I lost my phone banking cherry!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

I live in TX. I was going to be in PA for a few days for an event this past weekend and wanted to do something, anything to help a bit there. My college friend from MA liked the idea and took some time off his work to come down. He helped out for about 4 days at the Kerry campaign HQ in Chester County. My event worked out such that I was only able to come by during one day.

Unfortunately I didn't really have the chance to persuade anyone. The people on my list were flagged as infrequent type voters (Dem registered) due to having voted in 2 or less out of 6 elections. Seemed like a lot of these people were "infrequent" only because they had registered recently but had voted in most/all of the elections for which they could the last few years.

The result was that of the people who were home, most were relatively young, recently registered, motivated Dem voters, who were like, "hell yeah I'm going to vote for Kerry!". I got a few hangups but wasn't able to find out whether those people were Bush supporters or simply didn't feel like talking to some stranger on the phone. But no one who wanted to talk but weren't sure if they were going to vote, or were thinking about maybe voting Bush. Oh well, got to make a lot more calls to get those opportunities to persuade, I guess...

[Eric J in MN]

1. I phone banked for the first time on Sunday, and I got a lot of

answering machines, and we weren't allowed to leave a message.

The experience would have been more positive for me if I could have left messages.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. I got a little quickie training talk from the Chester County PA phone bank

coordinator. It made sense to me that messages shouldn't be left, since you want to call back and make contact to those who weren't in on a subsequent pass. Just potentially anoying to leave a message.

I did notice that the few hangups I got seemed more likely to come from older than younger people -- 50's and up. Don't know if these folks are more likely to support shrubya or just more crotchety and more hostile about getting called at home by strangers, or both...

[Eric J in MN]

9. Why not say, "Sorry we missed, we'll try again soon, visit our website? nt

nt

[blue neen]

2. Thanks for helping out here in PA.

It's been my phone bank experience that Kerry supporters actually thank you for calling them!

[sbj405]

4. Just got back from my frist night of phone banking

Deadbeat voters - unfortunately most of the numbers were wrong or disconnected.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Hey hey no phone banking for Bill Frist now! heh

:P

[sandnsea]

5. That's ok

Some of the phone banking right now is just to make sure the 1's are still 1's. That basic support is still solid. Or since they were young and newly registered, to make sure they were staying with Kerry and not getting drawn away or discouraged. At least that's the way we did it in Iowa. You did exactly what the campaign needed, be sure of that! Feels good to participate, doesn't it!!!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

6. Yes it feels great to talk to fellow motivated Dems. We feed off each

other's life energies.

[LincolnMcGrath]

8. Was on the phone most of the day

9am-8pm

Took out a few ABRs and brought in 5 AB Kerry votes, during lunch.


Rock on Volunteers :headbang:
:yourock:
:headbang:
:yourock:
:headbang:
:yourock:
:headbang:
:yourock:

[Eric J in MN]

10. Which organization? nt

nt