The art of canvassing

American poet William Carlos Williams famously said, “It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it.”

After spending a summer going door-to-door two hours per day on the campaign of a City Council candidate in my hometown of Cincinnati, I can now confidently say that there is some truth to this quote. I would, however, add that the way you look might have some significance in Williams’ equation. Since I am a shaggy-haired college student who often found himself as the butt of stoner and hippie jokes from fellow campaign workers, I would argue that I might have had a disadvantage when it came to canvassing prospective voters.

This summer, more often than not, I followed around my candidate from door-to-door (we would only hit doors of known consistent voters in City Council elections, so we weren’t actually hitting every door), intently listening to his conversations with voters and writing down any information the voter would reveal about themselves so that we could put it in a database for future reference. Other times, I canvassed with other interns or volunteers and go only to the doors of voters who consistently voted and shared a party-affiliation with my candidate. Near the end of my work this summer, I traveled up and down the most-trafficked streets in the city, went door-to-door (hitting every single door) with a stack of yard signs, and beg home owners to let me stick one in their yard. I did many other things for the campaign, but meeting strangers at their doorsteps was by far the most interesting and unique aspect of my work.

Let me try to put you in my shoes. You are standing on someone’s front porch. Your hands are covered in this slimy, metallic goop that the yard sign poles are greased with. You awkwardly lean about five yard signs against your leg, hoping that none of the poles slip through one of this stranger’s front porch’s floor boards. You are covered in sweat because Cincinnati is brutally humid in the summer, and the campaign t-shirt you’re wearing is dark blue. You just rang the doorbell and gave the door a few knocks for good measure. There is about a 50 percent chance that someone you don’t know is going to answer the door in a few seconds.

Here is the beautiful part to the whole process: you have absolutely no idea who the person answering the door is going to be. They might come out onto the porch and give you a robust handshake, or they might prefer to open the door an inch and hide behind a screen door. They might offer you water, or they might offer you their thoughts on hot-button issues in Cincinnati, the details of which I will spare you. They might take a yard sign because they are hungover and they just want you to get off their porch so they can go back to sleep or they might shut the door in your face because they are “not interested.”

All this being said, the overall response of the people I canvassed was surprisingly positive. I did have the occasional door slammed in my face, and I met my fair share of kooky people, but for the most part, people at least heard me out. If I had to give advice to someone about to embark on a summer of canvassing, I would say this: Enjoy the unpredictability of it all and remember the crazy people because they make for great stories later.