Question about Phone Calls

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I had a question for all of you parents (and those students, if it applies.) Many of the parents on here are very active politically and I was just wondering if you could help me decide about this!</p>

<p>I’m a big supporter of a certain presidential candidate and I would like to make phone calls on behalf of them. But before I sign up, I just want to find out about what I’m getting myself into.</p>

<p>Have any of you had experience with making phone calls on behalf of a campaign? Is it difficult to do 100 calls a week? Any other things about it that you think I should know?</p>

<p>Thank you for those of you who answer!</p>

2

<p>Well it’s easy for me since I live in the Chicago area and this is where Obama’s national headquarters are. While I’ve signed up to volunteer, I’ve yet to make it downtown to do so (something I’m hoping to change). But from the updated e-mails I get, they will take whatever they get. I think they’ve encouraged anyone who can stop in the office for even an hour during their lunch hour to do so. And their phone banks are open for long hours throughout the day and early evening, so you can work an hour or many, for however long you want.</p>

<p>I think my major concern would be getting overly into it at the detriment of my other responsibilities, and slowly finding myself spending more and more time doing it. They don’t tell you how many calls/hours/etc., you have to set your own boundaries. But your post has inspired me to finally take that plunge.</p>

3

<p>I did phone calls from home last week before our state’s primary. It wasn’t difficult at all. I signed up online (at Obama’s website) and spent several hours making calls. I did not have to travel to a phonebank (though I think that would be fun!). You can do as much or as little as you want, just don’t promise to do a 100 calls and then bail out. The campaign website I used gave out 20 names/numbers at a time, which seemed very doable. Start with a small commitment and see if you like it. No matter who your candidate is, phone calls are a great way to support him/her and get involved in the political process. And while most of my calls resulted in leaving voice messages, the people I actually talked with were pleasant.</p>

4

<p>I made phone calls before our school district’s last bond election. I went to the local teacher’s union office and used their telephones. They gave me a list & a suggested script. I just called people and either left a message on the answering machine or talked to them directly. It was really easy. Even those who opposed the bond were quite pleasant. I had a set time period for calling, and I just called as many people as I could during that time. It was very painless. The bond passed, which made it even more pleasant. :)</p>

5

<p>Thank you all for your very informative opinions. teriwtt, I’m glad to hear that I inspired you to that the plunge. momof2inca, your post was perfect-actually, what I wanted to hear. I think I WILL be pressing that submit button and committing to it. I normally have about one-two hours after school so hopefully that will come in useful.</p>

<p>Once, again, thanks everyone!</p>

6

<p>Just don’t call me at dinner time!</p>

7

<p>D1 made calls to NM from her dorm room in Mass before Super Tuesday for Hillary. It was a random call thing -she called 1 number and the computer did the rest- she had no idea what number she was calling or even where in NM she was calling - they gave her a script and all she had to do was encourage voters to get out to vote. It was painless. She stopped when she wanted to stop.</p>

8

<p>Is this a call for, dialing-for-a-date or political. If you call me, I would be happy to make a date, pending wife’s approval (she doesn’t care). If you call me for a political matter, be prepared to hangup on me, fast; Regardless of candidate. I eat prunes. its not pretty.</p>

9

<p>I gave my first official three hours to a political campaign tonight! Took the train down into the city this afternoon (roads are bad due to weather), and spent three hours at the phone bank. It was a very mixed experience; when I first got there, the polls were still open back East, so we were calling people in Virgina, reminding them today was the primary, and to still get out and vote if they hadn’t. </p>

<p>When the polls there closed, we were given lists of students at the University of Wisconsin to start calling; the name of the list was students for Obama, so somewhere these kids must have signed up as supporters. Our purpose was to remind these students of the primary Tuesday in Wisconsin… these are kids who all have permanent residences out of state (Florida and Illinois), but who are now registered in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, we mostly talked to parents since we were calling their homes. The absolutely coolest thing about it though, was, Obama was holding a rally on the UW campus tonight, so lots of us had many phone calls where the parent would answer the phone, and we’d explain how we’d like them to pass along a message to their son or daughter to remind them of the primary Tuesday - then the parent would say, I don’t think they need reminding… they’re at the rally right now. It was so cool to hear these reports coming from parents, of kids who were fired up. </p>

<p>I will say, I (and I don’t know about others), had a couple of phone calls, where the parent told me, “Our family will not be supporting Obama.” So I just said thank you for your time. One mom told me she was going to tell her son to vote for Hillary, and I immediately thought, “Oh, wait until the CC parents hear about this one!” What I wanted say to them was, “Well, obviously at some point your student decided to support Obama because they’re the ones who gave us their names and phone numbers, so butt out!” But I played nicey nice, and kept my mouth shut. It occured to me that some of those kids may be telling their parents they’re voting for someone else to get them off of their backs, but then vote for who they want to support, not who their parents tell them to support. Anyway, it was a busy place tonight, and as the results were rolling in from the East coast, there was much happiness and cheering. </p>

<p>Next Monday, I’m going to transport some volunteers up to Wisconsin to do some canvassing for the day; that will be new to me, too. I’m really getting out of my comfort zone with this stuff.</p>

10

<p>Just don’t expect people to listen- I usually hang up ASAP.</p>

11

<p>actually out of probably 75-80 calls I made yesterday, I had only two hang-ups. Even the ones who were clearly voting Republican were cordial about the phone calls.</p>

12

<p>Eee! Thank you all for the feedback! I thought that the calls were kind of fun to make because you never know who’s going to pick up the phone. On top of that, some of them were hilarious though for most of mine, I got the machine.</p>

13

<p>I’ve done calling for local issues (override for the schools) and it’s rare that I get a real person on the line. I ended up leaving lots of messages.</p>