Canvassing for the last time [ed. correction: in 2008!]

We did one more day of canvassing, this time in Bedford IN.  It was another gorgeous day (we saw a reading of 80 degrees on the way out in the afternoon!?) and Bedford, or the neighborhoods we were in anyway, is a pretty pleasant town.  Very few people were home, so it was mostly just sticking those doorknob flyers on the front doors saying “Vote today!” with information on the polling location.  Many of our first houses already had flyers, so we called back to the base to be sure there hadn’t been an error.  They told us to look more closely and we’d see that we had new flyers: they were exactly the same except ours said “Vote Today!” and the ones that were already there said “Vote Nov 4!”  So, there was obviously a lot of duplication of the effort.

There was one very disturbing incident.  Three dudes were coming out of a house and starting to get into a pickup truck.  One said, “you guys votin’?” in a way that seemed probably mocking.

Me: “yeah, we’re canvassing.”

Dude: “for who?”  Me: “Obama.”  Dude: “Good deal…”

Me: “have you voted yet?”

Dude: “I can’t vote, I’m a convicted felon.”

Then as they got in the truck one of them said the N-word very loudly.  We sort of half froze and muttered to each other, did he say that?

Kind of creepy on a deserted street, especially in the context of the convicted felon comment.

Otherwise, though, Bedford was lovely, no complaints…!

Can’t believe this is almost over!!

p.s.  From what I understand, convicted felons can in fact vote in Indiana, so he was just making excuses.