Dialing for votes

Today I spent a few minutes here and there making calls for the McCain campaign. It's very easy to do; just sign up at the site, get the script and a name and call. Record a little information, and move on to the next name. Because I only have little bits of time here and there, I only made 25 calls. Now I wish I had started earlier; it's really kind of fun. But that's me, always a little late to jump on the bandwagon.

Most calls were answered by machine, as you might expect during a workday. The few times I did connect were mostly pleasant. Only one person was borderline rude. Most people were happy to tell me they had voted or were going to vote for McCain. No one wanted to give me their email address - no surprise there. The women were more talkative than the men; one apologized for not being able to talk long because she had company coming. A few calls were to fax machines and on a few I got disconnect messages.

Also today we were visited by an Obama volunteer, a young mom with toddler in tow. She was very hesitant and I wondered why she had stopped since we have a McCain sign on our lawn. But she wanted to know if anyone in the house was voting for Obama. We were in the middle of a chaotic moment in a chaotic day so I did not engage her in conversation, but later wished I had. I would just have liked to ask her what it is about Obama that makes her support him. Ah well, another opportunity lost.

At a homeschool writing class today a friend told of working the phones in McCain hq. Now that sounds like a lot of fun.

This is the most involved I've ever gotten in an election. Oh, well, there was that time I worked a precinct, must have been 1992 and I was enthusiastic about Clinton. Imagine that! But I was just signing people in to vote, not helping a candidate. Next time we will do more. Palin/Jindal? I would like my kids to be more politically involved and informed than I have been, and there's only one way to do that.

Of course I'm assuming we will still have free elections in 2012.