Sunday, 24 October 2004 | Lessons

I learned that I’m not very good at knocking on doors and talking to people about politics. I learned this in the swing state of Pennsylvania on Saturday, dropped there by a charter bus with a clipboard and way too many papers and fliers, which spilled out of my backpack onto the sidewalk whenever I leaned over. Part of the problem is that I was worried of being distrusted, of being suspected of unleashing a torrent of oral propaganda, of being a nuisance. I was worried about coming across in the way I might perceive someone with a clipboard who was knocking on my door.

I also learned that "swing states" are real; they are not a myth concocted by calculating politicians or by unscientific polls on AOL. The top sheet of my clipboard told me who the registered voters were and with what party they were registered, and it essentially revealed that in Pennsylvania, it is mandatory that Democrats and Republicans move into homes next to each other. Not only was every other home predominately comprised of Democrats (or Republicans), but in many homes they lived together, just like Arnold and Maria, or like cats and dogs. Madness!

You know what else I learned? The "undecided voter" is also nonfiction. She might open her door to you and say textbook lines about leaning toward Kerry one day and Bush the next, and that her union and her family are urging her to do opposing things. Then you might stammer and say something semi-meaningful (while she attentively listens) and hand her something to read and hope that your effort will tip the scale just enough.

I learned something else. There is a fourteen-year-old boy who canvasses for the election and behaves like a composed adult while he’s riding on the bus, and who is much more mature than the silly sleep-deprived twenty-eight and twenty-nine-year-olds sitting behind him.

One thing that I didn’t want to learn: there is a woman in Pennsylvania who is voting for Bush because John Edwards has a mole on his lip. I would’ve been fine not knowing that.

Many of the people whose doors I knocked on weren’t at home, though it’s certainly possible that some of them didn’t answer the door. After all, I actually caught a glimpse of a large man in his boxers jumping out of his recliner and running out of the front room to hide. I mean, I was pressing my face against the window, but why should that be intimidating? (Not really.)

But I did have some valuable conversations with people I would've never met otherwise, I learned some stuff (see above), I had fun, the weather was pleasant and I was outside in it, I got to see the gold and red October confetti littering the streets, and I suppose I feel a little less guilty about not doing enough. Pennsylvania is certainly going to mean more to me on the night of the election.