(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom and Daily Kos)
Yesterday was a busy day for myself. Although I did my usual canvassing in support of PA-08 Democratic nominee Patrick Murphy, it had the added excitement of meeting with the guys who are filming Crashing The States, an independent documentary chronicling the campaigns of netroots-backed candidates around the country. I wrote an extensive entry on some of my recollections of what we chatted about. That being said, that was only half of the day. Today, I will write about my 4th canvassing experience in support of Patrick – and it’s a little different from some of the previous times I’ve hit the pavement in support of this future rock star of the Democratic Party.
After the CTS crew filmed me being driven out to canvassing, myself and Katie, my canvassing partner for the day, headed out to Holland, a town that, based on the direction we traveled, was slightly to the southwest of where the campaign headquarters in Levittown is located. Although this was the first time Katie had done canvassing in support of Patrick, she’s no stranger to politics; back in 2004, she helped work on Senator Ken Salazar’s (D-CO) winning campaign that resulted in 1 of only 2 Senate seat pick-ups for Democrats (the other was Barack Obama). Today would also be a slightly new experience for myself as well. Most of my canvassing in the past, whether it be for John Kerry in 2004 or for CT-Sen Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, has been largely focused on getting the word out to Democrats. Indeed, canvassing in Connecticut for the Democratic primary was solely focused on turning out the vote within our own party. I took it as a sign of strength, then, when I looked down at my canvassing sheets – and saw probably half of those listed to be Republicans.
It’s not really a surprise, though. As an AP article notes, the Philadelphia suburbs – a traditionally Republican stronghold – has been trending towards the Democrats in the past decade. Al Gore and John Kerry carried the Philadelphia suburbs in the last 2 presidential elections, and Governor Ed Rendell is cruising to re-election this year, largely on the commanding support he engenders from southeast Pennsylvania. The numbers are worth highlighting:
This summer, for the first time since the state began keeping registration records in 1934, slightly more than 49 percent of voters in the four-county region listed their affiliation as Republican.
In 1990, 63 percent of voters in Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware and Chester counties were Republicans. Since then, Democratic registration has increased 7 percent to more than one-third of voters while the number of independent and minor party members doubled to 14 percent.
The same AP article notes that the current incumbent in PA-08, freshman GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, suffers from low name recognition – a symptom that makes sense, given that he only garners 44% in the latest DCCC internal poll. This race is going to be coming down to the wire, and in a district that still has more Republicans than Democrats, it’s going to be necessary to do some across-the-aisle canvassing. It’s definitely something I looked forward to doing. The area we canvassed yesterday was clearly an middle-upper class neighborhood, with many houses looking like there had been a good deal of money put into it. I didn’t expect to get much of a positive reaction to an area that one would probably assume wasn’t kind to Democrats, but it certainly didn’t turn out all that badly.
On a breezy – albeit humid – Saturday afternoon, it was no surprise that many people weren’t home on Saturday. Also, given that it was Rosh Hoshanah yesterday – and Northampton, the township that we were canvassing in, has one of the highest Jewish populations in the district – it’s no surprise that I got the usual limited response that one gets when pounding the pavement in mid-afternoon. However, I still had interactions at 13 of the 37 doors I knocked on, which is slightly more than 1/3 – a pretty decent rate of contact. In addition, I had the misfortune of catching many people who were busy. One lady who was doing some gardening work told me she didn’t want to chat with me; she probably thought I was selling her something. I didn’t get too far down the driveway, as a ferocious little dog barked quite wildly at me. A couple others were talking on the phone, so I quickly handed them some campaign literature about Patrick and thanked them for their time.
That being said, one young man actually hung up on his phone call to hear my pitch. He was probably about my age, but it warmed my heart to hear him say he was a ‘big fan’ of Patrick and that he’d be voting for him in November – as would his parents. The next house down was a Republican who gruffly asked me, “So, what are you here selling?” I quipped that I wasn’t selling him anything except for a congressional candidate. It turns out that the man, though not interested in talking to me much, did let me know that he was going to vote for Patrick in the election. It was great to have a Republican say straight up that they’d vote for a Democrat. In fact, despite the numerous Republican households that I was to canvass, I did not encounter a single Fitzpatrick supporter while I was on the ground. One household didn’t even bother chatting with me too much, cutting to the chase: they told me they voted ‘straight Democratic’, which was a damn good thing to hear.
There were a couple of disappointing stories, though. One involved an elderly lady who was walking back to her house after I had left a flyer at her door. Introducing myself, I asked if she had any idea who she would be voting for this election. “I’m not going to vote,” she said. This surprised me; I would think that the oldest Americans are the ones most inclined to vote. I tried to inquire why, but she said simply, “Because I’m not going to vote!” I walked away and began heading off towards the next block of streets when the lady called me back. She let me know that she voted in presidential elections, but she had no idea about either Fitzpatrick or Patrick. I offered to tell her about both candidates, but she dismissed me again, telling me that she had no interest in voting. Why? The only way you can save your democracy is if you bother to participate in it. This lady essentially didn’t care enough to vote this year. We can’t wait until the next presidential election to stop what Bush and the far right have done. It has to stop now.
Another household I encountered was a Republican household. The man who answered didn’t seem too pleased when I introduced Patrick, but I brightened up when I heard that he was undecided. I started pitching Patrick as a candidate, beginning with his status as an Iraq war veteran. “I don’t care about that. It means nothing to me,” he let me know as he pocketed the literature. Maybe it figures, as the leaders of the GOP don’t have much military experience – and look at the shitty job they’ve done with our foreign policy. I’d like someone who knew firsthand what the situation was like in Baghdad to be representing myself. I thanked him for his time and readied myself to leave when this man added something particularly insulting. “And tell them to stop with the John F. Kennedy shit,” he added for good measure, taking a not-so-veiled shot at Patrick’s first TV ad. Does it really bother Republicans that much to be reminded of competent Democratic leadership? And it’s not as if Patrick abused the memory of President Kennedy by employing him in his introductory advertisement. I’m sure many folks are reminded of the late president when they see Patrick, an equally young, charismatic Irish-American running for office.
That being said, there are a couple of good stories that came out of yesterday. First comes one from Katie, who canvassed a household that was particularly proud of its Irish heritage. The man who answered the door had a huge Irish tattoo on his arm, and he was excited about Patrick’s campaign – because he also has an Irish background (so does Fitzpatrick, but there was no need to mention that). The man ended up asking for all the Murphy – and Democratic – paraphanelia he could get for free. One household I canvassed was indicative of the kind of swing voters that we can flip this year. It was a Republican household, and the lady didn’t know much about Patrick, but she knew who she was voting for in the governor’s race. I asked who in a tentative manner, wondering if I’d finally met a supporter of the PA-Gov GOP nominee, Lynn Swann. Instead, I was relieved to hear the answer come back, “Definitely Rendell”. With a 50-point lead in the suburbs here, ‘Fast Eddie’ is swinging a lot of Republicans across party lines to back his candidacy. The popularity of the governor may very well easily stream down the ticket. If it does, the Democrats in the crucial swing districts – PA-06, PA-07, and PA-08 – could get an extra boost that pushed them far over the top.
In the end, I had 24 contacts – 6 strong Murphy supporters, 14 undecideds, and 4 refusals. For a canvassing effort that took part on a good deal of Republican turf, I’d have to say that those are the kind of results that are quite encouraging. When I was being driven back to the office, I heard a story of a couple at a parade Patrick was attending who sent their kids to pick up a good number of Murphy ’06 campaign stickers – only to tear them up. The Republicans may try and play dirty, as usual, but that’s not the kind of work that’s going to win this election. Boots on the ground will. And here in PA-08, we’re geared up to do just that.