Door-knocking in Swing States

Spending a week in Michigan on a Knock-Door campaign

After Michelle Obama said “Do Something!” at the Democratic National Convention, I ordered 500 postcards to handwrite messages for Michigan voters. They send the postcards, I pay for the postage, and it’s definitely doing something.

The same organization urged me to “give a week to a swing state.” That seems like quite a commitment. But it sounded intriguing, so I went through an interview and onboarding process, including background check, and set up direct deposit for the amount they provide to offset expenses.

So I donated last week to the state of Michigan, where I grew up and still have family - throughout the lower peninsula.

A week in Michigan

It started on a Wednesday in a small town in southwest Michigan - the closest to Chicagoland with an available “turf list.” My wife and I had lunch at a cafe in an old bank on the main street through town. The stout building boasted imposing edifices and walls of stone, where bankers guarded the money of previous generations, and loaned with the utmost discretion.

Now it’s a coffee shop.

After lunch my wife found a comfy chair in the library with a big book. I headed out to the neighborhood spelled out on my turnout app.

Incidentally, that’s one of my first pieces of advice to prospective door-knockers: find the local library. You may need their rest room, as I did about every hour.

I worked a relatively small area of that relatively small town - but it still took most of the afternoon. My outfit: black jeans and a yellow-and-green plaid button-down, sleeves rolled up. I figured that incorporated the colors of both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. Who could take offense when answering the door?

The turnout organization hadn’t yet sent me literature (or “lit”) to hang on door handles, even a month after being officially hired. I also didn’t get an ID badge or t-shirt identifying me as part of a get-out-the-vote campaign. So I put together a flyer with screen shots from the organization’s website, just to keep everything completely accurate. Turned it into a PDF and printed 50 or so on my ink jet. At least I had something.

This is the top of my flyer: all official info!

Beginning at around 1 pm local time, I went through the list on my phone. It didn’t seem difficult. Many of the names were on the same streets. However, driving around an unfamiliar town and finding legal parking spots proved to be a constant challenge.

After ticking off many many many names - cleaning up the database with info on people who had moved, buildings that had been condemned or torn down, and apartment building doors that were locked to outsiders (probably wisely) - the app told me in a pop-up that I was half-finished with this list.

“ONLY half-finished?” I grumbled, but pushed to the end of the list with two more stops at the library to give progress reports. It was a warm day for autumn in the Midwest, and I was dripping with sweat. Was it the heat or the anxiety? On each rest room break it was tempting to sink down in air-conditioned comfort and leaf through a magazine, but I knew I’d likely never get back out on the street, so I dove back into the heat and the remainder of the turf list.

More rest room advice

A few more notes about rest rooms. Most towns have a McDonald’s, which allow most anyone to walk in and use the facilities. It’s the price that company pays for the right to make us all overweight!

And get this: some enlightened municipalities have public restrooms. My third day (in Holland, Michigan) I found two!

Public restrooms in Holland (MI) are free and clean!

Adventures in parking

Back to the topic of parking: I worried a bit when I saw signs at apartment buildings stating that parking was for residents only and violators’ vehicles would be towed at the owner’s expense.

Apartment buildings give the canvasser an opportunity to knock a bunch of names off that list pretty quickly. Door-knocking in the afternoon meant that many apartment-dwellers are at work. But they could be towing my car!

On my second day door-knocking in Michigan, I had a bunch of names on Main Street. (I was only given name and addresses of people who have voted Democratic in the past.) So I parked on a side street and walked from one house on my list to the next, checking off a half-dozen even numbers.

Crossing the street to go back to the car, I saw a local police SUV pull up behind my parked car a half-block away, with flashers going. Uh-oh.

I’m not a runner, but I nonetheless double-timed it, arriving at the side street somewhat out of breath.

“Is there a problem, officer? I didn’t see a ‘No Parking’ sign.”

“You’re impeding traffic. If a car needs to pull into the opposite lane to get around your parked car, that’s impeding.”

I apologized, said I was there to encourage turnout on November 5th, and asked for the proper place to park. After thanking him for the information, I drove to a spot near where I’d left off, thanking my lucky stars for avoiding a stupid parking ticket.

My work there is done

The door-knocking organization reports a lot of folks want to help with the project. I did my week - Wednesday to Wednesday - and talked to a few voters each day.

It was tough, exhausting work, with 11,000 - 14,000 steps each day. I was out of my comfort zone most of the time (not necessarily a bad thing), living on road food and sleeping in beds other than my own.

So I’ve done enough. I’ll finish writing 500 postcards to Michigan voters (with help from my wife and other family members we’ve done 470 so far) then I’ll retire to the sidelines, leaving the knocking of doors to others.

Good luck out there!

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One added note: after getting back home and announcing I was done with door-knocking, a box arrived on the front porch with a couple hundred door hangers, an ID lanyard with no ID … and no t-shirt, even!

Sorry to say, since I’m not going back to that swing state, the get-out-the-vote lit went straight into the recycling bin.