Getting to Yes...

It's been a long time since I did sales work.  In my acting days - my mid-to-late 40s - there were summers when I didn't have a gig.  For several of those summers, I worked as a telemarketer for the Richmond (Virginia) Symphony.

Telemarketing is hard work, but you learn a lot.  Mainly, you learn how to close - which is an essential skill in our sales-oriented society.  No matter what your vocation or avocation, sooner or later, life is going to require that you find strategies for getting people overcome their reluctance to say "Yes".

For citizens volunteering in political campaigns, such strategies and skills are absolutely essential.

Yet, surprisingly, most citizens who don't practice politics for a living find it difficult to go from a polite, cautious political chat to actually pressing a fellow citizen to commit - even though commitment is the name of the game.  Sending a small donation, putting a bumper sticker on your car, signing up to do something - anything - to help out.  These small, first steps are how undecided voters become active citizens, fully invested in a campaign.

And invested citizens are the ones who will do the hard work of GOTV ("get-out-the-vote") at election time - the hard work that spells the difference between victory and defeat.

This afternoon, I struck up a conversation with a nice lady who was visiting Cannon Beach with her husband. Somehow, we got around to 2020, and I told the lady I had become a volunteer for Elizabeth Warren, with the initial duty of being the campaign's organizer in Clatsop County, Oregon.  (Again, for those who don't know our state, Clatsop County is where the address label would go, if Oregon was an envelope.)

The lady replied that she really liked and admired Elizabeth - then stopped, the unspoken word "but" hovering in the air.

And I surprised myself.  I don't usually turn a friendly chat into a political moment, but this lady was clearly smart, thoughtful, and professional.  She was the sort of person you want on your team - no matter what the task.  So I said...

"And what's the but?"

The but, for her, was electability.  Specifically, the concern that America might not be ready to elect a woman to the presidency.  So I smiled and said:

"You know, I've been in politics - on and off - my whole life.  And I'm always amazed that people think they can predict who will win or lose an election.  Because for me, what William Goldman* said about the movie business is equally true of politics:  'Nobody knows anything.'

"In 2008, did you think this country was ready to elect a black man President?  I didn't."

She smiled, then replied, "And I never thought we'd elect Donald Trump.  I couldn't believe that happened."

And I repeated, "That's because nobody knows anything.  We can't predict.  So to me, it makes more sense to just do what I think is right."

Then I looked at her, a quietly impressive, charming woman you would trust - in five minutes - with anything.  "If you think America isn't ready to elect a woman president, how do you make it ready?  The only way I can see is by doing it.  If we don't nominate women, it continues to be impossible.  Once we elect one, it's suddenly been possible all along."

The conversation went on from there, but my new friend left with a Warren bumper sticker and a smile.  I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing that sticker is on her bumper very soon.  Because she seemed to have given herself permission to do what she wanted to do anyway - support the candidate she believes would be the best president.

She just had to get past the "electability" issue - which, really, is no issue at all when you admit that you don't know anything.  Because nobody knows anything.

Whoever you're backing, I hope this will help.  If nothing else, it will save you hundreds of hours listening to, watching, or reading the predictions of "experts" who have no more chance of being right than they have of predicting a coin toss.

Politics is fascinating stuff.  And one reason is because - in William Goldman's words - Nobody knows anything.

Think about it.

_____

*  William Goldman is the screenwriter responsible for, among others, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride.  The quote is the basis of his best-selling book, Adventures in the Screen Trade.