Volunteer Post #1

So today was my first experience volunteering for McCain/Palin and it was actually kind of fun. All I had to do was call undecided voters and ask them if they were supporting McCain/Palin, Wolf, and Gilmore for their respective offices. I got some pretty, um, “interesting” answers. While about half of the time I just got to the answering machines, every once and a while I would run into an oddball that answered the call. After I finished my schpele of “Hello, my name is Casey and I am a volunteer calling on behalf of McCain/Palin 2008,” one person just shouted “NADER 08!” and hung up the phone. Another elderly-sounding woman said, “I don’t take solicitation calls because I am retired every minute of my life.” One little boy answered the phone and breathed heavily for about fifteen seconds and then hung up the phone. Can you say awkward? The funniest conversation that the volunteer sitting next to me, Christina, had was with a man that she accidentally called twice and he said, “If democrats can vote twice I’m pretty sure that it’s okay if I answer your questions twice.”

For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised how many people were willing to answer my questions and how many were McCain supporters. We were calling voters that live in Loudon County, which appears to have a strong Republican background. Also, I was glad that so many people stopped by throughout the day for tickets to the rally on Monday.

The big buzz around the office this morning was about an article that an older woman names B.J. brought in that discussed Obama’s background. The article had said that Obama hadn’t yet submitted his birth certificate as he was required to and that there is a possibility that he was born outside of the U.S. That got everyone fired up! They were all talking about the possibilities of Obama being taken out of the race and that Clinton would be the obvious replacement. Almost everyone agreed that they would “feel much better about running against Hilary.” Overall, I had a great time with all of the nice and friendly volunteers and I am looking forward to going back tomorrow.