Recount: A Magazine of Contemporary Politics

New York Democrats Take Their Fight to a Swing State

By Matt Ozga | Oct 7, 2004 Print

Brian Murphy stood at the doorstep of 15501 Biscayne Drive in Northeast Philadelphia, attempting to shield himself from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan drizzling down upon him while juggling a clipboard and a stack of pro-John Kerry literature. “What is my first line supposed to be?” he muttered to himself as he prepared to knock on the door. Flipping through his papers, he found it and read it aloud: “Hi, my name is Brian, and I’m with the League of Conservation Voters.”

When he had woken up on that wet-sock gray morning, Murphy, who works in the publishing industry, barely knew what the League of Conservation Voters was. But nonetheless, he endured the long bus ride from Manhattan to suburban Philadelphia to canvass for this year’s Democratic presidential candidate along with about 150 other Kerry-supporting New Yorkers. Some were from Kerry Village, a New York City-specific progressive group. Others had seen a blurb about the bus ride in the latest Village Voice. Still others, like Murphy, were inspired by something they saw at Moveon.org. Regardless of where they learned of the event, these Democratic volunteers united outside Penn Station early Saturday morning as part of Citizen Action of New York to be taken to a League of Conservation Voters meeting in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.

Sound confusing? In actuality, such a scenario is quite typical this election season. Thanks to the Internet, scattered political action groups can form vast coalitions at the drop of an e-mail. And due to the McCain-Feingold Act, passed in 2002, groups that are officially nonpartisan for tax-exempt status, like Citizen Action of New York, are “plugging volunteers into [groups like] LCV, which allows people to be partisan,” according to Michaela Shapiro, a volunteer coordinator with Citizen Action of New York.

This strategy has been a popular one. Targeting the major swing states—including Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio—volunteers with voter registration drives will be knocking on doors and calling registered voters throughout October in an attempt to get Kerry’s supporters to the polls. They are hoping to communicate with undecided voters, who are like “gold in this year’s election,” according to the literature Citizen Action distributed to its volunteers. Many of the groups, from Arrive with Five to USA VoteNet, fall under the same “progressive but nonpartisan” umbrella as Citizen Action of New York.

Predictably, such registration drives aren’t without their hiccups. Many of the volunteers at the Citizen Action of New York event were unfamiliar with the environmental group whose name they were canvassing under. “I hope I don’t go to someone’s door and tell them I’m with the League of Conservative Voters,” said Jane Doyle, a retired former headhunter at an executive search firm in White Plains, New York.

Murphy had some difficulties getting the name right as well.  “Hi, I’m Brian,” he said, introducing himself to a potential voter. “I’m with the, uh, environmental group…” After that discussion, he laughed. “I forgot the name of the frigging group,” he said, walking to the next house.

The bus ride from New York to Pennsylvania occurred through a torrential downpour, and some volunteers grumbled at the prospect of canvassing in the pouring rain. “I think Bush did this,” quipped one man. A female volunteer turned to her companion and asked, “This was your idea, right?”

But overall, the trip went relatively smoothly. The three buses pulled into Walton Campus in Plymouth Meeting after two hours on the bus, and volunteers scurried into the meeting hall for an orientation session. Many seemed initially unsure of how to go about convincing undecided voters how to swing to the Kerry side. Tim Laslavic, a 49-year-old former investment banker who remembered seeing Kerry speak at an antiwar rally in Pittsburgh in 1971, said, “I’m trying to tone down my rhetoric.”

“A lot of times swing voters are not going to be receptive to [comments like] ‘Bush is an idiot,’” said coordinator Andy Koch during the orientation. “You might feel that way, but they probably do not.”

Koch told canvassers to ask voters if they supported Bush, Kerry, or were undecided. If the voters said they were voting for Bush, they were to respond, “Great, thanks for taking the time to speak to me, have a nice evening,” according to the script.  LCV Director Susan Gobreski, also speaking to the group, suggested a more terse approach: “Thanks, bye.” But naturally, Gobreski had different advice for Kerry supporters and undecided voters. “When you find a Kerry supporter or an undecided, engage them in a conversation,” she said, adding, “Imagine yourself sitting at the dinner table with these people—in the pouring rain, apparently.”

Doyle, the retired headhunter, was impressed by this strategy. She noted that there is no hope in trying to convert Bush supporters; the canvassers’ time is best spent reminding the Kerry faction to cast ballots and attempting to sway undecided voters. Still, said Margaret Crocker, another volunteer, “I’d almost prefer to wrangle with the Bushies.” Nonetheless, Koch and Gobreski encouraged a focus on potential Kerry supporters.

After giving volunteers other canvassing tips—such as, “If you’re thirsty, ask a friendly-seeming person for a glass of water, if it starts torrentially down-pouring, you are allowed to take a break, and if a dog attacks you, point the metal end of your clipboard at it,” they introduced a special guest speaker, Howard Dean. The volunteers had no idea Dean would be speaking, and his surprise appearance energized them. Reacting to the raucous applause, Dean, the former Vermont governor and one-time frontrunner in the quest for this year’s Democratic nomination for president, tore into President Bush, calling him “the most incompetent president since Warren Harding.”

In his 20-minute speech, Dean also addressed the war, referring to Bush as “a president who lies in ads and lied to the families of 1,000 soldiers who went to die in Iraq.” Upon his exit, it was time to hit the streets of Montgomery County. As one of the “five or seven top swing counties in the country,” according to Gobreski, the canvasser’s placement there had been strategic. However, some volunteers, including Murphy, found themselves in different sections of the greater Philadelphia area, including a row-home filled neighborhood in the Northeast facing the massive Franklin Mills Mall. No matter—at least the rain had stopped.

“I can see why this is a swing county,” Murphy said after just a few minutes of canvassing. There was an equal mixture of Bush and Kerry supporters, but there weren’t significant amounts of either. The majority of those who answered their doors were undecided, which Margaret Arena of 3750 Genesee Drive couldn’t understand. An ardent Kerry supporter, the elderly Irish immigrant said she couldn’t wait to vote in this election, and audibly gasped when Murphy told her there were Bush supporters in the neighborhood.

Of course, supporters of the President weren’t nearly as excited as Arena. One man didn’t come to the door to answer it; he merely barked his responses through the screen door from his recliner. Another registered Republican wouldn’t tell Murphy who he was voting for, saying, “My vote is my personal preference, I can’t tell you that. That would be stupid, right?”

But mainly, it was the undecided voters who populated the row-homes on Biscayne and Genesee Drives. Many of them, when Murphy asked them what their most important issue was, were undecided about that as well. Gobreski had prepared the canvassers for this: “Remember that it’s not that they don’t care—they are not empowered, they are too busy living their lives.”

Murphy echoed this sentiment. “It’s work to keep informed, and most people won’t do it, which is sad,” he said. But on this chilly, drizzly Saturday in September, an exhausted, wet, and cold Murphy sighed triumphantly and said, “I feel like I got something accomplished today.”

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