My fiancé just got a call. It went something like this.
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Biden campaign: hi I was wondering if we can count on your vote for Biden this election?
Fiancé: honestly I’m really not sure. I’m having a really hard time deciding who I am going to vote for. I might vote third party.
Biden campaign: well have a great night!
Fiancé: umm...you too?
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Seriously Lol anybody that has done phone canvassing knows this is the EXACT type of answer you want to hear to follow up on and have a conversation with the person to try to convince them.
Sad.
when i did canvassing for bernie we were advised against arguing with people. seems like standard fair. you're basically supposed to ask if they're voting for the candidate you're canvassing for and if so remind them of where their polling location is and the date, otherwise you leave them uninformed and hopefully un-reminded to vote.
the truth is that arguing that someone who is undecided should vote for someone based on a phone call is actually more likely to drive that person to either not vote at all or vote for the opposition.
Well I was advised against arguing with people as well, but when someone was undecided, I was explicitly told to convince them. In my experience, I could often convince people by asking what there priorities are, then finding our common ground. But idk what your experience canvassing had been
Yeah, that matches my experience. I canvassed in person and we got several people to go from undecided to bernie after talking about the issues. Just not worth wasting the effort on people that are entrenched.
It’s not about arguing though. It’s about convincing people to vote for your candidate. She may have been genuinely open to being convinced to vote for Biden and the guy didn’t even try.
cmon dude.
Yeah yeah electoralism etc etc, but if you’re literally spending your time calling strangers to talk to them about the election and you’re not willing to have a simple conversation about it then you’re basically just a pollster and why bother in the first place
no, i'm pointing out that your wife specifically is probably not very likely to being open to being convinced to vote for biden.
She legit doesn’t know who to vote for. She was like a prime candidate for this exact sort of call.
but this guy on the phone is more effective than you are at convincing her of who to vote for?
I’m not going to tell my wife who to vote for. I’m not even a yankee. I vote NDP, it’s a totally different ball game up here.
(Edit: Canada)