|
|
Last week, as dusk turned the evening sky pink, Erica White and Idris Ogunjobi set off down 76th Avenue to the first house on their map. They knocked. They waited. A woman poked her head out.
They were going door to door for Barack Obama. Did she know how she was going to vote?"Don't worry," she said. "You're preaching to the choir."Relieved, they made notes on a clipboard and moved on. Likely some of the first presidential canvassers in Anchorage in at least a generation, they've been asking strangers about their politics since July.During most presidential contests, Alaska is a forgotten northern backwater. There are reasons for this: It's isolated and it has only three electoral votes, which have gone predictably to Republicans since 1968.The state is so insignificant that many years the country names a president before the Alaska polls even close.But this year, for the first time in recent memory, there are established campaign offices for both camps. Hundreds of Alaskans are volunteering, many venturing into presidential politics the first time.What makes this year different is for a brief moment the state seemed to be in play. Before Gov. Sarah Palin was picked to join John McCain's ticket, weak support for the Republican put Obama close enough in the polls to make it seem like he had a chance. (Alaska Republicans largely supported Mitt Romney in the primary). Energized by this and record turnout at Democratic caucuses, Obama's campaign opened an office here and put ads on television. Then came Palin and suddenly the sleepy McCain campaign -- one man and a cell phone -- came alive with Palin fans. Support for the McCain ticket skyrocketed and a wide lead opened over Obama. The Democrat scaled back, although they still have a couple of paid staff and hundreds of volunteers. REACHING OUTSIDEDave Donley, a longtime Anchorage legislator, now retired, spent a recent evening calling voters in Nevada with several tables of volunteers at the McCain-Palin headquarters. He couldn't remember when so many locals were so involved. "Alaskans have had like a fundraising role, but not the kind of grass roots you're seeing now," he said. The two campaigns are taking different approaches. McCain volunteers are calling undecided voters in swing states. The Obama camp is knocking on doors here while writing and calling voters in swing states as well.David Boyle, an Air Force retiree, was the one-man McCain campaign in Alaska before the Palin pick. McCain wasn't popular with Alaska Republicans at first because of his stand against ANWR and because he appeared too moderate, Boyle said. But Palin's addition to the ticket changed all that. Boyle estimates he had 16 hours of sleep the first four days after the announcement because he was so busy organizing. Now there are about 50 core volunteers working at an office that opened hastily last month.McCain is expected to win in Alaska, but some of the volunteers wanted to canvass the state anyway to rack up a huge vote total, countering the efforts of the Obama campaign. With the race in the bag, organizers decided resources were best used otherwise."We're not going to knock on doors, because we want the best return on our investment," he said. "If we can deliver five electoral votes in Nevada plus three in Alaska, that's eight."50,000 POSTCARDSA few blocks away at the Obama office, stacks of postcards littered folding tables on a recent weekday. One addressed to Indiana, written in neat cursive, read: "Much has been made of McCain's selection of Sarah Palin. As a woman in Alaska, I believe Obama/Biden will work hard for issues important to women." Campaign volunteers from Juneau to Fairbanks to Bethel have written more than 50,000 of the personal postcards, sending them to battleground states over the last month, according to Nathan Osburn, the campaign spokesman. Campaign offices in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau are coordinating 1,000 Obama volunteers statewide. About 450 of those are active in Anchorage, he said. Though turning Alaska's three red votes blue is a long shot, volunteers have knocked on thousands of doors, he said. Off 76th, White and Ogunjobi estimate they'd gone to more than a hundred homes. Ogunjobi returned last year from a tour in Iraq and speaks with an accent from his home country of Nigeria. White, an architect, grew up in Anchorage. They've learned to avoid houses with long driveways, "no solicitation" signs, and large dogs. They try to give information, not to change minds. Cars parked out front sometimes predict what's going to happen at the door. "They have a Subaru Outback; 90 percent chance they are one of us," Ogunjobi said. The roughest neighborhoods so far have been in South Anchorage, and once they made an unfortunate trip down a street where Palin relatives live. Do they feel like they're making a difference, even though the day they were out Obama was 15 points behind in Alaska according to the polls?"Definitely," Ogunjobi said. "Maybe the polls are lying. ... I've never been polled."MAKING CALLSOver at the McCain-Palin headquarters on a recent drizzly night, Joann Pantages dialed a Nevada number on a campaign cell phone. A housewife and Democrat-turned-Republican, she is volunteering for the first time. Asking strangers how they are going to vote feels a little awkward, she said."This is not how I wanted to spend my summer vacation," she said. But it's worth it if it can deliver votes.Sven Maakestad, 15, sat a table away. He got interested in the election because of Palin. A home-schooler from Eagle River, his main issue is abortion. When his mother was pregnant, the doctor told her she should consider terminating it for her health. People on the other end of the phone have been kind to him, he said, though once in a while things go south. One person actually called him a "d-bag," he whispered. He stays polite at all costs."I use self control," he said.Pantages wishes more people would participate on either side. It takes a little guts but you learn about the world. "It's not going to kill you to hold a sign on a street corner in the cold. Sure, you might get someone waving a middle finger at you," she shrugged. "What are you going to do?"