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I was basically going to say the same as that guy just said. If I work a full time job, is it worth reaching out and volunteering? Can I even be useful? How would I even get started?
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Jun 17, 2014 06:12
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 18:53 |
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Concerned Citizen posted:You should definitely go and volunteer. Just go to your candidate's website of choice and click the volunteer button. Look for a field office near you. Heh. Okay, then, I'll do it. I could probably commit to one or two evenings a week and all day Saturdays, so hopefully I'll have the consistence appeal Mooseontheloose says is important, and I'd definitely want to do actual voter contact rather than "policy", because I'm not sure what that even means and actually talking to people seems like it would do the most good. So the only issue now is finding a candidate to actually support. I am so not tuned into the political process here yet, despite having lived here for a couple of years now, and even where I used to be I generally didn't find out about who was running until either just before or even after the primaries. It doesn't look like there's anything interesting happening in my district on the national level this year, I suppose I could campaign for the guy who's running unopposed but that seems like a waste of effort. So I guess it's state level or... even city level? Do city level campaigns have volunteers doing stuff? I want to help someone win that is less crappy than someone else, but who? I honestly don't know how to find out this early on in the process! Edit: Actually,I've realized I am not just limited to races in my district. Volunteering is not voting, I can probably volunteer for any campaign I can physically reach. That opens up a few things. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 20:24
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So, I never did find a place online that listed local candidates, but I followed the lawn signs until I found what seems to be a campaign office, and across the street hidden in a nook is another campaign office for a different guy (that did not have lawn signs), both of whom seem to be running for the same spot? But both offices are always empty. There's no web address, no phone number, I can't find any way to volunteer for either of them online. To be honest I did not expect this part of the process to be so difficult, I'm guessing most people who get into this do crazy stuff like "already knowing people that are involved somehow". Still, though! I think I'm almost there!
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Jul 9, 2014 19:28
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Mooseontheloose posted:Have you contacted your state, local, or county party yet? I guess I'll do that if this doesn't work. Wouldn't have thought of it on my own.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:57
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Whoo, I'm canvassing for the first time this weekend! Looks like it's just three hours, but it's a start. Mooseontheloose, thanks for reminding me there was a state party I could contact and not just individual candidates, I signed up on the state website right after you pointed that out and just heard back about it. Looks like I'll be canvassing for Ed Markey, who (from what I know of him) seems pretty good as far as politicians go. Any... advice, I guess? I'm pretty sure I'm going to botch this up, somehow. Learning experience though. I'm too old to feel this excited about three hours of volunteer work, but I can't help myself.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:50
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First time canvassing went well, I think! Got a handful of pledge cards and had a bunch of conversations and it was actually really cool seeing and talking to people with lots of diverse positions on the scale, from folks who honestly seemed more enthusiastic than the canvassers (the old folks loved the fact that one of the candidates regularly visited the retirement communities they were involved in especially) to folks who honestly weren't all too keen on voting at all but would support your candidate if they did to people who outright stated things like "I'm not gonna vote for any of those communists!"
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Jul 22, 2014 16:56
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Mooseontheloose posted:Any more updates Glyph? I was scheduled to do two more in the following weeks, one of them got cancelled completely and the other one was moved to a day I couldn't do it, and then I heard basically nothing more. Also, the one I did had us encouraged people to ask certain questions but... apparently had decided to no longer distribute the answers to those questions. It just felt like a big disorganized mess, which sort of sapped any interest I had pretty strongly. I think I'm gonna look into one of the other campaigns you suggested, maybe it's a reality of how this stuff works but I'm not particularly good at handling not knowing when whatever is happening in advance, my schedule tends to fill up with crap fast and I hate cancelling on people. Should have tried volunteering for Tolman, I ended up looking into him a lot more and I really like a lot of the stuff I read, but it looks like he already lost to Healey. But Healey looks pretty good too, although it doesn't seem like there will be much competition for her in the general so there's probably not much point. So I dunno what I'm gonna do now, I guess. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 20:40
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Okay, back to knocking on doors this weekend, looking forward to it. Hurrah.
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Sep 19, 2014 05:44
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I just got a phone call inviting me to aquote:GOTV Summit tomorrow night with Congresswoman Katherine Clark What is this? Is it worth going to? I'm assuming it's because I went canvassing twice, and I'm planning on going, but don't actually know what to expect from those words.
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Oct 8, 2014 21:02
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 18:53 |
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Welp, I missed the meeting but I did knock on a whole bunch of doors today in the pouring rain. Went in to find a new field organizer, got handed a pile of papers and basically pushed out the door. They began melting in the rain immediately, and I don't even have a car or anything, so I had to convince my wife to drive me around all day. Improvised a sort of clip-board and shield thing from stuff I had at home after the first street made it clear that my papers would disintegrate to nothing if I didn't have something of the sort. I feel like I accomplished something approaching nothing for all the effort, but I got two, maybe three people who were undecided to go for Coakley? Or at least said they would. They could have just been getting rid of me. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 20:40
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