This Tuesday, Kentucky and Oregon will have their Democratic primaries. With Obama only needing 14.5 delegates for a majority, these primaries could give them to him. On Saturday, I make about 50 calls to people in both Kentucky and Oregon to get them to get out and vote for Obama.
I received 25 numbers of voters in Kentucky, majority of them being female, to call. I was beginning to get worried when I was not getting answers, machine or otherwise. Then, I finally got in contact with someone. My heart was racing, and I frequently lost my breath while reading through my script. Unfortunately, I didn't give the caller time to respond, and was promptly hung up on. But, thankfully, this trend did not carry into my calls to Oregon.
While receiving a lot of voicemail's, I did manage to get in contact with a decent amount of people and notify them that their ballots were due by 8PM on Tuesday, May 20th. Quite a few people told me that they had already dropped off their ballots, and quite a few had voted for Obama. But, there was this one woman. She answered the phone with a baby screaming in the background. I asked for the name that my call-list had provided, who turned out to be the woman's husband. I then asked if he was available, which he was not, and I then asked if I could just have a volunteer call back. "Well, why don't you want to talk to me?" she asked. A bit taken aback, I then went through my script with her. At the end of my script, she then questioned me about my knowledge of Obama. While the purpose of the call was to notify them of the due date for their ballots, I felt the need to discuss Obama's policies with her.
She was a strong supporter of Hilary, as far as I could tell. While she identified "Undecided", her accusations of Obama leaned toward supporting Hilary. I did my best to answer her questions, but then she questioned my lack of support for Hilary. Well, it wasn't something I was prepared for. I never really thought about why I didn't support Hilary. I've always supported Obama, mainly because of his stance on issues important to me. But, I never stopped to consider why I didn't support Hilary. She didn't provide much convincing, but she did point out a few things that I had not known about Obama. Sure, none of these were major things, but her knowledge was admirable. She knew several cases where he had changed his stance, and she also knew quite a considerable amount of his bills. Though, she did not have much knowledge of the bills he passed while in the Illinois State Senate, many involving health care reform and the degradation of lobbyist influence in the State legislature. I was ill-informed about many of the things she presented, and I did my best to research them while on the phone, I do feel that I did not have much effect on her decision. I can only hope that the things I presented encourage her to research more into Obama, and lead her to make an informed, educated decision about who she chooses to vote for in the upcoming primary.
All in all, it was an amazing experience. I do hope that I can call-bank again for Obama in the near future.
For more information about Barack Obama, including the issues he supports, please visit barackobama.com.
