I wanted to say Christ in the bathtub because there used to be one in the corner where you could be the last to go walking.
And you could watch the building, the first bathtub right in.
And then you just saw the back of the bathtub for a long time until they built the little grotto part.
There used to be a real grotto in the, I remember the hotel Bradford.
See a lot of times with the older people I take a step back because they don't see you if you're right up by the door and they want to peek out a little bit over there.
So a lot of times if you stand right there you're more or less intimidating the person.
So you want to step back a little bit.
Obviously there's nobody more.
So there's lessons you learn doing this and how to do it correctly.
They open more doors.
Then I make a little note on the sheet CB.
Then I'll make an attempt to come back at different times.
Like it might be at 5 o 'clock, I might come back at 7 o 'clock.
But eventually I'll track them down.
So what are the tips you got to know to be able to be a good door -to -door guy? See that's the purpose of the phone bank is you can't get everybody.
And that's the purpose of five mailings.
See a lot of these people by the time election day comes they're going to get sick of hearing that dirty name.
But they're going to hear it five, six times.
So what are the things you got to be able to do to be a good door -to -door person? One of the things? Yeah.
Well first of all, number one.
Can you tell me to start by saying to be a good door -to -door person you got to be able to? Then I can hear my question.
Oh, first of all a person, to be a good person, to walk a precinct and meet the voters, number one, you should make a good appearance.
So in case somebody is a little bit leery about opening the door, if they see a person that's halfway decent and well dressed, they'll open the door.
I mean if you have long hair, stuff like that, it don't work in precincts, especially in this type of a neighborhood like this.
You don't want to intimidate the voter at all.
You want to be comfortable around you.
Hi kids.
Hi.
You folks home? Huh? My dad's here.
Hi, how are you? All right, how are you? I'm a volunteer worker for Oliver and Dorothy.
Yes.
Familiar with Brian? Yes, I am.
And could he count on your support? Sure could.
Well, that's good.
Fred Rupley.
Hi, how you doing? Brian will be happy.
Okay.
Thanks much.
Thank you.
Bye now.
McCall, did you see the can of oil? No.
What was that house? There's no reason to believe that he isn't a good solidarity voter.
And when he says, when they answer you ask me a certain question, can I count on your support, when they right away say it, you know it's a solidarity voter, so I'll put him down as a plus.
The funny thing about it, yesterday's pluses when I was working another block, I went back in the office, the phone bank was working.
And their pluses were exactly the same as mine.
So we got to say what we got on that sheet is probably 90 % accurate.
You'd be surprised, fellas, people that, they usually don't have a tendency to lie.
Most of the people about this will tell you the truth.
Because you're only asking for one candidate, you're not asking for a political party.
You're not going up the door and say vote straight Democrat or straight Republican.
Pardon? Yeah, you get a good idea of what people are thinking.
For Brian.
Is that a possibility? Pardon? Hi, how are you? Brian Doherty, the alderman.
He's a Republican, but it's a nonpartisan election.
You don't know, huh? Well, I'll tell you, by going around in the neighborhood here, talking to the people, almost everybody that I go to thinks he's doing a good job.
Sure he is.
Okay.
Sure he is.
Or, like I said, it's nonpartisan.
If you're Democrat, you're going to get the same constituent services as a Republican.
Maybe even more because he'd like to change it.
I'll give it a thought.
Give him a vote.
See, I can't put that down as a solid vote.
That's zero.
And let the phone bank or the mailing work on that one.
And I also suspect that they might be, they might be dyed into little Democrats that won't vote for a Republican no matter what.
So why do you think...
In the Democratic politics of Chicago for years, there was a Clark name that was always, we had an attorney general named Clark, so these might be Democratic relatives of them.
But now, maybe going back and talk to him again next Sunday, might be able to get that vote for sure.
But right now, as of now, I'm going to put them down as a zero, which is an undecided.
Hi, how are you? Hi.
I'm a volunteer worker for Alderman Doherty.
Oh, hello.
Hi.
Hi.
And I was wondering if we could count on your support.
Sure.
I'd like to.
Here you are.
Thank you very much.
Thanks much.
Okay, thank you.
Bye now.
Bye bye.
Kind of lukewarm yesterday, but I still think that woman in my mind, that's a Doherty vote.
The way it looks to me.
How many years have you been doing this? 38 years.
And why do you do it? Because Brian Doherty is a personal friend of mine and Roger McAuliffe is a personal friend of mine.
I've known the Doherty family for years.
Was it also that you enjoy politics? I like politics, yeah.
Are dogs a problem in these neighborhoods? To tell you the truth, I like precincts like this where the people don't know me enough to ask me in.
When I work my home precinct, then the dogs are all over.
You've got to wear old clothes.
So in a campaign like this, how many bells do you think you'd ring over a period of time? It's hard to say.
Well, figure 500 voters at a precinct on an average is 250 voters per house.
Just figure an average of maybe one election every year, every time out, maybe 300 doorbells.
We first started with the organization with McAuliffe.
The young guys that you see around there, I was one of them one time.
Let's...
Is it hard in a town which has got such a democratic reputation to be doing stuff for the public? Pardon? Is it hard in a town with a democratic reputation to be working for the republicans at all? It's tough.
A lot of people are issue -oriented.
It really doesn't matter that much.
If you go for one candidate, most of the time a democrat can go into a republican house and get one or two votes.
Me as a republican, I can go into a democratic house and I can get one or two.
If you concentrate on that, you're going to be successful.
You just don't go for too much.
It took the democrats a long time to find that out.
It was like this.
You can usually tell by cars in the driveway.
People are hungry.
Pardon? Cars in the driveway.
Yeah, but sometimes they're down in the basement and they don't hear at all.
A lot of times, like I said, this is a precinct that I know very well.
If it was down in my home precinct, it would be a lot of people.
If I was in the back yard, I'd go right around in the back yard.
But right away, a lot of people don't care to come in their yard.
That's why they've got a gate.
Now you were telling us that you could go into a democratic house and maybe get a vote or two.
Yeah.
What's the secret? Just try and talk about the one candidate and why he would fit into the personality of the neighborhood.
Or you can go ethnically with this, too.
Say you've got an Italian Republican and it's an Italian democratic house.
You go in there and ask for that one Italian guy.
And you actually show him how to split their ticket.
Or you could do it with Irish or Polish, whatever you have.
You play on that.
You'd be surprised it's effective.
Hi, how are you? Are the folks home? Hi.
Hi, how are you? I'm a volunteer worker for Alderman Doherty.
Are you familiar with Brian? I wonder if we could count on your support.
You can, yeah.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Bye now.
I see that lady talk with a brogue.
So when you mention Doherty, see her eyes light up, see? Why do you have to do this? Huh? Why are you doing this? What does this mean? To go door to door.
Well, you feel that you're helping.
Like I said, I've known the Doherty family for years.
Grew up in the same neighborhood with them.
And it just goes on and on.
It's something that...
It's a great satisfaction.
It won't be as good this time because we're going to win this time.
When we beat Pachinsky four years ago, there was no better feeling in the world than we had to knock off an established candidate like that.
A guy who's been out here for 25 years.
I guess what I meant was why is it important to have people like you going door to door? What does that do for the candidate in the election? Well, it's all basically it does is, like I said, there's a five -step procedure, three mailings, a phone call.
This just puts frosting on the cake.
This all leads up to election day.
So now election day, when I come around, they'll say, oh, that's, yeah, I remember, you came over.
Yeah, we'll be out.
Don't worry.
We'll be out.
You'll be surprised.
A lot of people, Democratic houses, you know, a lot of people say, you know, I'm coming out.
I'm coming out to vote for you, guy, because you're wrapped on my door.
It was a cold day.
You were nice enough to come out.
I'm sorry.
The dog doesn't sound friendly.
Let's do this job.
Doesn't sound like a friendly dog.
Well, I don't think he's big.
I like little dogs.
Hi, how are you? I'm a volunteer worker for Alder majority.
Mm -hmm.
And I was wondering if we could count on your support election day for the Alder.
Sure.
No problem with that, huh? I've called him plenty in the past couple years.
You did? Always had results.
You always did.
Tell your neighbors.
Spread the word.
Okay.
Okay, Mrs.
Smith, thanks a lot.
Okay.
The Alderman appreciates it.
Okay.
Bye -bye.
Doesn't take a genius to figure out that that's a good Dardie voter.
Why is she a good Dardie voter? She was...
She said that she had called the office a lot of times in the last four years, and she said she was very happy with the service.
You'd be surprised.
What, you do something for that for one lady? The word spreads fast.
Is that what it's about, being Alderman? Is a lot of it about service? Constituent services.
If people don't care nothing about what goes on downtown, all they care about is their streets, their curbs, their sewers, whatever.
That's all these people care about out here.
Okay.
Yeah, we're gonna come back for the ward night.
You know, when people come to the office, because that's such a great...
Hi, Mr.
Maloney.
I'm a volunteer worker for Alderman Dardie.
Don't be a simidate.
This is not 16 minutes.
Oh, good.
But I wonder if we could count you as a support for Alderman.
I'll see what I can do.
Okay.
You need an absentee ballot? No.
I'm here all the time.
Okay.
All right, if you could...
Brian would sure appreciate it if you could vote for him.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks much.
Bye now.
What do you think? That's zero.
Yeah, it's not a minus.
It's not an I won't, but a zero.
And we give the other guy three quarters of the zeros when we figure out our thing, so we can't get them all.
So how many guys are there like you doing this kind of stuff on a day like today in Chicago? Let's see.
Let's see.
Figure it this way.
There's averages say, uh...
Let's just say 50 precincts of war times 50 wards.
Okay.
You know...
I mean, the people down in Lincoln Park, I mean, they're not doing this.
Can't get in the buildings.
They have to go at it a different way than we do.
But there's a lot of them out.
Just go through the neighborhood and see all the guys with clipboards.
Have you ever been involved in a citywide campaign? No.
Not city, because we're Republicans and, um, statewide a lot, yeah.
So you were Republican all the way even when you were a young man? Yeah, I, uh...
As soon as I started paying taxes.
Hi, how are you? I'm a volunteer worker for Alderman Doherty.
No, thanks.
Not interested.
Not interested, huh? Thank you.
Well, we know what that is.
That's a pretty...
Is that common or uncommon to get such a blanket statement like that? Well, you don't get many of them.
But that's definitely a person that, uh, something happened along the way.
Maybe they died in the World Democrats.
You don't know.
Two doors down, the lady said she was a Republican.
Great.
You know, go two doors away and this one's not me.
I'm not interested.
Hi.
I'm a volunteer worker for Alderman Doherty.
Thank you.
Or they think they won the Reader's Digest.
Right, that's what it is.
Wait a minute.
I didn't know how much it would cost.
I wonder what the camera crew is.
I tell you, even from ten years ago I was telling people, they're so much more used to seeing cameras around.
We'll wait a couple minutes, but then we'll, uh...
You must have seen a lot of candidates in 38 years of doing this stuff.
Yeah? So what do you think is the difference between a candidate that's successful and one that's not so successful? It's hard to say.
You hit a hot button of a person or...
You know.
Like you're watching us work, it's...
It just starts at the bottom and just mushrooms from there.
You know, you were around the office and you see how many people are working around there and all the girls and all the volunteers.
You know, a lot of the young girls come in there to meet guys.
You know.
Yeah, but they still seem to be pretty into it.
They spend a lot of hours there.
Oh, sure.
So is the organization important to win? Yeah.
You know, we got a congressman out here.
We got a state rep.
We got a state senator.
We got Pete Sylvesteres on the county board of commissioners.
And, uh...
We do a pretty good job out here with this organization.
But I don't care how good you are.
If you don't have a good candidate, you can't win.
And our candidates, like Brian and Roger McAuliffe and Dudich or whoever, they'll work just as hard as the crease he kept as far as shoe leather goes.
Brian has walked his board already.
I don't know.
I'm a volunteer worker for Allerman Doherty.
I wonder if we could count on your support.
I think you possibly can.
Okay, I appreciate that, Mrs.
Riley.
No problem.
Yes, bye now.
That lady's a good solid plus voter for Doherty, but like I was going to say, 100 % of the time, I'll emphasize that people are ethnically related to Brian.
I'll go after them, Irishmen.
See that shamrock on the door? I might be wrong, but nine out of ten of them are going to be his voters.
He doesn't have an Irish opponent this time? I don't know what good men is.
Bzak's Polish.
Hi, how are you? I'm a volunteer worker for Allerman Doherty.
I was wondering if we could count on your support.
Great, I'm just a babysitter, so you may come back from the people over there.
Okay, but I'm going to leave that anyway, okay? Thank you.
Thank you much.
Okay, guys, that's it.
What are you going to do now with everything you've added up here, all the buses and everything? Well, I'm just going to take them, and then sometime this evening I'll transfer them to my walk sheet, the one that goes into the office.
And then from then on, I'll make sure that I start on my CBs.
I've got a week to mop it all up.
The precinct is basically done now, except for my CBs.
If I can't reach them with final contact, I do it by phone.
What's a CB? Callback.
Tell us what a CB is.
If you can just say a CB is a callback.
Yeah, I just start working on my CBs, which is a callback.
And I'll either do that personally, and if I finally can't get them, I'll get them by phone.
And that's basically it, guys.
I don't have anything else.
No, just to be continuity, having them go in.
What is it about Chicago? Do you realize there's more organization here? Well, to win.
Well, we have to be, you know, Chicago's a democratic town.
So in order for us to win, we have to outwork them.
And we usually do that.
Like I said, fellas, a voter will be contacted Oh, I would say, oh, five, six times between when the campaign starts.
Then we have what we call a registration drive to get to new voters, whatever have you.
That's, uh, it's interesting.
A little slower.
A little slower.
Slower.
Pick it up a little bit.
Slow.
Try to keep it steady.
Slow.
Keep it going.
Right that speed's good.
Pick it up a little bit.
Okay, that's great.
Thank you.
Okay.
Okay.
Great.
I'll see you later, guys.
Take it easy.
Bye.
