Rural Blitz Weekend For Ms. Warren
If there’s a reason to write about an afternoon of canvassing for Elizabeth Warren in a minivan with the Minivan app, it’s this: I want you to do your version of the same afternoon (and although I am for Warren, my point here is more I want you to get engaged, so I’m not picking your team or your race). I say this up front so as not to sucker punch you in any way. Hear me out.
Last year we went to New Hampshire, my friend Sarah S. and me, to support a Blue Wave for our neighbors to the North. For us New Englanders, we discovered the perks of beautiful views, fun companions, being part of making positive change, meeting new people and having good conversations, successful navigation, surprises of connecting with people we knew, and of course chocolate. We vowed to do this again for the 2020 primary. And so, yesterday.
Between last year and yesterday came Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy, and although I don’t want to go deep into all the reasons I am believe we’re on the road to a stellar next President (canvas, donate, shout out, knock wood, secure elections, cross fingers, cross toes, vote, do all the things) many people decided to show up for Elizabeth in ways that astound me. SHOUTOUT to the campaign staff, people like our Western Massachusetts organizer Kelly Barr, who greeted us in the bay of a garage twenty minutes beyond Keene in a rural district yesterday with a big smile. (Note: first pass through Keene complete, and other New Hampshire municipalities, this weekend was a “Rural Blitz” to knock on doors in smaller towns and neighborhoods that aren’t considered urban by N.H. standards).
Kelly threw her clothes in the back of her car in August and drove from Indiana to Northampton, Massachusetts, where I live, to run our office. The seeds of her politicization sown at age ten when her family lost its large, generations’ old farm to Monsanto. Big structural change means a lot to her, because she knows the need for it from the area where she grew up, where a big blitz of family farms took place and the fallout isn’t a story, it’s the lives of her family and community. When she learned of Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy, she says she felt like it was the first time a candidate spoke directly to her. She works a zillion hours a week, and seems to smile all the time.
As we got our app/map and clipboard, script and literature to drop, we ran into Noah (a high school fellow for the Warren Campaign, as of yesterday). Of course, he didn’t recognize us, but when we said we were Aaron’s mom and Remy’s mom, he did. This impromptu selfie? I sent it to his mom, Liz. (Last year, we ran into other Western Massachusetts middle-aged women we knew determined to make New Hampshire catch the Blue Wave).
The neighborhoods we canvassed had stunning views and views of a state highway, pretty houses and very modest houses and some very rundown houses. They had no people and people. They had a woman sleeping off a migraine while her husband, daughter and puppy were out (she was very gracious and patient, our first house, also she’s leaning Warren) and a man who wasn’t on our list mowing his lawn (he went from no questions to a conversation about health care to signing up to volunteer — our most shining success) and a scary encounter with a dog, whose nip didn’t break Sarah S.’ skin but bruised her (literally taking it for the team). We also were shooed away by a woman who said, “Trump all the way. He’s going to win in 2020.” We dropped literature at empty houses, provided no barking dogs were in the yard potentially about to get us. Rottweiler sign on your house is as powerful as no trespassing to these Sarahs on an afternoon after one scary canine encounter (and so, people with those signs in rural New Hampshire, please check out the Warren campaign via internet).
We spent the ride home in part wondering which was more jarring, the dog or the Trump supporter.
Unlike the upscale neighborhood in Keene, this was a bigger mix, a more accurate representation of America maybe, certainly a bigger departure from the liberal bubble our little city of Northampton is (there were Trump signs and supporters there, too, relatively few). This had us thinking in broad strokes about class, about how surprising it was in New Hampshire with its unique first responder to presidential elections status to meet a person who didn’t know about the candidates (but said climate is the number one issue and also took some Warren information), and about how hard it is to reach people. We spent three hours and didn’t complete our route. That many hands are needed to make human contact with houses across our country hit home. It’s just… work. It’s a little scary (talking to strangers whose houses you must first find), a little tedious, and a little frustrating (but much less so than calling people who don’t answer). It’s also democracy in action and to that end, really, really satisfying.
We talked about the importance of modeling citizenry to our children (and spouses) and we were awed by Catherine’s story, too, of deciding the morning after in 2016 that she would quit her first job (she’d just graduated from college) and work on the first woman candidate’s campaign who felt like “the” candidate to her. She went to grad school in public policy and now here she is on Team Warren. She also said all the efforts going into a strong ground game (which, clearly are immense) will be there for our gal — or the Democratic candidate no matter who. This reminded me again about the importance of doing our parts for the big D, democratic candidate, and the not insignificant d, democracy.
I neglected to take one photograph of the foliage, which was as peak as peak gets, at one moment exiting the highway I literally felt like the blue minivan was being swirled inside a yellow bowl. We walked up a driveway to try to meet someone who was legit named Cinderella and found this sculpture on the way. We didn’t meet Cinderella, which would have been way cool. Alas. In all, a great afternoon and I would love to hear about yours soon.
