#(feeling totally sentimental about the David blog I left behind)

[rabbitlikesaegusa]

[malonepolitics]

What the heck are we doing?

September 30 - October 5, 2018  Suburbs of Detroit, Michigan

Maybe we have lost our minds, but it seems in many ways the US has also. 

Not being very active in politics in the past (voting, of course, and making some contributions to some past campaigns) we suddenly are in the thick of it joining a group of like-minded folks to campaign for two issues and a US House candidate in Michigan. This recent activism is not a very long story, since it only started a little over a month ago when we attended a series of lectures by David Domke on the history of voting rights in the US.  About the middle of the second lecture Linda leaned over to me and said, “Oh-oh, we are not going to finish this series without getting involved”.   Indeed she was right.  Within a couple of weeks we had attended organizational meetings and signed up with the group called “Common Purpose” to go to Michigan for a week. We have just finished up this interesting, a little scary and very satisfying trip.  Here I recount a few highlights and thoughts on the experience.  If you think this might be a typical  “L & S Malone trips” blog, sorry, this is serious stuff.

The preparation

We attended the first organizational meeting of Common Purpose on Sep. 15 where we realized it was only OUR first meeting. There have been many more in the past including previous campaign trips all over the country.  There were a lot of rah-rah “team building” and motivational talks at this meeting, but looking at the group of people who are seriously involved is indeed motivational.  While not really into this sort of thing, I felt the vibe.  Toward the end of the meeting the group, maybe 200 strong, split up into groups associated with about 10 different states to which a trip was planned to help with particular campaigns.  Before we knew it we were talking with Ron, the Michigan trip leader (the only trip for which the timing would work for us).  Linda and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and signed up.  Within a few days we had our plane tickets, motel and car reservations, so we were committed.

I must say that Linda is the main instigator.  I am not so much of a joiner for this sort of thing.  I detest being called on the phone by robots even if a real person is on the other end, and I am not much for knocking on strangers’ doors.  It seems that almost everyone in the group agrees to some extent with these sentiments, but all assured me that I could get over my phobias and would feel good about doing this no matter what.  We attended one additional meeting two weeks later for “training”, etc., and there was again lots of rah-rah and kumbaya stuff but also a very interesting small group discussion.  I ended up in a group of four; one union member/organizer, one previous politician and an older (my age), African-American guy who had been invited to this meeting by his son who is part of the leadership team.  It turned out that this guy and I had something in common.  We had both grown up in the South in segregated schools.  OK, not the same experience, but in discussions we realized that there were more similarities than one might think. As kids we both accepted school segregation as just the way was even if it didn’t seem right.  Neither of us, at the the time, realized how destructive it was.  We made plans to try and get together again some time later to compare our growing-up experiences in the deep South from our very different backgrounds.

The only other preparation we did for the Michigan trip was to read some campaign material handed out and go online to get a feeling for the issues from newspapers and web pages, both pro and con.  There are three state initiative proposals on the ballot two of which we were needed to campaign for. “Proposal 1″ regarded marijuana legalization, which we were not involved with - but maybe could have used.  “Proposal 2” is a redistricting plan to try to do away with gerrymandering.  Michigan has some of the most bizarrely shaped congressional districts designed solely by the the party in power behind closed doors to make sure they stay in power.  This gerrymandering also has the effect of keeping minority party members in power even if they do little for their constituents.  Consequently, not many actual politicians from either party are strongly supportive.  The initiative campaign is totally grassroots and non-partisan.  The name for this initiative is “Voters not Politicians” with a tag-line of “Lets get the people to choose the politicians rather than the other way around”.  “Proposal 3” is the “Promote the Vote” initiative, which seems not to have a lot of opposition.  It is a fairly complicated initiative of seven items to remove many obstacles to registering and/or voting that currently are relatively subtle but effective voter suppression provisions.  Michigan’s laws are nowhere near as egregious as in many southern states but still could benefit from improvements to just get more people to vote.  Perhaps our most important and interesting campaign was for a challenger to the current US House member in the fairly Republican 8th congressional district.  Elissa Slotkin jumped into this race fairly recently easily winning the Democratic Party’s nomination.  With a very strong background in international relations and national security she has recently taken on health care and environmental issues as ones that Michiganders have increasing concerns about.  The poles currently have the candidates almost tied, so a win for her would be a real coup. Somehow we would be doing something in an area near Detroit, MI to help with these three campaigns.  We were told to be prepared for phone banking (ugh) and door belling (scary).  What the heck are we doing joining such activities?

The Trip

Our flight to Detroit left last Monday at 7am.  Yuk.  Fortunately for us our lovely daughter Erika was on a slightly later flight to Pittsburgh where she was leading a national training workshop on affordable housing issues for municipal departments.  She picked us up at 5am in a car-to-go (clever girl) in plenty of time for our uneventful flight. Fourteen of our sixteen member, Team Michigan (motto: “pedal to the metal”  facebook: #commonpurposemichigan) folks were on the same flight.  We rented a car and took two others to our Red Roof Inn motel; very basic (no pool, no spa, no exercise room, no breakfast, no mints on our pillows but clean with a comfortable bed).  Our first activity was a training session that evening at a local tavern where, it turned out, we did not have a separate room as planned but rather were in the main, very loud area at a long table.  Two local campaign staffers came to brief us who were, unfortunately, nearly impossible to hear.  A happy result was that when the pub’s owner heard who we were and what we were doing comp-ed us the dinner and drinks (should have ordered the lobster dinner and top-shelf bourbon).

The following morning we all met at a breakfast place where we had a separate, quiet room and got trained on “Proposal 3”, our first cause, and also on how to use the smartphone app called “MiniVan” (nothing to do with multi-passenger vehicles).  This app provides the names, addresses, ages and a map of our canvassing area and also a way to record our results for each “door”.  Each of our three campaigns provided us with “lit” (literature) and “turfs” (down-loadable lists of 30 - 50 addresses).  One could work from a hard-copy and clipboard form, which the old hands swore by.  However, even a few of them switched to MiniVan when they realized how simple and convenient it was. Training for Proposal 2 and the Slotkin campaign took place either after the first lunch or the second morning.

Each morning and afternoon groups of 2 or 3 people would head out in a car to do one or two (or for the hot-shots three) turfs in a session. Most turfs were in the mega-suburbia of Rochester Hills (white-flight area 25 miles north of Detroit).  I have never seen such expanses of green lawns lined up as far as the eye could see; actually, not so far in the twisty, cull-de-sacky developed subdivisions of 1980s-90s vintage.  Typically we would pull up and leave our car in the middle of a turf and spread out in three different directions walking between addresses listed in our app.  They were rarely every house since they were targeted to voters who were either unknown or undecided.  Those known to be either strongly for or against the issue/candidate were not canvassed since it would be a waste of time in either case.  At first we were under the impression that mostly we were to sample preferences, but it soon became clear that it was OK…. actually expected, that we would do persuasion on those contacts who were undecided.

I was very nervous at first…. and never got totally comfortable, with ringing a door bell and if someone answered (only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the time), introducing myself and why I was there and then trying to sell them on the issue/candidate. Most people were at least minimally polite, some very gracious, even if they were on the other side politically. A few were down right rude and one who came up to me on the street was aggressively nasty; asking if I had a permit to be in the neighborhood, threatening to call the police if I didn’t leave and he would be watching me.  We skipped a few houses right around his.  It left a bad taste in my mouth but provided an interesting story to tell at dinner that night.  Our sub-group of 9 people staying at the Red Roof Inn would compare notes each night over dinner.  We all seemed to be having similar experiences of generally interested, polite people with the rare unpleasant one. The positive experiences far outweighed the few bad ones. Here are a few Linda and I remember:

An older couple (90 and 91) both come to the door.  I ask if they know about Elissa Slotkin.  They say, “not much”.  I give a long-winded shpeal about who and how great she is and why they should vote for her.  They say, “OK, we will”. I say, “what about signing a reminder pledge card that will be sent back to you shortly before the election”.  OK, they sign it and then thank me for the good information. Then, as I am leaving they tell me that now they remember Elissa and were going to vote for her in the first place.

I ring a slightly down-at-the-dumps looking house.  A man comes to the door and the name I have is for a woman.  I ask if she is there.  He yells to the other room and the woman comes out, sees my Elissa Slotkin button, comes out of the house and closes the door.  I ask her about Elissa, and she quickly says she knows all about her.  I start to say more and she whispers over her shoulder to me as she goes back in the house that she is a strong supporter and will vote for sure.  I put her down as a supporter and note that her “roommate” is not.

A refreshing interlude occurred on our last day.  A young man is zooming down the street on roller-blades being pulled by his dog.  As he sees our Slotkin buttons he gives a big wave and yells that he is voting for her.

Some of our most interesting, but semi-scary work was in an area another 30 miles north in a very rural area near the town of Holly, MI where Elissa lives on her family’s farm.  Our turf houses were either along a busy rural highway or off a muddy back road.  There were NO lawns here; though one woman was out on a riding mower in what could have been a pasture.  In a few cases as one headed into the woods to find an “address” one imagined the banjo theme from Deliverance playing in the distance.  All had long drives and many had big, barking dogs.

I head down the drive toward one, and here comes rover barking like mad to scare me off.  I give him a good glare and then a nice voice and he starts wagging like mad as the owner comes hoofing down the drive to call off the dog.  The name I have is for a woman whom I ask for.  He leads me around back of his house and onto his porch.  As soon as I say ask about Elissa he and the woman both start talking a mile a minute about how great she is and how bad the Republican in office now is and how the ranker in DC is just terrible and how Elissa has the right attitude and on and on and would I like a glass of lemonade and I should be careful turning my car around that I don’t get stuck. What?  You are walking?  You better sit for a while and rest up and be careful walking on the highway.  No one does that.  Oh, and don’t go to the guy who lives next door.  Old whoever is a nasty old Trumpest who will shoot you if you come on his property.  “OK”, I say, “so I can put you down is a supporter and old whoever next door as a no”?  The lady then says, “Yep and put down our son, who is in town now, as a yes and our daughter, who is in New Jersey right now, as a yes.  Oh, we better call her to make sure she gets her absentee ballot in”.

In the same area Linda found a couple of old dudes sitting on a back porch looking over the local lake smoking cigars.  They looked to be Bubba and Bubba but were quite friendly.  However, the one not on the turf list says something like, “She’s the one John McCain hates. She looks a little slimy to me”.  But the other guy pipes up, “Naw, she’s OK. I’ll probably vote for her”. After a bit more chit chat they indicate that they are just out here in the woods doing “man stuff”.  Linda, says “Ok, good luck. Have a nice evening” and heads quickly for the next address.  Nobody wants to know what Bubba and Bubba’s man stuff is.

One address I had was down a long drive with a few run-down, out-buildings on either side, and the house on my list is not much better.  It looks as if someone lives there, but it is just a tar paper, tin roof shack itself.  I think it has electricity but hard to tell the front door from the side one.  After knocking both and getting no answer I look through to the back yard where drying on the line are two large and one smaller pair of full sleeved long-johns, complete with drop bottom.  I guess they had just done the family laundry getting ready for winter.  Really sorry I didn’t get to meet the family or get a photo of the place.

This rural turf was certainly the most spread out and took the longest to do, but the reward at the end was great.  We were all invited to Elissa Slotkin’s farm to meet the candidate.  She was running behind filming an ad for TV, so we waited in a screened-in porch drinking beer and snacking on chips.  After a bit she joined us.  Some pizza arrived, and we sat around eating and chatting about all sorts of issues….. actually, just politics.  She is a very impressive lady with energy and stamina that is hard to believe. What a treat for us. She took the time for us foreigners after a very long day.  Even posing with us for a group photo (Elissa is the lady in a blue top, front row, left of center).  We didn’t get back to the motel until after 11pm.

After four very full and satisfying days of pounding the pavement my feet were toast.  Our step counters indicate somewhere around 13 - 18,000 steps a day (5.5 -7 miles).  As many know, I am a cyclist.  Walking is for losers.  Oops, I signed on for the wrong activity.  But still I (and all of Team Michigan) would rather this than phone-banking.  Linda and I left on Friday afternoon but could have done another turf in the morning.  I feel guilty that we wimped out and slept in a bit. With the help of another team member, Richard, who was leaving on the same flight we did a quick pilgrimage to the graves of Rosa Parks and Aretha Franklin and then did a drive-through, tourist visit of downtown Detroit before heading to the airport. We got back to Seattle, and because of the gracious lift Richard’s wife provided, we were in time to attend a fund raiser for “Rebuilding Together - Seattle” at MOHAI.  Yikes, too much civic duty stuff in one week. 

 After I have had some time to recover and cogitate on the past week I may fill in another post with erudite missives covering a newbies reactions to getting out of ones comfort zone in politics.  I also may add some statistics about how many doors knocked, people talked to, dogs kicked, votes secured  (from our leader’s calculations).  In the mean time thanks to the the whole Team Michigan for your companionship and encouragement to us newbies.  A particular big thanks to Ron, our leader whose low-key, but totally organized plans kept us busy in an efficient way but never pressured us to take on more than we could comfortably do.

Also see: facebook: #commonpurposemichigan

Now, it’s time to take a break, kick back and watch some soccer with a beer this weekend.