A Day At Virginia Victory Headquartes

I spent my Saturday in Alexandria off the Braddock metro station working at the Virginia Victory campaign office for Bill Bolling and the rest of the Republican ticket. It's a nice office with a very warm and welcoming staff of regulars headed up by Kiley Smith and Marissa Pugmire (Bolling's campaign).

At 10 am Jan Larimer of Wyoming came to speak to the volunteers. Larimer was elected co-chairman of the Republican National Committee in January of 2009 and works with Chairman Steele observing and taking inventory of the Republican grassroots organization nation-wide. She was encouraging and supportive and put everyone in a great mood for the day's tasks.

I went out with a friend and canvassed the neighborhood near the headquarters for about 3 hours and met mixed results. There would be pockets of Republican ticket supporters and pockets of Democrat supporters. Many who were willing to talk to us had not heard about Vicki Vasquez who was running for the delegate position so it was great to get her name out there, especially since we past the home of her opponent, incumbent David Englin. We were least successful when we came to apartment buildings/homes with multiple families...it was very difficult to even get people to come to the door and many had "no soliciting" signs.

Then at 2 pm, we arrived back at the headquarters and made phone calls for an hour. It was fun learning how the call center worked and how the phones kept track of survey results, voicemails and bad phone numbers. I probably spoke to an actual human 1 out of every 10 calls and out of all those voters who answered, maybe 4 agreed to take the survey. It would have been disheartening if the day hadn't been well spent canvassing the neighborhood, and having friends/good people around you makes even the call center an exciting event.

Overall, a day well spent. I learned a lot, met some great people, and learned a bit about what a typical campaign day is like in Virginia. VOTE BOLLING!