from anyone but Mark.
We have, however, run into Lipinski precinct workers at home. Which is another freaky thing. They are reasonably polite to us -- I guess they have knocked on enough doors to have some sympathy for what we are doing. But the significance of the fact that they are at home while we are out canvassing didn't hit me until one of my fellow canvassers pointed it out. Now, it might very well be that they are working their precincts at times we aren't there, but honestly they are all so scary looking it is hard to imagine how successful their appeals would be. Certainly they carry a lot of weight with people who are long-time residents, but what about with the yuppies in the rehabs and new-construction town homes? Will they be won over by the persuasive powers of these grey-faced old men? I had one of them talk my ear off about his glory days working with "Richie Daley" at the State's Attorney's office (presumably back when "Richie" was busy ignoring the allegations of torture by the infamous John Burge) and wanting to know if Mark Pera ever worked with "Richie Daley." As he craned his grizzled head forward, cupping his ear around his hearing aid to hear my answer, the other hand on his cane, I thought to myself, I bet this guy used walk a lot of precincts in his day. The question is, has anyone replaced him or do the precincts just go unwalked?
When I tell people we are canvassing for Mark down in a machine stronghold, they always want to know if people are receptive. Well, to be honest, in December when we were going out people were mostly just polite. They would listen to what we had to say, but it was clear they really had no idea what we were talking about -- except when we mentioned Lipinski. If they knew anything at all about the race they knew how Lipinski got his job and were NOT happy about it. Now I would say that maybe 1/5 of the people know exactly who we are and why we are there, and let us know right away what their preference is. About 2/5 are aware that there is some kind of race going on between someone other than Barack and Hillary, but have not yet really figured out what the deal is. And about 2/5 still don't know that there is an election coming up.
Mail. I know candidates need to send it. I know that most of their fundraising will go to buy it. I know that it helps, because people *are* starting to know who Mark is. But it is so frustrating to know that these people have gotten multiple huge glossy mailers from Mark, and then to go up to their door and say, "So, have you seen Mark's mailings?" and have them say, "Yes, I think we did get something but I'm really not sure. Honey, did we get something in the mail from someone named Mark ... what did you say his name was again?" Arghhh!
Race. "Is your candidate Croatian? Because if he's Croatian, we'll vote for him!" "Is your candidate Lithuanian? Because if he's Lithuanian we'll vote for him! "Is your candidate [insert ethnicity of your choice]? Because if he's [insert ethnicity of your choice] we'll vote for him!" Double arghhhh! Is this just a Chicago thing?
More on mail. When I found out that John Sullivan, last cycle's anti-Lipinski candidate, only spent $127K on his entire campaign, I immediately became more hopeful about this race. Because that kind of money means he really didn't do any mail, which means if you *did* have the money to do mail it was possible that things would come out differently. But mail is not only expensive, it is tricky. For some people you can send one piece of mail, they will read and comprehend it, and any mail after that only annoys them. For others you can send them a dozen mail pieces and they still won't know who you are or why you are sending them stuff. And you have no idea which voter is which. That is one reason door-to-door is so effective -- you can see how your pitch is going over and modify it to fit. You can find out right on the spot what things they are interested in and what elements of your candidate's story might appeal. With mail it is such a scatter-shot. Yes, you can do some targeting, but when I consider how crummy the voter roles are, the idea that any of your mail is even getting to the right person let alone that it actually carries the message they want to hear seems iffy at best.
Speaking of voter roles, can I just say that they suck? I can't tell you how many times I will walk up to a house and see four people, two with one last name and two with a different last name, all registered at that address, and it turns out that it is the current occupants and the former occupants who are still listed on the voter roles at being at that address. Or I will walk up to someone's house with five names on the list all with different last names and find out one is deceased, two moved away, the fourth person they never heard of, and the fifth lives in the house next door. And the person you're talking to? They just moved there and are registered to vote but haven't voted yet and therefor are not on your list of past voters and have not gotten any mail from the campaign. What bothers me about that isn't so much the possibility of voter fraud -- I don't think most people care enough to actually go back to their old neighborhood to vote -- its the fact that the campaigns are all wasting their money and several trees sending mail to people who don't live there. I don't know what it takes to get someone off the voter roles, but with PSB as my witness, after this election I am at very least going to clean up the precinct where *I* live and save a few trees next campaign season.
That's it! I'll be going out again next weekend and every weekend after that until the February 5th primary. If you want to knock on a few doors yourself and have your own canvassing stories to tell, contact Mark's campaign at:
www.pera08.com
And if you want to donate money -- hey, someone has to pay for all that lit we leave at people's doors -- why not contribute via our Northside DFA Act Blue page at:
http://www.actblue.com/page/ndfa_picks
