Confessions of a canvasser.

I have been a canvasser now for a year and a half. It's not a bad job, aside from rotten weather, frequent rejection, the just-a-few-notches-above-homeless paycheck, and the dismal pariah stigma that must constantly be justified at parties and reunions. Excluding these drawbacks and the occasional dog attack, I am vocationally satisfied. Trudging through frozen slop, sputtering environmental cliches through closed doors, and lying about my job to my starry-eyed grandmother takes on a daring, roman tic mystique in my mind. In the face of Rush Limbaugh, in the face of apathy, in the face of better cars now at an affordable $24,000, I am interrupting people's dinner, sex, "Wheel of Fortune" reruns, and simple self seclusion for a purpose. I am constitutionally protected. I have permits from the state. I have newspaper endorsements, including one from USA Today. I am a can vasser.

The door opens and the face of a made-up, elderly housewife changes instantly from cheerful surprise to dulled aggravation. It's Halloween night, and I'm doing my job amidst flocks of costumed, sugar crazed children. "I'm not interested," she grunts as mini-vampires and cowboys begin to coagulate about my knees. I don't move; holidays are famous for making people a little cranky. Responding to her unpleasant greeting, I ask, appearing mildly perplexed, "Not even in the deteriorating condition of our most precious natural resource--drinking water?" I wait for an answer, and she grows angry. Mechanically thrusting handfuls of candy into the waiting bags around me, she leans forward and stares me straight in the eye. "Don't you care about the children?" she whispers quite indignantly. Without even flinching, I check her off on the back of my clipboard and move on.

Do I care about the children? I've often wondered about that. I think I could care enough about them to give them candy once a year. I might even raise one someday, although I find the smaller ones incredibly incompetent and needy at times. I think, though, when I'm at work that I ought to. Professionally, the organization I work for has invested millions of private citizen dollars and over 20 years of qualified personnel time to educate and politicize under the slogan, "Now and For the Future." Personally, since I don't want to see any potential child of mine evolve into some styrofoam-eating, dioxin-drinking freak, I care about the future, too.

I am a canvasser, so when I'm at work I have to care about a lot of things. Out on the street, on "turf," I care about children, disease rates, the new incinerator "they" are planning to build in someone's backyard, industrial discharges, and the general deterioration of our most precious natural resource. Canvassers are activists, and I must be prepared to activate many kinds of people on many different issues. That's a lot to have on one's mind, especially when one is a political activist and a fundraiser. As a fundraiser, I'm concerned about the $120 quota that I must raise daily.

Ideologies aside, funds are what makes the canvassing world go 'round. So when I'm having a hot night, not only am I a raging politicizer but I'm also through with quota in, say, an hour after I start. Every work night, my colleagues and I are out, standing in doorways, sitting in easy chairs, sipping graciously offered hot or cold drinks, and collecting personal checks by the handful. It's pretty hard, then, to feel like a pariah with a $120 check in your pocket and a warm "thank you" still in your ears. Nothing quite compares to the glorious rush achieved while accepting large personal checks from total strangers in their living rooms. The rush is enticing and powerful. Consequently, in time, skillful and prolific fundraising can develop into a dangerous addiction to the canvasser. No matter what our individual motivations to canvass are, in the midst of group activist fervor money will often become the focus, the political event that we generate and nourish.

Understandably, then, competition gets intense within the canvass crew. Canvassers cheer and clap as the "hot nights" from the previous night are read off the board by the canvass director. Little battles for the best night develop between the partners who are "doing sides"--working the same streets together on turf. All eyes become glued to the fundraising of the canvassers who begin to accrue multiple $200-plus nights, eager to see if they will double their quota for the week. The crew adjusts and modifies its "raps" in order to make the most effective contact with citizens, generating more and more fee-paying members.

And the office fundraising average rises.

And it all goes to a good cause: us.

In fact, as far as causes go, I'd say it's one of the best. The political issues that we bring to the attention of so many private citizens are consequential and, of course, canvassed dollars work to resolve them. More importantly, however, is the fact that canvassers serve as maybe the last bona fide public agitators of the twentieth century.

As a grassroots organization working in Washington, D.C., and in general assemblies around the country, our role as a populist blow dart can hardly be concealed or denied. The tactics we use while lobbying politicians and powerful people are designed not only to help the environment but also to subtly temper and disrupt the outrageous, greedy, insatiable American corporate machine. Working within the legislative system, such grassroots groups are filling a necessary role of successfully maintaining some semblance of power equality within our democracy.

Let's face it--if you're Senator Joe or Jane American and you're being petitioned by Harry or Hortense Hippie to save some stand of staghorn sumac rather than do business with a wining, dining, perk-providing superconstruction conglomerate, you're probably going to say, "So long, sumac!" However, if the collective and organized force and rage of 10,000 sumac lovers--people who elect you and pay your salary--has been aimed at your office, then you've been given a better idea of your responsibilities and will act accordingly.

So canvassers take their political work very seriously. There's muscle out there--in suburbia or trailer parks or waterfront developments--that can ensure the political right-of-way for anyone. It's the canvassers' responsibility to work you, milk you, get you off the sofa, and make you write a check and a letter. So we take great pride in sometimes ruining your evening.

Don't get me wrong--I hold no contempt for "Wheel of Fortune" and definitely none for dinner or sex. But reckless, hedonistic leisure like that certainly deserves to be interrupted occasionally. Politically relevant interruptions are especially meaningful within a representative democracy such as ours. We seem to have forgotten, in the age of Sega Genesis and infomercials, what type of political system we live in. Our government, which most people complain about and criticize, is actually scratching its ass in front of the tube eight hours a day. Our democracy, which we tout as being the greatest political system on earth, is learning how to cook soba while the rich get richer and the poor eat Twinkies and get really obese. The gadfly has rarely had a meatier neck to bite, and true canvassers take to this feast with energy, enthusiasm, and love.

Ever convince golfers that trees around their favorite course should protect the watershed rather than be cut down for new hole expansions? Ever been threatened with violence and called a communist for wanting to clean up drinking water? Ever get written a $36 check by a total stranger at home? Chill, that's just the first half hour. And until nine o'clock, whatever happens, the canvasser knows what it's like to be human and thriving in a nest full of sometimes cranky, sometimes lonely, sometimes friendly other humans.

Whatever you think of us, canvassers aren't surfing the net, we're not being brought to you by the network more people get their news from than any other source, and we're definitely not mailed to you in friendly little envelopes which you can read and respond to at your leisure. We may look like urban thrift-store nightmares, but we have permits from the state and we generate considerable political power from former couch potatoes all over the country. The blow-dart in D.C. tips the scales closer to justice, and the gadfly stirs the considerable strength and power of the populace toward exercising it. If the in-your-face tactic of the canvass makes people uncomfortable, then so be it. That's part of waking up. And it sure beats the hell out of prime time.

Eric Lipstein is a canvasser with Clean Water Action in Baltimore, Maryland, who one day aspires to be vice president of the United States. He also has two cats.