Voter Revolt; Political Canvasser

I cracked open the free weekly news rag to peruse the help wanted ads. In the you get what you pay for category, these want ads offer some of the more interesting job opportunities, including many work from home, be your own boss opportunities. I had already been had once by an Herbal Life/Amway type racket and I managed to weed those out pretty fast. There was one ad let that offered employment to high school dropouts with spotty employment records. Voter Revolt needed "political canvasers". Sounded interesting. I wasn't much for voting but I have always held strong political beliefs and revolt was a good way to descrive these beliefs.

After a quick phone call to set up an interview I hoofed it on over to their downtown office. A bunch of hackey sack playing, Phish loving, neo hippy types holding clipboards sat around the sparsely decorated second story office. A man in his late twenties named Tony invited me into a smaller office. Tony explained that a law had been passed requiring a roll back in insurance rates and that our insurance commissioner, a former insurance broker himself, was not enforcing the law, ignoring the will of the people and other wise leading us down the road to facism. I could help. By grabbing a clipboard and traveling door to door asking for money I could help Voter Revolt fight the power. I'd panhandled plenty and I did so love to fight the power so I took the clipboard that was offered.

I sat with the Phish fans and recieved a pep talk and a map review. Then we divided into groups, each group having at least one driver. I was driven to a suburban neighborhood and I went about my fundraising. I was equipped with a script and it featured a Ralph Nader quote. The first door I knocked on was answered by a state worker who had not gotten his check in over a month since the State Budget had not been passed. He was grumpy and when I quoted Nader he went ballistic. "Nader? Nader! Don't talk to me about that son of a bitch. He and his kind have stuck their noses where they don't belong and screwed things up for all of us." The door slammed and I felt good to have gotten my first house done.

I learned quickly to let the folks I hoped to get a donation from do the talking as I asked questions that would let me know where they were coming from. I started bringing in some money. Enough to hang onto my job, but not enough to make me feel like much of a success.

I enjoyed interacting with people that I would not normally have had a chance to talk to. I heard war stories, and political tirades. I would stand and chat with folks for a good twenty minutes before they'd get around to asking why I had knocked on their door. Usually at this point they'd give me a couple of bucks weather they agreed with the issue or not. Most agreed with the issue, how could they not when I spun it so well?

"Do you remember voting for lower insurance? Well, the insurance companies got one of their own in office and they don't give a damn what we voted for."

Not that it was all spin. I did agree with the cause without having to talk myself into it too much. Where I took some convincing was in accepting that giving Voter Revolt twenty bucks was going to make a difference. But folks feel powerless, and writing a check feels like something at least, so the wrote the checks, and I collected them, and my rent got paid.

I knocked at a door with a No Soliciters sign affixed to it. These signs often hung on the doors of my best contributors. A guy in jeans and a black Jack Daniels t-shirt answered and before I could say a word he excitedly asks me if I like hogs. I was a vegetarian, so yes, I liked hogs, and pigs and other animals, but not in the way most people liked them. But, I wasn't sure that that's what he meant.

"Hogs?" I asked.

"Hogs. Like on your shirt."

I was wearing a Love and Rockets contert t-shirt featuring a picture of a motorcycle. "Oh, hogs! Yeah, I guess. I'm really more into to the band than the bike, but yeah, hogs are cool."

"You gotta see my hog." and with this he pushes the screen door open and walks back into his house, so I followed. He led me to the garage where he had a shiny, chrome covered Harley Davidson. The bike was pretty but I knew very little about engines, carburators or any of the other things that this guy excitedly told me about. I nodded politely and said "Wow" when it seemed appropriate.

After a good ten minutes he realized that I probably hadn't been going door to door looking for hog enthusiasts. "Hey, why were you knocking at my door?"

"Well, I'm sure you pay insurance on this thing, and I'm sure it's too much."
He cut me off. "Oh hey, you seem cool. I gotta get going though. What do you need, a couple of bucks?"

"Can you do fifty?'

"Woah? Fifty bucks. No way. You aim high don't you? I'll do twenty bucks."

Cool. Twenty bucks, for looking at his hog. I was enjoying this job more and more.

At another house I sat on a leather couch amidst Texas throw pillows, Texas posters, a Don't Mess With Texas freeway sign and several animals heads mounted on plaques. The large haired heavily made up woman struggled to hear me over her barking dogs. She was disgusted with all of California's taxes and beaurocracy. You'd find none of that crap in Texas where everyone had the right to work. She hollared to her husband asking if she could give me a hundred bucks and he hollared back from somewhere upstairs that she was not to give me shit. She wrote me a check for fifty and I was on my way.

I got Bryna a job there and she fit right in. We were both starting to dig the hippy asthetic of our co-workers, not their music, but their politics and their penchant for camping and low budget travel. Bryna had more adventures than me. A man answered the door naked, with what she described as a little, anry red penis. She could've gotten a hell of a check if she'd asked, but she chose to take her leave.

Another canvaser started and raised $400 in one day, most of which he spent sitting by a rich woman's pool drinking lemonade. We were all amazed, even more so when he had an equally lucrative outing the next day. I wanted so badly to learn his tricks. To see how he managed to be so persuasive. I had been nicknamed "The silver tongued devil" by one of my friends for my own powers in this area, but I'd obviously come accross a true master. On the third day it was revealed that he'd recieved no donations and had faked the whole thing so as not to look like a failure. We never saw him again.

Bryna fit in well with the fellow canvasers but, as she explained it, she liked taking no for an anwer. What to me felt like being persuasive and clever to her felt like being manipulative and pushy. She gave her notice and I followed soon after. I was getting tired of the every day pressure of making quota and I was failing to get as passionate about this cause as the more successfull canvasers. I was increasingly in the mood for a more revolutionary revolution.

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