Tales of the Village Next Door - knocking on doors

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If you've read my recent posts, you might know I'm currently helping a local guy in his campaign to get elected to the local District Council. My husband has been off work for about 10 days holiday and we've either been delivering leaflets or folding campaign materials and stuffing envelopes most days. Yesterday we went out canvassing - scary stuff. This involves knocking on doors and asking people if they've decided how to vote and, if the chance arises, engaging them in discussions with a view to politely and gently encouraging them to support our man. We picked one of the smaller (and snootier) villages, about 2-3 miles from ours. We went mid afternoon - not a good time to find people at home - with a list of target doors to knock on. Most of these are either people who've previously expressed an interest in voting Liberal Democrat or people who are known to have a postal vote. We need to get to the postal voters earlier as there's a risk they send in their ballots before we can talk to them. On the whole it went pretty well. A few people told us outright that they'd never vote Lib Dem, a lot said they 'hadn't decided yet' but mostly thanked us for dropping by, and a reassuringly good proportion told us how miffed they were that nobody else had ever bothered to come and see them and that they'd support our candidate. One told us the Conservative candidate had really only turned up for a 'photo opportunity' on the village green and then rushed off without talking to anybody. I've always believed that there's a proportion of uncommitted voters who will vote for anybody who bothers to leaflet them (especially if others don't) and a healthy chunk who will vote for anybody who politely asks them for their support. Whilst it's never been a better time to be trying to get a Lib Dem elected, the Conservatives in our area have dominated for the last century. Last time the Lib Dem got just 135 votes - about 10% of the vote for the Conservatives. For all the work we've put in, I'd be really disappointed if our man gets less than 300 votes but I'm hoping for more.