Adventures in Sociology

I probably engaged about 30 people as I only had about 1 hour before I had to go get ready for the show. I would say that 20 of them looked at me like I was crazy and said "I don't vote!" When I asked why, they would say, "because I HATE politicians!". This was incredibly enlightening to me. I responded with, "I hate 'em too - that's why we need to vote." One guy I talked to for a while, he was 65, a Vietnam vet, and had never voted in his life. He was actually very knowledgeable on the issues however. He was disgusted with the way the government has its own agenda to screw us all, and somehow, for a fairly intelligent guy, he viewed avoiding the voting booth was some sort of way to stick it to the man. I told him how there are so many out there that feels like he does, and that's why it's getting worse - nobody votes. I told him how you do have a choice in the direction of your government - you simply have to vote out those who do you wrong, and vote in real true-to-form citizen-representatives like you and me. He finally took the information I was handing out, and sounded like he was convinced I was right. I'm going for optimism and guessing he's going to go vote for the first time.

I barely got the words out of my mouth to another man, who happened to be African-American, when he turned to me and started going off on Obama. "I voted for that man, and he's been nothing but a disappointment! We've been lied to and misled - and everything has gotten worse!" I told him I couldn't agree with him more, and how important it is for us to tack back our country starting at the local level. He agreed, shook my hand, and took a flier.

Several other people had mixed responses, but all in all - only 2 or 3 adamantly refused to take any info. One guy was walking with his kids and was opening a toy he had just bought with a pocketknife. He said he didn't vote and so I went into the whole spiel - he abruptly turned to me and said, "You're talking politics to a man with a knife in his hands." I figured that could only get worse and walked away. 

The overall experience was great actually. I learned some valuable lessons in sociology (which was my favorite subject in college). We have to quit preaching to the choir and engage the average man on the street. Most people were very acceptive. They sounded like no one had ever even talked to them about voting in their life! It was easy actually. "Do you plan on voting in the primary?". 

"No". 

"Well, we have a great list of candidates who...blah blah blah"

"Okay - thanks. Tuesday, you say?"

I feel like I probably had a success rate of at least 50% or more. I think only 2 had already voted - and 3 or 4 were planning on voting on election day already. If we formed a good coalition and really pounded the streets like this, we could start something, and swing elections everywhere. This was certainly not a wasted effort in my opinion.