#YOU KNOCK ON MY DOOR DRIVERS#
I wonder if we will have people do that this year with the rising price of gas (in Georgia, we did hand out $20 gift cards to those who served as drivers last year - we may have to do that again).īut that isn’t the only “new” thing to report from Saturday’s canvass. Having said that, we’ve had volunteers ask to be drivers in the past because they understand how important the role is. But the point is, they want to knock, even in an Excessive Heat Warning. “You have to explain that other volunteers are more likely to trust older drivers,” I explained to organizers afterwards. I am reminded of this because our organizers in Phoenix asked 5 more senior volunteers to serve as drivers on Saturday and they objected. It is interesting, because the driver is the key feature of this summer system and yet most volunteers want to knock, not drive. We also suggest that people bring a change of shirts and I've even have drivers that create "privacy environments" in their SUVs for changing into dryer clothes. With lots of cold water, baby wipes, cooling towels and an air-conditioned vehicle, our canvassers are safe, looked-after and don't look haggard when they knock on doors. So there are repeated opportunities to cool off, and to do some paperwork in an air-conditioned vehicle. We also know to cut turf in smaller segments than we would in the fall or spring. And when volunteers get too hot, they jump into the vehicle and join the watch on the other members of the team. We want a driver/supervisor to have eyes on each volunteer every 20-30 minutes or so. In Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Georgia - even North Carolina - we cut summer turf and map out that turf with a car and driver in mind. Hope Springs from Field PAC sends out volunteer teams in the hot months led by a driver. We cut turf differently during the summer for states that can experience hot late mornings/early afternoons. Volunteers are valuable, and the fact is that if volunteers have health issues during a volunteer shift, they aren’t likely to come back. No one wants a volunteer to get heat stroke, no one wants volunteers even coming close.
#YOU KNOCK ON MY DOOR HOW TO#
We know how to do this (I started knocking on doors in Central Florida, where primaries were in late August) and one of the reasons why the Obama connection is so important to what we are doing now is that the field program in the Obama campaigns also prized volunteers to a high degree.
So canvassing in a heat wave was anticipated.