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Friends, I’m knocking 1,000 doors this Summer and just finished our first 100. They were in Plaza Midwood, a beautiful neighborhood in Charlotte. Here are some quick stories: Door 3: I knock. Without opening the door, a voice from inside says, “Come in!” I pause. This is very strange. I’ve knocked thousands of doors and this has never happened. I slowly turn the knob and lean inside, feet planted firmly on the doormat. “You just letting strangers in here?” I ask. Just then, I see a young woman holding an infant. As soon as the infant hears my voice, it starts crying. The mom looks at me and it’s immediately clear she was expecting someone else. Now I have to quickly explain that I’m some random politician stopping by to say hello while also profusely apologizing and backing away slowly. She was very nice, all things considered, but I felt pretty bad. Rough start. Zero votes earned so far. Door 6: Super friendly married couple who are both very concerned about the state of our democracy and the prevalence of misinformation. They also give me a good tip about a few subjects to avoid with their next-door neighbor, should he answer the door. People do this for me a lot. I guess we all have a sense of what subjects to avoid with our neighbors. Doors 15-25: These doors all lead to conversations involving a local stream improvement project that has been underway for several months, and in the process has become quite a large construction site in the middle of the street. Several people ask me to look into it, and I agree.
Door 37: I ring the doorbell, which is one of those fancy digital doorbells that has a camera that links up to the owner’s phone so they can watch and talk to you through the doorbell. And that’s what happens. A voice from the doorbell says hello, tells me they’re out of town, and asks what I need. So I talk to the owner through their doorbell, which is something that didn’t use to happen when I first started knocking doors eight years ago. Doorbell conversations are pretty common now. They actually require a lot of focus because it feels so strange to speak directly to a doorbell as if it’s a person. In between door 62 and 63, a car pulls over and a woman gets out and walks over. She says I knocked on her door a few years ago. She talks to me about water runoff and mitigation with certain properties in the neighborhood. Her point was about striking a balance between needing regulatory protections versus simply being conscientious enough to understand that your actions affect your neighbors and making a decision to care about that by taking small steps with them in mind. Door 88: The front door is wide open. Rather than knock, I do a half-yell: “Good afternoon!” I hear a voice from inside: “Is that Jeff Jackson?” Unbelievably, a very kind retired woman I’ve never met somehow guesses it’s me before she even turns the corner. I think she must have seen on social media that I was doing some doorknocking and made the assumption. We talk for several minutes and she is very concerned about the meanness of our politics. She tells me that when you’re young, you think being right is the most important thing, but as you get older you realize that being kind is more important. That hits home with me. Door 100: Great conversation with a real estate agent who knew a lot of public policy. She was very detailed and had strong views on local housing matters, particularly with respect to workforce housing for folks like teachers, nurses, and other civil servants. The conversation ended with a lot of agreement, particularly about the relationship between transit, density, and affordability. I hope you can tell from these excerpts that this isn’t just about campaigning — it’s also about governing. These conversations help me do my job better. It’s a reminder that in real life — unlike what we often see on social media — people don’t yell, they aren’t rude, they’re practical, they’re polite, they care about others and they know a lot about what’s going on around them. I’ve got another 900 doors to go this Summer. For folks who aren’t home, I leave behind a little leaflet that lets them know I was there and gives them an email address to reach me if they need anything. Here’s my ask: Would you help me buy some more of those leaflets? They aren’t expensive — if you could chip in $15 or $25, it would go a long way. If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately: Thanks, as always, |
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