Kerry calling...
Betsy at My Whim Is Law wrote last week about how antiquated and useless her experience on the phone bank for the Kerry campaign in Portland seemed (more than once). This directly mirrored my recent experience working the phone bank for the Kerry campaign in Eugene. Betsy hit some of my concerns except that my main concern is how dramatically little the effort accomplishes for the amount of volunteer time used and the number of people bothered by the calls.
Now, I have long been a rabid Independent voting only for the Democrats when they are really making sense. Abysmal funding for public services around here including schools, continued unemployment problems in our community and threats of our almost-retired farrier being called up for service in Iraq where Oregonians are dying in increasing numbers have all brought my to support Kerry as a better alternative. I am so concerned about the upcoming election that I "held my nose" and volunteered with the Kerry campaign. After my third offer to volunteer, they had me in to work the phone bank.
I didn't hold on to the detailed records that Betsy did, but the basic idea was to call registered voters and determine whether they were pro-Bush, pro-Kerry or undecided with the goal of focusing on the undecided voters since the Bush and Kerry voters don't seem likely to be switching. Well, after a couple of hours and about 100 calls, I had interrupted dozens of people in rural Oregon in the middle of their day and identified only 1 voter that was not firmly decided. For me, the cost far outweighs the result, but the Democrats don't seem to care.
Anne Marie, of course, says "Well, what do you think they should do instead"? Am I supposed to know? I don't ask them to write high-performance, secure RSA centralized authentication software and don't expect that I should have good ideas about political campaigns. There has to be a better way to use the teeming volunteers for the Kerry campaign than initially ignoring them then irritating them with ineffective work that annoys almost everyone involved.
Oh well, I'm sure they'll get that straightened out in the ample time before the election. 
While I am not convinced that phone banking is an effective use of my energies, I'm going to continue to do it at least one more night. I am reaching people here who are glad to have received the call, and I've been able to suggest volunteering options to them instead of phone banking, heh. And there's been at least one person each shift who I've had an interesting conversation with, from the woman who was on the verge of giving birth yet still wanted to do something to the man who was feeling disconnected and apathetic yet wanted to contribute in some small way.
Now if only I could take my own advice...
Comment by Betsy — 09/28/2004 12:54 PM
I too am anxious about the upcoming elections. For the first time ever I have given money to a political campaign (partially to see if the amazon.com campaign contribution system amazon.com had setup worked). I even gave Texans for Truth some money when I saw they were giving Bush a hard time about his National Guard AWOL.
I think its cool you guys are volunteering for the campaign. I wonder what is the most efficient way to spend my time and energy helping make sure that Bush 43 is a one-termer.
Comment by Chris — 09/28/2004 10:08 PM
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