November 4, 2006 / Perspective / The Brooklyn Angle

Lefties phone it in for Dems

By Gersh Kuntzman

The Brooklyn Paper

The Brooklyn Papers / Julie Rosenberg

Matt Matros is one of dozens of volunteers with MoveOn.org who have turned a Carroll Gardens apartment into a phone bank to help Democrats.

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The revolution will be telephoned. And it will be fueled with Dunkin Munchkins, Fig Newtons, strong coffee and gallons of Arizona Iced Tea.

If the Democrats actually retake Congress next week, it will partly — ever so partly — be a result of dozens of volunteers manning phone banks in a vacant Carroll Gardens apartment on behalf of MoveOn.org, the lefty political operation forged in the crucible of the 2000 election debacle.

The other night found 18 current MoveOn volunteers calling former MoveOn volunteers to enlist them in one last climactic campaign. Their pitch is familiar to anyone who has been home and near a phone between 5 and 9 pm during this heated election season.

“Hello, I’m calling from MoveOn.org and we’re trying to take back the Congress,” volunteer Matt Matros started out. “Can I count on your support? Hello? (pause) Well, is the issue time? I mean, you are with us in trying to take back Congress, right? Good, um, OK, so couldn’t I ask you for just one hour this week?”

Anyone willing to donate some time to the cause was asked to log onto www.callforchange.org, where they’d find detailed instructions on how to make their own calls — this time to Democrat-leaning voters who don’t regularly get to the polls.

“These are people who are shown to be more likely to vote if we just give them a little prodding,” said Matros.

I watched Matros and his fellow crusaders for an hour or so. Everyone followed MoveOn’s time-tested method, including a wall-mounted list of “Tips 4 Calling”: 1. “Convey the urgency” (after all, if Democrats can’t take back Congress when the president has a disapproval rating as high as an IQ, when can they?). 2. “Smile and have fun” (because getting bogged down in Iraq is such a joy). 3. “Keep conversations brief” (which is always good advice). 4. “Be bold” (because how many people will get off their couch and into a political campaign if the caller on the other end sounds like he couldn’t care?).

But despite all the passion I saw, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Democrats are a bit like Mets fans. We all want to believe that the Amazins’ will win Game 7 — they’re the better team, after all — but we know that when the final score is tallied, our guys will be on the losing side. Chuck Schumer, Carlos Beltran, Howard Dean or David Wright — someone is going to strike out looking at some GOP curveball that he never saw coming.

Full disclosure? I have a bit of sympathy for the MoveOn troops. Two decades ago, I stood on street corners in Rhode Island handing out flyers for Gary Hart because I objected to Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada. One time, four guys in an Audi pulled up, rolled down their windows and gave me the finger.

And two years ago, I campaigned for John Kerry in Ohio. Despite possessing my own version of the Hippocratic Oath (“First, do no harm”), I am convinced that I lost more votes for Kerry in Ohio than I gained.

Political work is grueling, unsatisfying and often depressing (hence the table of junk food next to the coffee maker). You can lay out your best case for a candidate only to find that the person on the other side of the door thinks your candidate is unfit to catch the local strays.

Of course, that energizes some volunteers.

“I did calling for Kerry in 2004, and I found it so wonderful to talk to voters all over the country,” said Esther Cassidy of Fort Greene, before her recent two-hour shift.

Despite Kerry’s apparent loss, Cassidy said she got back on the campaign horse because “we have to take back Congress.”

“I would really feel bad if I didn’t do the best I could do,” she added.

Funny, that’s what I said in Rhode Island and Ohio — and see how that turned out?