Hard Work Paying off....

After the successful day detailed Here

http://mysteryj.blogspot.com/2008/10/day-by-day-door-by-door.html

I turned around on Sunday with a little push from my wife.

Ended up canvassing one of the nicer neighborhoods in all of Columbia. We had some surprisingly good luck. I picked up a volunteer from the office. Mansuir, who is a foreign exchange student from Montenegro. He is here for one year on a scholarship studying Political Science. Needless to say he is ineligible to vote. However after attending the Joe Biden event down in Jefferson city this week he felt inspired to get involved. He was asked by one of his friends from the University why he would do such a thing when he can't even vote. His answer was that the world is indeed interconnected and what happens here in America has a very real effect upon his home of Montenegro. He simply had to cite the current financial crisis to make his point.

I am sure glad he decided to join in. I was prepared to canvass the area myself. This area as stated is a very nice development. The lots are sprawling. It is a new development, so there is limited information on the voters. As a result there was much walking between houses. Thankfully it is a very pretty neighborhood set up on a hill in the southwest part of Columbia and many of the houses are beautiful. The first person I spoke to stated he was a conservative and he wasn't sure about Obama. He did limit his concerns simply to tax policy. In the next breath he stated he couldn't vote for McCain after the last 8 years of Bush and Co. So even though I disagreed with him on his taxes and socialism comment regarding Obama, I let it go. I marked him as leaning Obama. I asked him to verify I was correct in my assessment. Mistakenly I said Democrat instead of Obama. He corrected me "leaning Obama" yes. "No way leaning Democrat". More interestingly he doubled back as I left and asked me how it was going in this particular neighborhood. Told him he was my first house I could tell him more in an hour. The very next house I was informed that both the husband and wife would be supporting Obama.

After about 2 1/2 hours we had walked the last block and rang the last door bell. We had knocked on 57 doors talked to 27 voters. We were able to ID 25 voters on our list. Obama was leading 13 to 12. I felt this was pretty good considering the neighborhood and the tax bracket he had just walked. Usually when I am canvassing and some one brings up their concerns regarding Obama's tax policy I can pretty confidently state it wouldn't affect them. This weekend I am not sure that is the case. The other thing of notice was in a few of the houses the whole family would come to the or hang around the door as I asked for the specific voter. When I woult tell them that I was a volunteer for the Obama campaign the kids would exclaim thier preference for Obama and wanted to talk about Obama. In thoses cases I was informed the whole house was for Obama. On the other hand even the McCain people were for the most part restrained and kind. I even had one twenty year old male apologize after stating he was supporting McCain. Of course I was sorry for him too. I kept that to my self.

So after all that work this weekend the following Survey USA poll came as very pleasant surprise.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=114e8715-9896-484e-8403-33855cf31617

Obama 51%
McCain 43%

Fox /Rasmussen Reports
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/fox_rasmussen_polling/fox_rasmussen_swing_state_polling_october_12_2008

Obama 50%
McCain 47%


PPP (D)
hhttp://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_Missouri_1014132.pdfttp://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_Missouri_1014132.pdf

Obama 48%
McCain 46%