Rivers run through it

Go to a window in a tall building that overlooks a street with regular foot traffic. Look down at the people walking below. From that vantage point, walking down the sidewalk seems to be as defined and orderly an action as driving down a busy street. People walk in pretty straight lines, at regular intervals from each other, and they tend to pick up the same speed; given a long block with few disruptions, every pedestrian will match each other’s stride; feet will move in near-unison. There is occasionally a breakaway, someone in a hurry or someone stopped, but for the most part it is a steady stream. _____

Of course, especially in a dense urban area, each block has its own rhythm. A thousand factors influence this, and few of them are immediately apparent to the eye. But they are all different, each street with its own personality. Any given block will have a set of people on it, although of course in some areas, this set is more defined. Nevertheless, the mix of people on one block will generally be different from just a block away – sometimes ever so slightly, but sometimes greatly.

There are smart places to be, and stupid places to be. A large organic grocery store was veritably a gold mine (and yet to me it felt almost too easy to work there, too obvious, opportunist). A five block radius from an upscale department store having a big sale is a boon. Anywhere in which the scene is disrupted by some physical or psychic disturbance is inadvisable: areas near busy and loud intersections, near construction, in front of doctor’s offices, under garish billboards. Standing near an ATM is a sure way to send people away from you as if you were magnetized.

How many of the people on a given street would even talk to us? Well you gotta figure this: one half of all the people in the country don’t vote and don’t care. One quarter loves the president. Say (very unscientifically!) three quarters of those who don’t like the president really don’t like the president. (following, here? We’re at three-sixteenths I think.) One third of those who don’t like the President will be willing to stop, talk and give money to someone on the street. So…again, very unscientifically…one out of every sixteen people who walk down the street will stop.

The difference between a good canvasser and a bad canvasser is that a good canvasser gets two out of those three people to give them money – or maybe even gets one of the other two sixteenths to stop – while a bad canvasser will get one or none to give money.
The difference b/w a great canvasser and a good canvasser is that in any given day the great canvasser will get one of, say, six of those one-sixteenths to give $100 or more. These numbers (even if I am not quite accurate in them) really do make sense – raising money is not necessarily about luck (although every so often $1K or even $2K would fall out of the sky onto someone) but about playing to these numbers.

In New York City, these numbers are significantly higher than almost anywhere else in the country – so is the density of the foot traffic. And the capacity for donations. With a few exceptions (in the areas with more defined ‘population sets’ – Chinatown, Harlem, etc) you can make money on every street in Manhattan, no matter who is on it. You might have to canvass a bit differently in the financial district than you do in the West Village – but the adjustments are subtle, almost cosmetic. 60 people standing on the streets of NYC asking for money to help beat George Bush in an election are going to make themselves a lot of money, no matter how trained they are. If they know what they are doing, well…

This made New York City the centerpiece of Grassroots Campaigns’ DNC canvassing operation.