Open up!

Sometime in the next few weeks, some very earnest people bearing clipboards, buttons and brochures will turn up at your door. They'll ask you how you're planning on voting, shove campaign literature at you, and possibly keep ringing your bell if you don't answer it the first time. Most likely, they will annoy you.

I'm here to suggest you cut them some slack. However much you may dislike the candidates, their parties, or the system in general, you have to respect those volunteers out there braving your hostility. They honestly believe in what they're doing, they're (usually) not getting paid for it, and they're probably more scared of you than you are of them. Many are students, others are recent immigrants, and almost all of them are dyed-in-the-wool optimists.

I speak from experience here: Canvassing is not an easy thing to do. Once, when I was helping run a local campaign a few years ago, I gave a young couple canvassing for the first time a pep talk and sent them out the door. Fifteen minutes later they came back in, looking sheepish, and asked if they could put up lawn signs instead. It turned out they'd gotten in the car, tried to prepare by asking each other questions they might hear at the door, and so freaked themselves out that they hightailed it back to the sanctuary of the campaign office.

All this is a long-winded way of asking you to take a minute to hear them out. In their own way, they're doing their part to make democracy work. There's no point in discouraging civic participation when a bit of courtesy is all that's being asked of you.

And one more thing...try to have some clothes on when you answer the door. It's hard enough for the canvassers to make their case without having to deal with other distractions.