It has been a full week out in the field and it has been an exciting week! First I want to thank everyone for the tremendous support. We know we are conservatives because we all share our thoughts, documents, and processes. The difference between us and the liberals is that we genuinely hope everyone succeeds as it benefits LI and all of us. With that said, here is a recap of the week, my process, and my experience.
My region of West PA has majority of small private religious denomination schools, which are a little bit more challenging to recruit new members. On campuses where I can’t table, I canvas with a clipboard. The back of the clipboard contains the YES NO Reagan Castro postcard and I ask people walking by “Excuse me, I am conducting a poll and I would like to ask you one question. Who do you align yourself with most?” Very often I get blank stares. Occasionally I get bursts of laughter. And very rarely I hear those three magical words: “Reagan of course.” “Reagan of course” ah that’s what I want to hear. “Well I am starting conservative clubs on campus, would you like to join?” If the answer is yes, I have them fill out their name, phone, graduation year, email, and check off their important issues from a list of seven choices; ie: nat’l defense, pro-life, etc. The ones that are really gung ho, I ask if they would like a leadership position in the club and arrange a follow up meeting.
A quick side note:
I firmly believe in racial, ethnic, gender, and any other profiling around. If I see the blatant signs of liberalism I don’t waste my time polling them. Excessive body piercings, tattoos, saggy pants, sideways hats (which is the dumbest look around), peace signs, hippie paraphernalia, and of course same-sex couples holding hands. This eliminates a good 10-20 % of the student population. I also avoid people talking on cell phones. It's not that I have anything against them, but do you really want to be interrupted for a political poll? People with religious paraphernalia, unless they exhibit any of the above mentioned, I definitely seek out with the hope that they are even slightly more conservative. This is not always the case, as much of us know.
When I am able to, if the campuses are large enough, I set up a table with some of our books that we received from training and I push the envelope with “controversial signs.” “Guns don’t kill people. Abortion clinics kill people.” The ever popular: “If guns kill people, do pens misspell words” and “Liberalism is a disease. We have the cure.” Surprisingly (and I hope this doesn’t happen), I was not really challenged to fight too many people. Below are some of my fun experiences.
I decided to canvas at a really small, all-girls private school, Chatham College. As soon as I climbed up the 100 stairs and giant hill leading to the top of campus, I was “greeted” by the campus police. “What are you doing here? Why are you here? What’s with the clipboard?” Apparently, you can’t have a clipboard in this country because I did see some guys walking around. So after the cop let me go, he then came up to me a minute later and demanded to see my driver’s license and again started with the forceful questions. After copying my info from my driver’s license, he gave me my warning and escorted me off campus.
I had some success at California University of Penn, a state college. After canvassing for a while, I noticed that a few groups were tabling inside the student union. So I asked them how they got the table, the policy, etc., and then went down to the information desk which was in charge of the tabling process. “You need to reserve a table,” they to me. In response, I asked, “What if I don’t need a table?” They were stunned by my question but concluded that it was all right. Off to my car I went, and I started tabling smack dab in the middle of the student union. Now, I don’t necessarily recommend this for every university, as the union was full of surveillance cameras. But thankfully I tabled for a few hours and even had the information desk guy come and talk to me about the pros and cons of my signs and prospective club.
Carnegie Mellon, a well-known private school here in Pittsburgh, had a few people tabling on their green. I scoped out the campus then went to my car and grabbed my table and supplies and set up shop. One father walking with his daughter stopped and was very excited to see me out there. He is trying to stop his daughter from becoming a communist. I also got the "thumbs-up" from an elementary school teacher walking by with her students. After two hours or so, the group tabling across from me, a bunch of liberal buggy drivers, came up to me and started grilling me on why I was there. "That's not an official table. Those signs aren't what Carnegie Mellon students usually see. Are you a student? Where's your ID? Someone might call campus police, and it would be recommended if you had an ID. Some students might be having concerns because they are not used to this. You are trying to start controversy." It should be noted, that they are the only ones who had a major problem with my signs. Most people just scoffed and walked by. Apparently they didn’t like my signs or the fact that I had a lighter, compact, portable table. See liberals penalize anyone who is successful. Because I had a better table, they said I should have had to get permission to use the campus tables and lug a 20 pound table about a mile. So I left before campus police arrived!
On my first day in Pittsburgh, I went to the local coffee shop to check my emails. Sitting next to me were extreme wacko nutcases who belong in a mental institution, except I don’t want my tax dollars taking care of them. These guys are working for some Progressive Forward organization that wants to rebuild Stalin’s era (their words, not mine) and get Obama elected. While I was at Carnegie Mellon, I noticed their signs on some public traffic control boxes in a prime location on the boxes. I “accidentally” taped my signs over theirs and made sure my signs were taped to every sign on the board. If mine comes off, they will have to rip other people’s signs and make a lot of noise.
These are my stories, and I look forward to hearing and sharing with everyone.
