Braving the field of campaign volunteering

Zac Estrada Rosales
News Editor
Election season for this year is over. At least for local government that is. Which is a shame really because I have serious doubts about how many people knew about any of the candidates. Here’s a question though: how many high school students volunteer for candidates and their campaigns?
The answer is not many. But just to be contrary to the mainstream I set out on the campaign trail in support of four candidates for Santa Barbara City Council in the run-up to the November 6 election. My impression: if you’re a politics junkie like me, volunteering is a way to understand the campaign process better than just seeing a couple of documentaries.
I sent emails out to two candidates, Helene Schneider and Michelle Giddens, which was simple considering the amount of candidate mail I received at my home by the beginning of the month. Schneider sent me an invitation to a precinct walk that supported herself as well as fellow incumbents Das Williams and Brian Barnwell who were all supported by the Democratic Party.
Ms. Giddens, a challenger and newcomer in the field of local politics, asked if I would be willing to do a precinct walk with her as well. I picked a Saturday afternoon to walk some local neighborhoods with her and her campaign organizer.
But my first experience was a week before election night when I spent two hours between 5 and 7 p.m. making phone calls on behalf of Das Williams. He and his campaign organizer were also in attendance going through lists of registered voters in the city, most of which were labeled as undecided or lived in areas that Williams had not yet contacted. I had a script and plenty of information about Das if a voter wanted to know more about him. But I didn’t actually use any of it. I had a number of people who were already familiar with him, mostly for the better, but some for worse. Most people, surprisingly, did not mind that I was calling them between the time most get home from work or soccer practice and sit down for dinner. But I did get a couple people who said they wouldn’t vote for Das (or any of the incumbents) if their life depended on it, or something to that effect.
Walking around the Westside with the Democratic Party was similarly uneventful, partly because of the intensive organization of that walk. About 15 volunteers including the candidates and their significant others were grouped in pairs ready to drive to a precinct and go door to door with a set of literature encouraging last minute voters to vote for the incumbents. But the real reason I found it uneventful was because there was no one home in the middle of the Sunday I was out.
But I had a bit more of an event with Michelle Giddens the day before. I arrived at her house and campaign headquarters about 2:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. She and her campaign organizer Darrin, a city college student, were awaiting a list of registered voters and their addresses. She briefed me on what I would be doing that day with her. The book, How to Run for Local Office, was her guidebook on running her campaign. Even then, Michelle was apologetic for her apparent disorganization that day.
The three of us later piled into her Range Rover with her dog Althea and decided to go to a section of town off of Mission Street, where no one from her campaign had really gone before. But Darrin and I weren’t having much luck with the people there so Michelle decided to try the area near Harding School on the Westside. There were more people answering doors in this area and Michelle took every opportunity she could to personally introduce herself to those answering their door and those out on the street.
Of course there’s always the one person who throws you a curve ball and it came in the form of one person asking me what Giddens thought of homosexuals. Completely flustered without a clue what to respond with, the first words out of my mouth were, “Well, she’s a Democrat.”
Strange occurrences aside, I had a good time with Michelle and the other candidates I volunteered for. And even though two of them won’t be sitting on council come January, it’s nice to think I made some impression on a voter before the election.