We have an election coming up. It's off-season for elections, with none of the biggest offices being contested, but there are important local offices being contested.
And since I'm registered with a party, and since I vote in pretty much all the elections, I'm on the target lists for my party. Over the weekend, I had a visit from a door to door person (canvasser?), encouraging me to vote on Tuesday and offering me information about the party's candidates. I was glad to see her, and we had a nice chat.
This evening, one of the candidates was going door to door. I was happy to meet him, and I have to say, it still blows me away that candidates walk door to door and talk to people in the community. It's not something I can imagine from the larger cities and suburbs I've lived in. (He also had voter information about some of the other candidates, all of whom, I gather, are mutually supportive.)
I guess in off-seasons elections, especially in a smaller community, getting out a few more voters can make a big difference.
We had a local politician show up to our neighborhood block party one time. It was a good move, I thought.
ReplyDeletei've gotten the occasional canvasser in my city (though the only time I can remember was for a national-news-getting election, so maybe it's rare). Local politicians are all over the place too, here. A popular explanation for an upset was that the losing candidate didn't spend enough time at subway stops, etc. bonding with the locals. I've never really thought about it, but I wonder if this is unusual.
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