The other night I met a woman on turf whose husband had been laid off from his auto manufacturing job. He has not been able to find steady work and has been working for a temp agency in a desperate attempt to support his family. The woman related to me that she often doesn’t have enough money to feed her children. I asked if she was registered to vote; she said no. She then asked for a voter registration form because she finally realized she could help to make a change by voting.
While canvassing this past week I came to a Working America member’s house with a large yard surrounded by a chain-link fence. Sitting near the front door was a small, but unchained, dog. I love dogs, but even the smallest one can pose a major hazard to the canvasser’s efforts. After taking a moment to consider what the famous door-to-door worker Cliff Clavin would do, I decided against spouting useless trivia at the pup, and entered the gates.
I was soon rewarded for my “bravery,” as the dog was friendly and the Working America member was vitally interested in our cause. She has been an assistant at a cancer treatment center for many years. She told me she’d seen first-hand how our current governor’s “streamlining” of Medicare here in Kentucky had severely undermined people’s health care. She said she’d definitely be supporting Steve Beshear, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor, in the upcoming election, largely due to his efforts to give the poor and the elderly the assistance they need to obtain necessary health care. She even offered to volunteer if her work schedule would allow it. I thanked her for her dedication, and her dog for the hospitality, before rambling on to my next stop.
Paid for by AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Treasury Fund.
I met a woman in the field who was a staunch supporter of Steve Beshear, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor here in Kentucky. When I got to talking to her, she told me that she had a house for sale, and she had told the Beshear campaign to put up the biggest sign that they had on her property.
After a while her real estate agent called and told her that no one could see the “For Sale” sign on the house. The woman told me that she then replied, “I don’t care if I have to pay a few more months of the mortgage if it means that Steve Beshear gets elected.” She then offered to come to our office or to a Labor Walk and bake us all chocolate chip cookies for our important and hard work.
Paid for by AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Treasury Fund.
While canvassing in St. Paul, I knocked on the door of a high school student who had just turned 18. He was concerned about the job market but had no idea about the candidates or the upcoming election, or how to make a difference. After talking about the issues for a while, he found that he agreed with the labor-supported candidate, Melvin Carter, on almost everything. Now, he is proud to be able to cast his first vote for Melvin Carter.
Today I spoke to one of our members, a man in his mid-forties, and I asked him what I ask everyone: what’s your most important issue, what do you do for a living, and who are you planning to vote for? He answered that health care was his most important issue, he was unemployed, and he was voting for Steve Beshear, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor here in Kentucky. I said that he didn’t seem too happy about that, which he didn’t, to which he replied that he wasn’t. He explained that his job at a local chemical plant had recently been outsourced due to its inability to unionize, and that his son, who has special needs, was not receiving the proper medical attention.
The kicker was, he was a registered Republican and had voted the party line his entire life. This election would be the first time he voted for a Democrat. He said he couldn’t justify voting for a man that was doing nothing but hurting the middle class, and that it would be sheer ignorance for him to vote for Ernie Fletcher, the Republican incumbent governor, again.
I assured him that not only would Beshear be better for the job, but that Working America would do its best to hold him accountable once elected. He cracked his first smile of our conversation and I wished him a good night.
Paid for by AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Treasury Fund.
I met a woman in the field who was a staunch supporter of Steve Beshear, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor here in Kentucky. When I got to talking to her, she told me that she had a house for sale, and she had told the Beshear campaign to put up the biggest sign that they had on her property.
While canvassing in St. Paul, I knocked on the door of a high school student who had just turned 18. He was concerned about the job market but had no idea about the candidates or the upcoming election, or how to make a difference. After talking about the 
Today I spoke to one of our members, a man in his mid-forties, and I asked him what I ask everyone: what’s your most important issue, what do you do for a living, and who are you planning to vote for? He answered that health care was his most important issue, he was unemployed, and he was voting for Steve Beshear, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor here in Kentucky. I said that he didn’t seem too happy about that, which he didn’t, to which he replied that he wasn’t. He explained that his job at a local chemical plant had recently been outsourced due to its inability to unionize, and that his son, who has special needs, was not receiving the proper medical attention.
