Bharathi Sundaram

Sundaram, who interned with the Select Committee on Homeland Security, is a member of the Class of 2004 at Mount Holyoke College, majoring in international relations.

13/2/2004

When I arrive at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Headquarters Friday evening, I’m impressed to see that the scene in front of me wasn’t total chaos, as I had been expecting on a trip with seven bus-loads of people. After checking in and collecting the team assignments, I have the chance to get to know the other members of my team. I am surprised to find that they ranged widely in age and background. I had thought they would be mainly interns and students in their early 20s. Instead, there were also housewives, retired individuals, business professionals, etc., from all over the country, including a few from the district in Kentucky where we would be campaigning. Some parents even brought their children along. For many, like me, it was their first GOTV (Get out the Vote) experience. Others had participated in grassroots campaigning before, including a group who had recently been on the ‘Gephardt for President’ campaign. Among all of us there was a feeling of excitement as we wait to embark on our task. The DCCC holds a rally to further energize us before the buses arrive.

Once we’re finally on the buses, the team leaders use the time to explain what will happen on the trip, how we should conduct ourselves, etc. We also watch campaign commercials from both sides to see how the candidates have presented themselves (and each other) so far. After that, we have the chance to watch a movie and get some rest since we would have to be on the bus all night before we reached Kentucky.

14/2/2004

We arrive at the hotel at 6 a.m. Saturday morning. We have breakfast and shower before boarding the buses again to head to the district’s Democratic headquarters. There we divide into small groups and are assigned neighborhoods where we would do door-to-door canvassing. Since it is only a few days before the election, the purpose of the canvassing was not to convert voters who are clearly opposed to our candidate. Instead, the idea is to reach out to those who are undecided or are supporters to ensure that they vote on Tuesday.

Since there aren’t many drivers to actually take us to the different sites, we have to wait at the headquarters until each van returned before we are able to leave. Once we reach our respective neighborhoods, we divide into pairs, arm ourselves with a list of names and a map, and begin looking for the addresses. I soon realize that canvassing is a bit different than what I had envisioned. I thought I would be speaking to a lot of people about Chandler’s experience in office and his positions on different issues. Instead, much of our time is actually spent traveling from house to house, as we are in a well-off section and the houses are farther apart from each other. At many of the homes, no one answers the door. Those who do answer say little, sometimes saying whether or not they support Chandler, otherwise simply stating that they would vote or politely thanking us for stopping by. It was clear that voters have already been exposed to a great deal of news, advertisements, campaign materials and other information regarding the special election. The only resident who is interested in hearing more about the candidates is someone who recently moved to the state from Indiana –– and so knew little about the race.

After about an hour-and-a-half of canvassing, we are picked up and brought back to the headquarters to have lunch and then wait while the University of Kentucky basketball game is played (we don’t want to knock on doors and interrupt people during the game). A lot of the volunteers use the time to catch up on a little sleep missed the night before. We resume canvassing following the game –– finishing up those houses on our list that we didn’t reach before. The section of the neighborhood we do this time isn’t as well-off as the first one. Since the houses are closer together, we are able to go to a lot more houses in a shorter period of time. More people also come to the door, so we get a better idea of the number of supporters Chandler might have.

After we finish our list, we return to the headquarters again, where we turn in our information and wait for all the other groups to arrive. As I speak to the other groups, I discover that the canvassing areas varied greatly and people seemed to have different experiences. A number of the volunteers had neighborhoods where people were passionate about the election and were excited to speak to someone. There were some interesting stories as well –– including quite a few about being chased by dogs.

We return to the hotel for a short while before departing again for the volunteer party, which gives us the chance to unwind and meet more of the district organizers and other volunteers.

15/2/2004

We sleep in a little later on Sunday and arrive at the district headquarters before lunchtime. Like the day before, we divide into smaller groups and go canvassing. This time we go to the state capital at Frankfort. The residents of these neighborhoods are very different than the ones yesterday. I realize we are in a Chandler stronghold when the person at the very first house tells us how she is looking forward to voting for him in the election, how her daughter just turned 18, and how she is excited about voting for Chandler in the election, etc. Even when residents aren’t quite as enthusiastic, most of them answer the door and many of them speak about how they were long-time Democrats and/or staunch Chandler supporters. We even end up at the house of someone who works for the Chandler campaign herself!

We finish canvassing in the late afternoon and return to the headquarters again. Some people do phone-banking there (same as door-to-door canvassing, except not in person), but there are a limited number of phones so most of us don’t have the chance to do it. As we wait for a few of the other groups and had dinner, we have the chance to just chat with each other. Looking back, this was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip since I got to know the other volunteers better than I did during the previous two days –– when most of the discussions were limited to canvassing. As I speak with them, I am impressed not only by their backgrounds and strong political knowledge, but also the amount of thought they put into forming their views. They are not a group blindly following the party –– they have carefully considered what is important to them and whether or not the platform reflects their values and priorities. Throughout the trip, I am inspired by people who are passionate and genuinely care about improving their communities- and by extension, the nation as a whole.

16/2/2004

Monday morning, all the volunteers are separated into those who would be staying in Kentucky until Wednesday morning (a little over a hundred), and those who would be leaving that afternoon (the majority, including myself, since work/classes would be starting again on Tuesday). The two groups do different activities that day. My group begins with “visibility” near the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Visibility means holding up signs and asking support for the candidate at crowded intersections during rush hour. We hope again that this would serve to remind people that the election is the next day. It is also exciting to see so many drivers showing support for Chandler –– whether by honking their horns or just waving and giving us a thumbs-up.

Following the visibility, we go to a campaign office in Lexington. You can sense in the atmosphere of the office that Election Day was very near – the organizers are moving faster and there seems to be more urgency while things had been a bit calmer over the weekend. We receive more address lists of supporters of Chandler or those who had said they were undecided. This time though we would not be canvassing –– we would only leave door hangers with an Election Day reminder and polling location information. The neighborhood is close enough that we can walk there and we are able to finish our list quite quickly. After returning to the campaign office, we are given a second set of addresses and driven to the neighborhood. We return again to the campaign office to have lunch and prepare to depart Kentucky. Before we board the buses for D.C., the DCCC briefly films all of us in a group for an outreach video encouraging others to participate in political campaigns.

On the buses, we have the chance to reflect on the past several days. I really appreciated the opportunity to see all the work that goes into a Congressional campaign. I had thought GOTV would be simply going out and speaking to everyone we met about the campaign. Instead, it was a focused effort targeting only certain individuals –– and depending on how close it was to election day, the forms of outreach would change. It was amazing to see just the sheer numbers of people involved, and all the hours they put in. They clearly felt that the political process strongly affected their lives and they were willing to devote their time and energy to be a part of that democratic system.