Block Party: Election Canvassing in Suburbia

House-to-house canvassing is the epitome of routinized labor: you knock on the doors the campaign’s algorithms determine you should knock on; campaign officials ask you to follow a “script” they have tested in polls and focus groups. Efficiency is paramount. You avoid having long conversations; the more contacts you make, the more votes you have a chance to win. Still, it can be a surprisingly enlightening experience. At least during the 2012 campaign, it was for me.

Last fall, I spent several days, armed with a clipboard and a stack of glossy leaflets, walking around suburban neighborhoods located 2,700 miles apart. In Prince William County, Virginia, half-an-hour’s drive from Washington, DC (except during rush hour), I volunteered on weekends to get the vote out for Barack Obama. Then I traveled to Sacramento Country, California, where I canvassed for Ami Bera, a progressive Indian American Democrat running for Congress against the conservative GOP incumbent, Dan Lungren, a powerful committee chairman. Paternal pride and affection inspired the trip out west; my son had a job as Bera’s field director.