Pimpin myself out to the Dems

Today I volunteered down at the county Democratic HQ. They put me to work on the phones. My job was to call the “lazies,” people who voted in ’04 but not in ’02. In other words, people who think presidential election years are the only ones that matter.

I don’t know who writes these scripts. They’re not too good. After a number of people hung up on me, I shortened my script by removing a sentence about George Bush and our state Attorney General, Phill Kline. People don’t need to be reminded of how much they hate these two– after six years, Bush’s infuriating smirk is burned into everyone’s conscience. I also made sure to introduce myself as a volunteer– people are more likely to listen to a concerned citizen than a paid hack. After these two modifications, I had no hang-ups. My naturalistic delivery surely helped as well. People don’t want to listen to a recorded message, so why would they like listening to someone who sounds like a recorded message?

The voter lists were a bit of a mess– quite a few disconnected numbers. But then I can’t compare it to anything, since this is my first time volunteering for a political campaign. (Where was I in my idealistic college years? Why didn’t I volunteer? I guess I was too busy running my student freethought group… and surfing the internet.)