Petitioning for Gore

Hi everybody,

I've been out petitioning again tonight, and I did pretty well. I’ve been able to fill a page of 15 in about an hour. Two pages tonight, two last Saturday. If I can keep that up every night now, and maybe more on the week ends, it’ll be a lot in 20 days...(gulp) I found some good techniques I thought I’d share:

Here in NYC there is plenty of foot traffic just about everywhere. I stood on the corner at a busy intersection, this was 34th and Park. Because it's busy, no one will cross against the light, and because they are both big streets, if one direction turns red, not that many people just choose to cross the other way... if they are heading south, for example, on Park, they are likely to be on the side they want to be, so if they hit the light at 34th, they have to wait. Ok, so that's when I approach them. I wait for the light to turn red, for people to stop at the corner, and I approach the ones who are away from the edge a bit. No point in haranguing the ones out on the edge or in the gutter, they’re in a hurry. So I approach someone, smile and say "Hi, are you a Democrat?" Here in NY the odds are pretty good they'll say "Yes." Some won't answer at all, some will say no, some will say they are not registered, some will shrug, some will say they are from another country (and they usually support Gore.) But, if they answer "Yes", that's great because they are already saying yes to something, and I know immediately they are Democrats. Then I say, "Would you like to see Al Gore's name on the NY Primary Ballot?" Almost everyone says "Yes" again to that! That’s to yeses in a row; I'm cruisin'. Then I say, "I'm collecting signatures to put him on the ballot, can you help?" People love to help, so that works really, really well. Now, some times they say "He doesn't want to run" or "He's not going to run" or "He's doing better things now, not running" etc., to which I say, "Yes, but even if he doesn't run, this kind of ground swell of support only strengthens his hand, what ever he does…", which clinches the deal almost every time. The hardest part is getting someone to say "Yes" to the first question. "Are you a Democrat?" is good because it does double duty, it gets them to say yes, if they are, and it selects out the people who are not Dems right away.

I also tried in the Village, but was surprised that mid town was better. A lot of down trodden cynics in the village. And I can’t believe how many people are on cell phones… seems like half! But the quiet part of Bleecker Street in front of my building was pretty good, too.

It looks like it’s going to be 50 to 60 degrees for the next week, maybe longer. Possible showers now and then, but mostly pretty nice and sunny. Let’s take advantage of the good weather!