Probably the most historic aspect of Tuesday’s election is that it broke my four-year-old election-canvassing jinx:
- In 2004, I canvassed for ACT NOW (not John Kerry, wink wink) in Liberty, Missouri. John Kerry lost Missouri by 196,000 votes (though he won Jackson county by 53,000).
- In 2006, I canvassed for Lois Murphy in Pennsylvania’s 6th House district. She lost by 3,000 votes.
- In 2006, I canvassed for Diane Farrell in Connecticutt’s 4th House district. She lost by more than 6,000 votes. Her opponent, Chris Shays, was the only New England Republican to win re-election to the House. (In fact, this year he did not win re-election. But I didn’t canvass there this year.)
This year:
- I canvassed for Obama in Northeast Philly. Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 600,000 votes. He won Philadelphia country by more than 450,000 votes. (I knocked on about 200 doors, at most.)
- I did Election Day phone-banking for Obama into Miami-Dade County in Florida. Obama won Florida by more than 194,000 votes. He won Miami-Dade by more than 139,000 votes. (I made maybe 100 phone calls… By around 4:30PM, there were no voters left to call who were willing to pick up the phone.)
Barack Obama has taught me an important lesson about democracy: A really good candidate with an overwhelming advantage makes all the difference. And I make no difference at all.
AN ALTERNATIVE THEORY: LC’s brisket and Stroud’s fried chicken on Election Eve are bad for Democrats. Chink’s cheesesteaks? Electoral gold.
Procrastiblog 
You definitely made a difference!
In Texas, we just phonebanked/blockwalked/leafleted low-propensity Latino voters to go vote in a nonpartisan way, giving them info they needed to do so in English and Spanish. We doubled the Latino turnout and they voted something like 75% for Obama.
Texas could go Democratic in 15 years or less at this rate. 🙂
Keep up the good work. -Vijay
Comment by Vijay P — November 6, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
Viva La Raza
Comment by Chris — November 6, 2008 @ 5:35 pm