Every once you get the chance to talk to someone while phone banking that wants to hear what you have to say and wants to share their opinions with you. I had been having a pretty rough day of calls; very people few people actually picked up and those who did usually hung up the minute they heard I was working for a campaign.
When I was a few hours in for the day I called a man who for the purposes of this post I will call John. When I told John why I was calling he didn't hang up, but instead welcomed the questions. He told me he had not decided whom he was going to vote for on the 9th, like many voters, but then started to tell me the importance of this election to him and why he was taking a long time to decide.
John is 86 and has lived through many wars. He is worried about the state of our national security, but more importantly worries that some of the candidates are encouraging a deep division in our society rather than unity. We discussed this for quite awhile. He was also worried that the candidates were telling lies, and that the majority of the population were unable to separate the lies from the truths. The Truth and DC are strangers, he said.
This was a sentiment that I had been hearing from a few voters; people are cynical about the government, worried about the honesty of the candidates. For some people this steered them toward Trump, but this pointed John in a different direction. While he had yet to decide who would get his vote, he wanted to choose someone who he believed would truly bring this nation together again.
