2/6: St. Anselm's Tour & First Time Canvassing

     It snowed today! Somehow the cold felt a little more tolerable when there was a little snow on the ground to validate our feelings. Today we were given a tour of Saint Anselm’s College which seemed to have a little to offer to any student- along the hallowed halls of Saint A’s, as it’s nicknamed among locals, visitors can find politically incorrect vintage political propaganda, a working TV studio, several monks, and Japanese dignitaries, among other oddities.

This paper thin dress, pointed out to us as exactly what we would have been wearing as women had we gotten involved in the campaign process a few decades prior, would look really good on me. They seemed to get upset when I tried to try it on but I feel like that was their fault for not having a dressing room available.

     After this tour it was off to our office, where we were in for another productive day of harassing local households and slowly but surely phone banking our way down New Hampshire’s long and tedious list of registered voters. As it turns out, there is an extensive New Hampshire lexicon that we Floridians are woefully uninformed of. The linguistic rules of this dialect are simple: be as polite as possible, but reject all forms of political propagation swiftly and without mercy.

“We appreciate the call.” = “We do not appreciate the call.”

 “I’m not comfortable telling you which direction I’m voting in.” = “I do not know what public record is.”

 “I’ll decide in the voting booth.” = “There’s a primary?”

“We’re all set.” = “Go f--- yourself.”

Today was also our first day of canvassing. Rish, a recent engineering graduate and field organizer at the Nashua office, joined us, and we set off into the frigid wastelands of suburban Nashua where we braved not only the harsh climate, but also the harsh reality that canvassing is lonely work. Of the 20+ doors we knocked in the hour or so that we were out, we spoke to only two, the first of whom came outside to her icy porch and congratulated us on being her first Yang canvassers as well. Those that we did talk to, few and few between as they were, were incredibly welcoming and didn’t show how sick they were of political canvassers breaking down their door at dinner time even a little bit.

Before we got picked up we were basically contractually obligated as Yang interns to show a little support in the snow.