Flipping the Tenth: The last Saturday

My earlier predominant impression from canvassing for democratic challenger Jennifer Wexton in Virginia's Tenth Congressional District, currently held by two-term republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, referred to in her district often as Barbara Trumpstock, was reinforced today when I knocked on 39 houses in an attempt to speak with 59 registered voters about committing to vote on Tuesday.  About half the houses listed on the dedicated list answered their doors and the motivation to cast their vote was palpable as many putative voters expressed an eagerness to vote and disclosed detailed plans to do the deed ("I'm going to vote at 6 a.m.  Thank you for coming, I admire what you're doing.").

I didn't have any tense interchanges, although one woman was watching me from inside her car at the curb as I walked up to her house, just drove away from me as I asked her child when she came out of the house after I knocked if her mother was around and she said yes, she's in that car, and I respectfully walked up to the car.  I'm just trying to save your nation for myself and mine and also for you and your child, mom, both minorities, and your child is very polite and you are very rude.  One man on the same block in this affluent subdivision 15 miles outside of the beltway, came out onto the porch when I stated my purpose in knocking and shook my hand, announcing that he was a republican but he was voting democratic "this one time."

One man recently here from Texas asked how Wexton was doing and when I said polls showed her up ten points, effusively said he was glad to hear that and he was voting for her.  I urged him to make sure he made a plan to do so and went on to another house where four voters were listed as occupants and I spoke to yet another occupant who said the four listed voters were out but all five of them were voting democratic.  On the other hand there were a couple of houses where the door answerers pithily said they had already submitted their private ballots and I got the message.

There were a couple of houses where I spoke to twenty-something potential voters and they both sheepishly said they didn't know anything about the issues or candidates but they would ask their dad.  Lame!  They'll live for decades with the choices imposed upon them by others, as the stacked supreme court will attest to, as the future slowly unfolds.