volunteer form

I got my volunteer form this weekend from the Bob Casey campaign. I can't remember if I mentioned before that I'm going up to PA to volunteer for Casey on election day & the days prior. More accurately, I'll be campaigning against Santorum. I feel kind of uncomfortable about taking a stand for Casey as I disagree with him on a number of issues. Still, I'm approaching it from a pragmatic point of view. Let's see, a senator who isn't ideal, or one I violently oppose on everything he stands for? Hmm, tough choice!

I also felt a twinge about getting involved in an election in another state, but a senator has so much national impact that the outcome will affect me directly. So much so that it doesn't feel like inappropriate involvement in someone else's election. I wouldn't go to another state to campaign in a governor's race, but that's really different from a senate campaign.

I thought about volunteering for an independant group like Philadelphians Against Santorum, but I decided that the Casey campaign might be better organized & better able to deal with out of state volunteers. I don't want a repeat of 2004, when I contacted the Durham County party several times and no one ever responded, so finally I just showed up at their office the day before the election. They found stuff for me to do but it seems like it might have been better if they had known I was coming. (For one thing, I would have started volunteering days or even weeks before if they had contacted me.) I could deal with that kind of disorganization with a local group, but I'm not driving 7 hours to do volunteer work unless I know they're going to be ready for me.

Well on first contact the Casey campaign appears organized. They sent me the form a month in advance, asking what days I'm available, my location, do I need a place to stay, etc. I told them I'll be staying in Wilmington DE and asked them to place me in Philadelphia or thereabouts. It looks like they want out of state volunteers to work on the Saturday and Sunday before election day, skip Monday, and then all day -- 7 am to 8 pm! -- on Tuesday. I was expecting to work Monday too but I'll be glad to have the day off.

This kind of work is very tiring, especially for an introvert like me. Trying to convince strangers to do something, over and over, all day long for several days ... I'm not literally cringing at the thought of it, because I remember in '04 thinking that it wasn't as bad as I expected. On the other hand, I never had to do phone bank. I don't know why calling people on the phone seems worse than knocking on their doors, but it does. Oh well, if they ask me to do it, I'll give it a try. Maybe like canvassing, it will turn out to be not so bad. In fact now that I think about it, the afternoon I spent canvassing near NC Central was kind of fun. I was with a neat group of people and we had some interesting conversations with folks we met.

The form also asked if I have a car and can drive people to the polls, and I checked yes, but now that I think it over maybe I shouldn't do that. I have such an astoundingly bad sense of direction. Spending all day trying to find locations on roads I've never driven before makes canvassing sound pretty good. On the other hand, I'm kind of tickled by the idea of Undersea Mah Jongg as an election transport vehicle. It probably won't even be an issue: they probably use locals for driving duty.