Reality check: The election isn't over!

[athena]

41. It was Bucks County, near Bristol.

The upper-middle-class neighborhood I was referring to was in Levittown.

In Bristol, we're currently targeting undecided voters. What that means is that if someone is a strong Obama supporter, they get taken off the list and added to a GOTV list, which will be used as we get closer to the election. If someone is a strong Romney supporter, they get taken off the list so that we don't waste any more volunteer time on them. As a result, we get more and more undecided voters on the list. This still doesn't explain the amount of strong anti-Obama sentiment, though.

Last night, I called people near Washington Crossing and again got several very rude people.

1. One person demanded to know how I got her number. (I found out later that we get the lists from the county registrar. If you register to vote, you get on this list. There is no way to get off this list, except if the campaigns decide that you're not worth targeting. Most republicans don't seem to realize that phone banking and canvassing are inherently different from telemarketing and sales.)

2. One man said he had already donated to Obama. I said, "This is not about a donation." He interrupted me and said that he was in Paris on a honeymoon with his wife and it was the middle of the night. I apologized and hung up. Nonetheless: 1. the connection was much too clear to be a cell phone connection to Paris -- it was obviously a landline-to-landline connection, and the area code was definitely in PA; 2. the man did not sound as though he had been awakened in the middle of the night; and 3. if he lied about being in Paris, he probably also lied about donating to Obama.

3. One person was a Romney supporter. When we encounter a Romney supporter, we're supposed to thank them for their time and hang up, since we're unlikely to convert them. This woman, however, demanded to know why I wasn't interested in her opinions. So I agreed to discuss the election with her. I tried to tell her that I'm supporting the President because I immigrated to this country and don't want the U.S. to become like my country of origin, where if you're born poor, you stay poor, and if you're born rich, you stay rich. Before I could finish, she interrupted me and told me that her parents immigrated to this country and worked hard and she was able to get an education. I tried to explain that I also got an education and was able to reach a level of success and comfort that would not have been possible in my country of origin given my family's social status, but she interrupted me immediately and yelled, "I PAID FOR YOUR EDUCATION!" ... repeatedly. She said she paid for her education all by herself, with no government help. I asked her if she didn't benefit from roads and bridges and police protection. She claimed she did not. I wish it had occurred to me to point out that I probably pay more taxes than she does. In any case, we're not supposed to argue. I let her rant for a few minutes and then wished her a pleasant evening.

4. One person was a Romney supporter pretending to be undecided. So we discussed the election. At one point, she asked me what I do for a living. I told her that I work in IT. (She probably thought I must be unemployed or on welfare if I support Obama.) She told me about how she's voting for Romney because she's concerned about the deficit and that the government is effectively refusing to pay its credit card bill. I tried to explain to her that according to economists the deficit is inherently different from a person's credit card debt, since the government can stimulate the economy by paying for large projects such as bridges and railroads, which then create opportunities for individuals to start businesses around those projects, such that more people earn money and pay taxes, thereby lowering the deficit. Before I could get a tenth of the way through this simple explanation, she cut me off and said she had to go. She clearly didn't want to hear something that would challenge her beliefs.

I have to say, making these calls is getting really depressing. The other volunteers at the phone bank were also struggling, and at least one of them said she wasn't sure she would come back. I will continue to volunteer because it takes my mind off my work and gives me a weird sense of satisfaction, but it's sad that there are such hateful and clueless people out there.