I just got back from knocking on some doors in Medford for Elizabeth Warren. I don’t have a whole lot of time, but I’m dedicating a minimum of one day a week to knocking on doors, and more right before election day. Let me tell you, many parts of Medford are not locked up either way for or against Warren — there are a lot of undecided voters out there.
And you know what? With all the undecided voters I’ve talked to, not a single one of them mentioned Warren’s heritage. Not one of them mentioned Harvard or mentioned thinking she’s somehow out of touch. Not one of them mentioned the made-up “scandals” about asbestos or whatever.
When I asked them what they care about, the overwhelming thing I hear about is that they want somebody who will get our economy moving again. They want somebody who will create jobs.
One undecided woman I spoke with said that it just felt like the deck is stacked against her and her family no matter what they do. That she has too much debt, too little time. She said her husband is out of work. She talked, I listened.
And then we talked about how Warren wants to create a level playing field, and make sure there’s more money in the pockets of the middle class. We talked about how Warren wants to invest in clean energy and infrastructure and education to build our economy for the long term. We talked about how Warren will hold Wall St. accountable (and already has) — and will fight for small businesses. And then I mentioned that Senator Brown voted against three jobs bills that would have created thousands of jobs right here in Massachusetts.
Well, that was that. She told me she’d vote for Warren.
Listen, I haven’t talked to so many undecided voters that I have any sort of statistically significant sample. But I gotta say, Scott Brown has two ads up about the Cherokee thing. I just can’t imagine that’s what undecided voters really care about. I think they care about their husband who is out of work, or their kid who has too much debt. I think they care about making sure our economy gets moving again. So, let me ask you all: is that what you’re hearing, too?
I love a good campaign fight as much as the next guy, but I just don’t know anybody who is genuinely undecided about this race who cares a whit about the Cherokee thing. And that seems to be just about all Scott Brown has to tear Warren down. If Warren’s going to win this thing, my bet is that it’s won house by house, person by person, talking about the things that really matter. Forget the polls, forget the war whoops, forget the ads. The doors are where it’s at.
This blog post is my own, and does not represent the opinions of any organization I work for or am affiliated with.
At the end of the day that’s what anyone wants. In my day job as a bankruptcy paralegal I talk to hundreds of clients a week, many of whom are unemployed or facing foreclosures and many of whom used to blame Obama for it but are now coming back since they know Romney doesn’t care about working folks. I think thats whats happening in MA too, Warren got off to a great start talking about jobs, lost track of the message over the summer but has gotten out of the first debate quite strongly. I’d use jobs and the Brown votes against jobs over and over again from here til November.
I had a similar experience canvassing in west Malden yesterday not too far from where I live. Compared to all the other canvassing I’ve done in other elections in past years, there were definitely a lot more undecided voters, and thankfully we caught several of them home and willing to chat so we had some really great conversations and were able to ask lots of questions and share details about Elizabeth Warren’s platform and Scott Brown’s voting record. It was much more satisfying than a lot of other canvassing I’ve done! We also IDd probably 20-25 strong Warren voters, maybe 10-12 strong Scott Brown voters.
Only one voter mentioned the Cherokee stuff and she was a strong Brown voter. All the undecideds were most concerned about the economy, jobs and women’s health issues. So we were able to talk about Brown’s record on jobs and women’s health — slam dunk — as well as Elizabeth’s positions on those issues.
I could not agree more that connecting with voters personally and face to face is invaluable — especially when there are still so many undecideds.
Get out there and door knock, people!
I spent most of Saturday afternoon knocking in Chelsea. The day gave me little to add to the above comments other than to say that my experience matches – ditto on finding more undecided voters than usual and the importance of jobs.
I did speak with two people who were focused on Warren’s heritage. Both had partial Native American ancestry and brought Brown’s attacks up as reasons they were voting Warren. The subject didn’t come up with other voters.