Mitch's Blog

I’ve gone door-to-door several years. Every year, I get awful stagefright — I dread it for months. Which is odd, because I do not get stagefright in real life. I love public speaking.

Once I get out there going door-to-door it’s fine. The unpleasant interactions are not particularly unpleasant and are rare. Far more interactions are pleasant. One or two are great. I need to remember that the next time I’m called.

This is a numbers game. Cover ground. You’ll get no response at 90% of the doors you knock on. They’re either not home or not answering the door.

Last week, a woman in the neighborhood caught me when I was out walking the dog and said she was afraid she’d missed her chance to send in a mail-in or drop-off ballot. I reassured her that she had until Election Day. She recognized me from my going door-to-door. That helps me feel good about the process.

There is a complicated script that we’re suppposed to follow but I believe it may have been written by people who have never gone door-to-door, and certainly not in their own neighborhoods. It makes you sound like a broken robot. I have been advised by a veteran at this sort of thing to wing it. Remember to state my name, state that I’m a neighbor and volunteer for the local Democrats. We have door-hangers — offer one of those. Other than that: Improvise. Get in an actual conversation like a normal person. We only go to houses with Democrats in them, so most of the people are glad to see us.

My own rule: Resist the urge to be persistent. Do not knock on doors with “no soliciting” signs. If someone seems to be rushed, just thank them, offer a door hanger, and be on my way in less than a minute.

Also, one house in my neighborhoood, which I have passed hundreds of times, has a wall around the front yard. When I went through the gate, the house had kind of a Texas Chainsaw Masssacre vibe. I left a hanger and skedaddled.

I think I’m done with the election. I may do some more dialing for Kamala today or tomorrow, but probably not. It’s in the hands of the American people now (God help us).

On Reddit: Why do so many people think drinking milk is weird?

Adults Who Still Drink Milk: Are You Okay? — “I’m not saying that everyone who drinks milk is a murderous psychopath – but it is unhinged behaviour.”

Meet The Adults Who Sometimes “Enjoy A Glass Of Milk”

The microphone on my Apple Watch stopped working weeks or months ago. I know the common wisdom is that Siri is useless, but I use it frequently to set timers and alarms on the Apple Watch and I missed being able to do that. Today I once again tried following the care instructions on apple.com and wiping the microphone with a clean lint-free cloth and then trying to scrub it with a toothbrush and tap water. I have tried that before and neither technique worked. Feeling reckless, I decided to poke at the microphone with the end of a dental proxabrush — and by gosh it worked! The proxabrush pulled out a small waxy, white plug, which I think was dried soap. And now the microphone picks up audio, nice and clear.

This has been a vexation to me for weeks or months and I’m happy to have it resolved.

I got started much later than I intended, and the website directed me to a zoom meeting in conjunction with the dialing. After 10 minutes they ended and wanted to have a debrief. I did not want to go to a zoom meeting or debrief. I am varsity level at this stuff – just give me a list with phone numbers and names and a script and I’ll jump in and do it.

Today’s calls went to Nevada. Nobody picked up; nearly all went to voicemail. Yesterday’s calls were to Georgia and I got no voicemails. Why is voicemail popular in Nevada but unknown in Georgia?

I did it from my house, from my home office, the same place I work all day. I did it after work.

My work involved making cold calls many years ago, so I have no phobias about doing that. When I was in the cold-calling business, I used to dial each number manually, like a caveman; the Harris campaign has an autodialer, so you just call up the website in your web browser and click to dial. The campaign provides a script with contingencies on what to say if the person says they’re not sure who they will vote for, if they’re undecided on whether to vote, if they’ve already voted, etc.

The auto-dialer assigned me to make calls in Georgia. There was (cough) a bit of a language barrier on many of the calls. In theory, Californians and Georgians both speak English, but in reality the dialects are drifting. I predict in a hundred years the languages will be separate.

All the calls went to Democrats. That’s the purpose of making the calls — to get out the Democratic votes.

90+ percent of the calls didn’t pick up. Many of the others hung up on me as soon as I identified myself.

I had a lovely conversation with a 91-year-old woman who said she is not planning to vote this year. I gather from the conversation that she’s not well enough to do so.

Three people I talked to said they want to vote but don’t know where and how. The auto-dialing software has a contingency for that — I arranged to text them information on where and how to vote.

Those three people are why I volunteered.

I only had one outright hostile caller. He answered the phone, “Who the fuck is this?” and I literally laughed out loud at that. I ended the call soon after that. I clicked the button on the website to let the campaign know that I had encountered a hostile caller.

While waiting for the callers to pick up, the software displayed a series of Halloween-themed Dad jokes. It seems possible, though not likely, that Tim Walz picked the jokes himself.

I will try to do this phoning every day between now and Election Day, both to help put Kamala in the White House and for more Dad jokes.

Anyone call do this. Here’s where to sign up. go.kamalaharris.com/calls/ There’s a five-minute video orientation, which is rather confusing; I suggest watching the video and don’t worry about being confused; just push through. You’ll figure it out as you go, and if you make mistakes, it’s not a big deal.