The volunteer lawyers for Kerry in Pinellas County didn’t have anything particularly legal for us to do today, so they sent us out canvassing in St. Petersburg. Zinester and I took our list and headed out to Kenwood Circle near the Five Points neighborhood in St. Pete.
We had a list of Kerry-friendly voters - all registered Democrats, purged of known absentee ballot voters and known Bush-supporters. We didn’t expect many people to be home, but the response was far better than we imagined. Not only were there a lot of people home on a Monday afternoon, but they all knew their polling places and intend to vote tomorrow. And they didn’t say it in that “I’ll-say-anything-to-get-you-off-my-porch” sort of a way. Floridians are ready to get out and vote; I don’t think anything could stop them.
An informal lawn sign review had the territory I was covering - a middle-class white neighborhood - mostly Kerry, but with strong pockets of Bush support. And two people told me that they had their Kerry signs stolen. We did see BC04 signs in the front lawn of three Kerry households we were supposed to approach (so the list wasn’t perfect), and one crotchety 95 year-old woman told us that she didn’t need a ride to the polls and that she was “not going to vote for Kerry.” I stole her cane and we left.
After finishing our list, Zinester and I went to Siam Garden for lunch. The softshell crab in garlic and black pepper sauce was very good. And the restaurant was pro-Kerry to boot. An elderly couple sitting in the first booth thanked us for the work we were doing. Another pair of Kerry volunteers was eating in the back. The owner of the restaurant asked if we had been to the rally in Tampa last night (we hadn’t) and told us that she was too busy greeting Trick-or-Treaters. There is a lot of love for Kerry in these parts - much more than I expected. Bush has his fans also, and plenty of them, but Kerry has a lot of public support in Pinellas County.
Fingers crossed for a celebration tomorrow.
Go Kerry!
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Walkabout in Florida
