Listen to the full raw, interview with Carmen Berkley of Dancing Hearts Consulting. Carmen tells you everything you need to know about running an effective door-knocking campaign and tells some never-before-heard, laugh-out-loud wild stories of her experiences canvassing across America. Listen in whether you’re here to get insider tips on canvassing, or if you just want a good laugh.
The full, raw interview with Carmen Berkley of Dancing Hearts Consulting. Carmen has participated in and led door-knocking efforts for a range of issues from political campaigns to census awareness, and she has knocked on doors across America from the Mid-Atlantic to Mexico, Missouri. Learn everything you need to know from writing scripts to training canvassers to standing firm and not running away from the door when you get nervous. She also shares some hilarious, crazy stories from some of her door-knocking experiences. As she says, you never know what’s behind the door.
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7 Questions with Dave Fleischer about Deep Canvassing
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Presented by The Campaign Workshop
Joe Fuld (00:01):
Hey there and welcome back to the show. So this week we have Carmen Berkley. She's awesome. And you're about to find out why. She is a political strategist, entrepreneur, radio host, and DJ who has devoted her career to helping improve the lives of communities of color and women through her work as the chief strategy officer at Dancing Hearts Consulting, as a women's radio host at the show Sophie's Parlor on WPFW 89.3 FM here in DC. Her prior experience includes serving as President of the United States Student Association, NAACP field director, managing director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and as a cofounder of the social impact group, Can't Stop Won't Stop Consulting, and as the board chair of re:power, that's a lot.
Carmen Berkley (00:52):
It is a lot.
Joe Fuld (00:55):
Carmen, welcome to the show.
Carmen Berkley (00:56):
Thank you for having me.
Joe Fuld (00:58):
All right. Well, this week we're talking about door to door and you know, we have a lot of guests on the show who have started in lots of different ways in working in politics. So the first thing I want to ask is how'd you get into campaigns?
Carmen Berkley (01:14):
Well, when I was in college at the University of Pittsburgh, an organization called the United States Student Association found me, I have to say they found me and I started to get involved in student activism and student organizing. At the time, um we were trying to make sure that student fees were frozen in the state of Pennsylvania. And so USAA taught me how to organize. And it was an amazing experience. They, you know, we, we ran a campaign in the state of Pennsylvania and then we, unfortunately we did not stop the campaign from running. But what I will say is I learned every single type of tactic from how to phone bank, how to canvass, how to do class wraps. And then we started to transition into electoral campaigns, which is its own beast and conversation, but that was really my entry way into doing campaign work.
Joe Fuld (02:07):
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people have started with United States Student Association. I think it's one of those like core foundations. I have a lot of friends in politics who started learning and catching the political bug by being involved, working on those kinds of issues within their university. I was around and had friends who were involved sort of this'll date me, but back during the divestment days. And so like USSA, a lot of those groups were involved during that time. So, you know, I was never a United States Student Association person, but like, that's what I went to school. And I was certainly organized by folks who were, and it was big.
Carmen Berkley (02:47):
Well, you can be like an auxiliary, you know, like, like you could be a part of us because I think that anybody that went to school that whose parents ended up helping them pay, they had to take out a Pell grant or a Perkins loan, or even, you know, a federal loan or a private loan. You identify with the issues that people are dealing with. And I I specifically think when I think about my dad, who he went to law school and he'll say, you know, I only paid like two to $5,000 to get a law degree. And then me, I paid $80,000 for this undergraduate degree. I mean, that's a huge variance. So most people understand why you need an organization that fights for access to higher education.
Joe Fuld (03:29):
No doubt. And I mean, again, it was the organism organizing on campus in college really taught me that, Hey, this is something I might want to look at and get interested in for sure. But talk to me about why you like politics and why you've stuck with it after all these years.
Carmen Berkley (03:46):
Well, I love politics because when I was growing up, just to be honest, my grandmother made me watch the news, like the majority of the day. When I was with her in the morning, I'd have to watch the six o'clock news at four o'clock and five o'clock and 11 o'clock. We were watching the news. So I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And so growing up in a rust belt town, I think that from a very early age, I started to get this understanding of what was happening in our community. That folks were taking companies out of Pennsylvania and moving those jobs somewhere else, that the economy was not doing well. And to be honest, the reason I spent so much time with my grandmother is because my mother who's been a flight attendant for 30 years, had to work a lot. And I ended up at my grandmother's house. So for me, I've always really had this clear understanding of how what's going on in the world actually impacts our households. Then as I got older and really started to understand my place in the world, I feel like it's really important that we make politics assessable to the everyday person. My sister, who lives in California, she's not thinking about what's going on right now in government. She's thinking about her job. She's a therapist. My brother-in-law is a Marine. He's not thinking about politics all day long, but I feel like if I am someone that's able to take all that information and make it bite-size and make it so that they understand exactly what's happening in Washington in a way that they can appreciate, then we can get them to participate more, get them to vote and get them to see that when they don't participate, that is dangerous to all the things that they really care about. Then the primary things that they care about are their wages, their kids, and their safety.
Joe Fuld (05:27):
So tell me what door to door campaigning is to you and why it's so important.
Carmen Berkley (05:34):
Well, for me, door to door canvassing, that is the, that is the tried and true way that we have conversations with our people. I mean, I'm 34, so I love a Twitter. I love a Facebook. I use all of it, but I have to admit, especially now that I work from home, when someone knocks on my door, it means something different. It means that someone is actually taking the opportunity to have a real face to face conversation. And as an organizer, it's the way in which we provide accurate information to folks that otherwise might be getting inaccurate information from media, from social media. And so at least, you know, like in my neighborhood, when I live, I live in Hyattsville, Maryland now. When someone is knocking on my door for a political purpose, I know one that they know something about me as a voter. So they know that I am an active voter. They want for me to come out. They probably understand something about my family or my income. I think the second thing is door knocking provides us with an opportunity to have a real deep conversation. I mean, you can have a shallow one. You could just, you know, throw a door hanger on the door and run away, or you could say, Hey, I'm deeply invested in this environmental issue and actually want to talk to you about it. Because if you participate in this next election or this next activity, we actually could make a difference in our community. So for me, I don't love being outside in the snow, knocking on a door, but what I do love is meeting my neighbors and understanding what do people care about in this community so we can make change a little bit faster.
Joe Fuld (07:18):
Yeah. So you talked about like two, like three different sort of versions of door to door there that I want to unpack a little bit. You talked about sort of a deep canvass, which is a longer conversation, and that could be, you know, five to 10 minutes, you talked about sort of a shorter conversation, which could be one to five minutes. And then you talked about something that was almost like a lit drop, right. Where you're just like, you know, so can you talk to me about those three different door to door sort of tactics, what you like about them? I mean, I'll, I'll tell you that I'm biased and I'm really kind of anti-lit drop, but, but tell me about that. Right. I want to be honest with that. Right. But like, talk to me about certainly the other two tactics sort of that mid, you know, one minute to five minute conversation versus a longer deep canvass.
Carmen Berkley (08:08):
Yeah. I mean, there's a place for a lit drop, but we do know statistically that when someone gets a piece of mail, you only got like a couple of seconds before they throw that thing away. Or, you know, maybe they might engage with it a little bit more, but without the conversation, you probably could have just put that in the mail. So I don't love let drop, but there's a place in the world for it. I would say with deep canvassing. So in the last census I worked in Mexico, Missouri where I am not from, and
Joe Fuld (08:37):
I have, I have been there. I could go on,
Carmen Berkley (08:40):
Then you understand it is rural. And those folks needed to have someone knock on their door and talk to them about the census. They, they weren't sure about the government. They didn't really understand what the census was and let's face it in 2010 technology way different than it is in 2019. And so at least when we were doing that deep canvassing, that was about spending, like you said, five to 10 minutes on a door, having a real conversation, understanding people's self-interests, understanding who's actually inside of the household and trying to motivate someone to really take action or to move them. Because a number of the people that I had to talk to were folks that were lower income folks that generally did not participate. And we wanted to get the hard to count folks to understand, Hey, if you actually follow the census, you're bringing thousands of dollars back into your community. And when you're talking to someone and you're talking uh, dollars and cents, that's something that they can understand. But if you just dropped a piece of literature at their door, they're not going to fully understand what the census means. And so they might've missed the opportunity. I think there's you know, there's other organizations like working America who also do this really good, deep canvassing, where they're going into communities and trying to understand issues like race and racism and how that impacts the election. But then, you know, you've got you've got this middle ground that we also talked about, which is, let's just say you're working for a presidential campaign or a city council campaign. And we are trying to understand who's in the community and can we actually interact with them? And those are generally like one to two, maybe three minute conversations. So in 2017, I got dropped into Northern Virginia to help with the gubernatorial election for Northam and Fairfax. And those conversations on the door, those were like two to three minute conversations. Hey, I'm Carmen, I'm coming to make sure that you vote. I see that you haven't, but you are a registered voter. And for some people that's all they needed was like a reminder to vote. But for some people they wanted to engage in a conversation. And for me, I try to always make time to engage because yes, you can be on the door really quickly. You can move fast, but if we're trying to make impact, then you have to invest the time. And I must say on that day it was raining as hard as it could possibly rain. And so everybody was home. And so that was a very successful canvass for me.
Joe Fuld (11:14):
Yeah. And I'll say actually I find like raining is probably the worst time for the canvasser, but the best time to knock on doors, right? I have gotten the best responses in my life when the weather conditions are bad, when it's a hundred degrees out, when it's snowing, when it's raining and you are out there and you are like earning every cent and people get that and they like, actually will have a conversation with you. They'll invite you in. And it's a much more genuine conversation when they're like, wow, this person really wants to be out there and there's gotta be a reason. Let me find out why that exactly why.
Carmen Berkley (11:54):
That is exactly what happened in Northern Virginia. People could not believe we were outside. And we were like, of course, we're going to be outside it's election day. And if I think for some people, they felt like if nothing is going to stop this canvasser from knocking on my door to remind me to vote, then nothing should stop me from voting. Someone actually said that to me. And so even though my hair was wet and I caught a cold, it was worth it.
Joe Fuld (12:18):
Yeah, totally. I mean, totally worth it for the campaign. Yeah. All right. So talk to me a little bit about how a campaign, let's say you're running for like city council or a County race, and you are trying to determine whether door knocking makes sense for the size of your campaign. Where do you start?
Carmen Berkley (12:39):
Well, okay. There's two. It depends on how much technology you have. I have to admit if you've got access to technology, you could go into the voter activation network. You could go into the LAN, you could cut a list. And I think that there is a lot of there, I mean, you should try to get your hands on some data because understanding who is in the community and the LAN is a labor activation network.
Joe Fuld (13:07):
So that's, if you're a labor union, you wouldn't have access to that voter activation network or VoteBuilder is different versions set up by, that have an NGP van backend that are either controlled by a state party. You might be an independent expenditure or a nonpartisan race that's getting your data through Smart VAN. Again, NGP VAN is a company that is sort of the biggest database carrier in the in, in sort of the democratic political space. But there are others too, but these are just a couple, as we explain our wonderful world of political acronyms.
Carmen Berkley (13:43):
Lots of acronyms. I don't even know what most of them stand for.
Joe Fuld (13:47):
And that's okay. Right. I mean, yeah. And I could do a whole podcast explaining the accronyms, right. But we're not going there on this season. Maybe that'll be season five. Right. Where we just explain political acronyms here, here in season one. We're just going to go through and talk about, so, so let's say again, you have access to some kind of data. Right? Right. What's your next step and how you determine a campaign, a door to door campaign.
Carmen Berkley (14:17):
Yeah. So I mean, depending on how much time you have and how many volunteers you have, you'd want to make a decision on, do I want to knock on doors of people that vote a certain way? Am I looking too for people who are like undecided, independent voters? Am I looking for people who are, you know, let's just say like democratic voters that vote in every single election, but usually with elections, what we're looking for is the margin between who voted in the last election and what it's going to take for us to win. So for me, that's my sweet spot. I'm always looking for who are those extra people, but if we hit them a couple of times, they're actually going to sway our way. So that's, that's like one way of approaching it. I think that there was a supplemental way to approaching this. That is outside of the sophisticated data systems we have. And that way is we know our own community. And sometimes we need to knock on, knock on apartment building doors, knock on doors of young people, knock on doors of older people that might not be in some of those data systems. So I had a friend named Bruce Franks. He lived in St. Louis and he got access to all the data. And he said, a lot of my homies are not in this voter system. And so he said for every door that says, don't go to them, we're going to go to them. And we're going to input their information into the system. So is that another way of doing it? Is it a little bit more labor intensive? Of course. But you got to understand that for some of us, our people are not going to show up because they have not been showing up in elections. Therefore we've got to be the people that bring them in. And when I tell you he smoked his election because he was talking to people that the other candidate was not talking to.
Joe Fuld (16:08):
Well, especially in nonpartisan races, primaries, we're talking about races that have massively low turnout, right? Where in some of these places you're talking about less than 10%. So the idea that someone doesn't habitually turn out in a primary or a nonpartisan election, one doesn't mean they're not a voter and two, your network, and we talk about this sort of at the first episode about strategic assessment and about the idea of getting to know who your friends and family are in a given community, really building a list and reaching out to them. I mean, that's gold right there. As far as that is electoral gold. There are people that, you know, that if they actually know you're running, they will vote. And in a campaign where you're going to win by 50 votes, 75 votes, your friends and family and people that don't normally vote will and can make the difference if you go to them.
Carmen Berkley (17:06):
Absolutely. And often we don't even know how many people are in a household, you know, you think, okay, two people live there, but you don't really know. And so in order to actually say, okay, I, I mean, some elections are determined by 50 or 60 votes. And so if there are actually five people living in a house that are eligible to vote and not the two that are showing up in the databasing system, yeah. You need to go hit that house and make sure that your next door neighbor actually knows that you are running to get all five of those people to come out and vote for you. But I also think that that is a part of why democracy is really important for us, particularly in communities of color, because we are not showing up adequately inside of the systems, although the systems are very great. They're very sophisticated. But also if I canvass my entire neighborhood in Hyattsville, which they already know me because of Porchfest in Hyattsville, then I'm sure they would be more apt to listening to me their neighbor, that they talk to all the time than anybody else.
Joe Fuld (18:11):
Sure. Cause you have that relationship, that connection to them. And, and to me, it is, I don't know, door to door to me. I mean, I do digital ads, I do direct mail. We do television. We do all these things. Door to door is more important than any of those things. And I really have always believed that campaigns are won or lost at the door. You can do all these other things, but people really getting to know you engage with, with you. I mean, I started out as a canvasser. I really believe in it. And I think that if you can't explain your message at the door, you certainly can't explain it in a TV spot or a radio spot. So to me, it's also like a great way to market test your message and hone that message to really get down to what do people actually care about.
Carmen Berkley (18:59):
Absolutely. And I also think that I think about someone like a former mayor of Washington, D C Adrian Fenty. When Adrian Fenty was first running for office, you know, people had a lot of things to say, but, and he was not the front runner, but he is known as somebody. I mean, I don't know if this is true, but he says he knocked on every single door in Washington DC. And so even if let's just say he even knocked on 50% of the doors in Washington, DC, that is a level of understanding about the community, a, a facial and a name recognition that you can not beat. And me too, I'm the same way. Like I, you know, I work in digital ads. I work on the radio. I believe that there are multiple ways to hit a message, but there ain't nothing like looking somebody in the face and then having a real conversation with them, win, lose, or draw.
Joe Fuld (19:50):
All right. So talk to me then about the initial setup for a campaign's door to door, to door effort, right? How do you like think through that? What is, what should the campaigns be thinking about? Give me like your, let's say I'm a candidate I'm running for city council. You're helping me advising me, put together a campaign. We, now we have a database, we have this personal assessment list of my friends and family. We know we have the three main resources in a campaign, people time and money. I'm just giving you a whole scenario where like six months out from a nonpartisan election. I'm like, it's winter and I'm ready to go door to door. What do I do?
Carmen Berkley (20:35):
Okay. I think the first thing we've got to do is we've got to have a good script. Now, having a good script is important because depending on where we're going on, what we're going to say, right? And of course, when you get to the door, you can't just stick totally to the script, but you do have to understand what are the values of the person that you're working for? What are we ultimately trying to win? And we have to know what our ask is going to be. And it needs to be really clear. And for me, sometimes there's the ask. And sometimes there's that second ask to make sure that even if somebody is like on the cusp, but they're a little bit unsure. Is there another thing we could be asking them to do? So for an example, we could say, okay, you know, are you interested in voting for candidate X? You know, maybe the answer is, I'm not sure yet. I'm not sure if I want to vote. Okay. But can you at least pledge to vote? And, you know, having a script that both meets the community that you're in and helps you be able to articulate what the values are, will make you really strong. I think the second thing that I would say is you got to map your turf, which we just talked about. So we have to understand like how far out are we going? If I'm going with a team, okay, you're going to take this street. You're going to take this street. You're going to take this street and you got to knock every door. And there are some doors that, you know, especially if you're using a lot of the technology where you're like, well, I don't know if I should be over here. This looks a little weird. This looks a little sketchy. And you know, maybe something looks sketchy. You actually shouldn't be knocking on that door, but you just never know what you are going to find behind the door. And it's so important that you are tracking exactly what you're doing. So if you go to 3700 and there's three people that live in that household and you're able to get all the data that you need, take five minutes and write that stuff. Maybe not five minutes, take a minute and write that stuff down because that's going to be invaluable to the campaign. I think the other thing is take a minute, right? So like sometimes you ring the doorbell and you're like, Oh, nobody's home. And then you run away for me. I have one of those houses where I have like a million doors, if the doorbell rings and I'm upstairs, it's going to take me a minute to get downstairs. So I would also say, you know, the first couple of doors, especially if you're new to this, you might feel apprehensive. Cause you're like, Oh, these people are going to come to the door. I'm going to run away. There's a dog barking, but try to be cool, try to be calm. And if they open the door, try to stick as much to your script as possible because there's a flow to how you move. And then I guess the final thing is you know, you've got to bring your full self to this. So for me, like I'm a naturally kind of happy, genuine person. And that usually comes through. I do get a little bit nervous sometimes when I'm knocking on someone's door that I don't know. But after I get through, like the first three, it usually gets a little bit easier. Cause if someone's willing to open the door, they're usually willing to engage in a little bit of a conversation. Even if the conversation is I have something else to do, but I would say smiling being kind and coming in with your full self allows it really like it de-guards, people that are feeling like, why is this person knocking on my door?
Joe Fuld (23:58):
So, all right. So I now have to ask, so this is the like, you know, personal part of the like door to door experience. Cause we've all knocked on doors. So give me your favorite door to door story for you. Like what happened that the door, like what was the, give me the, the most interesting funniest one that you,
Carmen Berkley (24:19):
Yeah, I mean, so when I was in Mexico, Missouri which again, if you ever get the chance to go, you should definitely go. So we're in Mexico, Missouri. I'm trying to convince people that they should engage in the census and a man opens the door and he's got a bottle of Boone's Farm in his hand. And for those of you that don't know what Boone's Farm is, it's like a, it's an alcohol. But it's not like, you know, you're high end alcohol. This is definitely something you can get at a gas station. So we are engaging in the conversation. He asks it's summer it's summertime. Actually, no, it wasn't summertime. It was, I think it was around like March maybe, but the weather was fine. So that's why I'm probably thinking that it was summertime. And he actually asked me if I want to sit down outside in the rocking chair and have a conversation with him. So we're at, I'm like, okay, sure. I mean, if he's willing to engage in this conversation with me then fine. So we sit down, we're in the rocking chair, he's drinking the Boone's Farm. I didn't drink any of the Boone's Farm, cause obviously I was on the job, but it was the realest conversation that I ever had. And to be honest with you, I'm a city person. I'm like, I'm from, yeah. I told you I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I definitely in the beginning of doing this canvas, I felt out of place being in Mexico, but what, Missouri, but what I came to learn sitting on that front porch is his issues were just like my issues and the same reasons why he was feeling apprehensive about filling out the census were the same reasons why I was there. He was concerned about the economy. He was concerned about what was happening with the government. He wasn't sure if he trusted what was going on and he needed someone like me that was all happy and giddy to show up at his door and talk to him about this issue. And he got to drink his Boone's Farm. And I got to learn what Boone's Farm was. Cause I gotta be honest with you. I never had tasted Boone's Farm before I went to Mexico, Missouri.
Joe Fuld (26:16):
Well, I would highly recommend, never tasting Boone's Farm. If you can help it, they will not, not be a sponsor of this podcast, but anyway what can I say? But I, yeah, I mean, my one of my memories is that I went when I was going door to door at the beginning. And I, the first summer on campaigns, like all I really did was manage canvassers and knock on doors. And I was at the door. The entire conversation with a woman was trying to get me to take her dog.
Carmen Berkley (26:50):
Oh, okay. For you to have?
Joe Fuld (26:54):
Yes. Like leave with the dog. Right. Do you want this dog? Well, no. And I would go back to my script and said, how about taking my dog? I'm like, really? I mean, but anyways, so that was kind of moving. Cause I felt bad for the dog. It was
Carmen Berkley (27:09):
Yeah. Just anybody can take the dog. You don't even know me.
Joe Fuld (27:13):
So that was, that was interesting.
Carmen Berkley (27:16):
But I have had some tough ones too. I mean, I've had, I must admit the same state. So Missouri was re running a anti-affirmative action ballot measure many years ago. And I had to go to St. Louis. I had to go to Jeff city. I had to go to Kansas city, Missouri and try to convince folks not to, you know, like not to engage with this ballot measure. And it was really challenging because it wasn't just, it's different when it's not about a candidate, right? Like when you have to talk about an issue, you are now entering into the place of understanding, people's, self-interest understanding their values, understanding what is the thing that does and does not make them tick and move. And in a state like Missouri, where race and racism is very, very deep to go in and try to convince you know, white folks and the city in the rural area, that affirmative action actually they benefit from affirmative action, one and two, that they could be doing major damage to certain communities. If they vote, you know, if they vote in favor of getting rid of affirmative action, it was challenging. And I had a lot of conversation there, where personally, I felt like, wow, I'm like, I'm going back and forth and jockeying an issue that I feel very strongly about. But I also felt like if I don't go out there and have this difficult conversation with these folks, nobody's going to, and we moved a lot of people and they still have affirmative action in the state of Missouri. And I believe it's because of the deep canvassing that we did all over the state.
Joe Fuld (28:55):
Sure. Yeah. So moving off of an issue campaign and more into the candidate campaign, talk to me about the importance of the candidate themselves going door to door. And then when a candidate is not going door to door volunteers, and then the next tier of that paid campus. So those three sort of buckets.
Carmen Berkley (29:16):
Okay. When my really good friend Gregory Cendana, he ran for office in Washington, DC. And it wasn't, I wouldn't necessarily say what's for office. It was to become like a delegate to the DNC.
Joe Fuld (29:28):
And I know Greg and he's awesom. Yeah.
Carmen Berkley (29:30):
He's awesome. Yeah. Okay. So the person that he was running against was Marion Barry. So for those folks that don't know who Marion Barry is, he's the he's gone past, but he's the mayor for life in Washington, DC. So for Greg's Cendana to run a campaign against Marion Berry, we decided in our strategy that he was going to have to knock on a lot of doors because Marion Barry has name recognition. And you know, I love Greg, but Greg doesn't have the same name recognition, but having Greg go out and actually talk to his neighbors, you know, like literally his neighbors and the apartment building that he lived in and having deep conversations with them, it made all the difference. And he actually, he actually got more votes than Marion Barry and became known as the person who meet, who beat Marion Berry in an election, which is a huge situation here, Washington, D C. So I know that's a small example, but sometimes I feel like it, you know, it's the people who are around you, they want to hear from you. And oftentimes when we're voting in non presidential or gubernatorial elections, we're looking for that name recognition. When I'm looking to vote for my state legislator, if somebody came and knocked on my door, I would definitely remember that over someone that didn't. So I would say investing that time as a candidate is extremely important. Of course you can't knock on every door, right? And so you do have to have a good volunteer base, which is why having the script is important because if you are a candidate and you really want to knock on all these doors, but you know that you cannot do all of that. You want to make sure that your canvassers are representing you well, because what you wouldn't want to happen is somebody is going out, they're knocking on doors under your good name and they're misrepresenting you. But I think that having a volunteer canvass it's fun, it teaches people a ton of skills. It teaches public speaking. It teaches people politics. It teaches you about data and how data analytics actually works. And it allows for canvassers to actually get the experience that they need. And also the, the, the data that they need to see are people in our community actually feeling this candidate? I do think that there are some costs that are associated with the volunteer canvass. It's not like it's just totally, you know, free, but what you can do with a volunteer canvass is you want to make sure people have all the information that they need. They have all of the turf that they need at least need to give them some pizza and a clipboard and a pen bare minimum iPad would be nice too. But I believe in the volunteer canvas, because to me, if somebody is able to come out and volunteer for you for an hour or three hours, that means they really care about your campaign and they are dedicated. You could go the paid route. So, you know, pay canvas. What that means is you're working with a company or you're working with an organization and they have got an operation that is able to work in a very sophisticated way to go out and do something similar to what the volunteer canvassers are doing. But they're doing it on a grand scale on a massive level. I think the upside to the paid canvas is these are folks that are like, they're professional canvassers. They know what they're doing. They know how to get in. They know how to have a really smart strategic conversation. You know, I think the, the parts of the paid canvas that maybe sometimes are hard, although this is not totally a criticism, is the relationship to the issue or the candidate. They might be a little bit different because they do this professionally. So I would say depending on your resources, depending on how many people you're trying to actually reach in a certain amount of time maybe, you know, a lot of times people do a mixture of a paid canvas and a volunteer canvas. But I would say, as a candidate, you need to take your booty outside. Even if you are running for president United States, like look right. I mean, this is phone banking, but like, look like a lot of candidates will directly call some of their smaller donors, people that are just given $10, $20 to say, thank you. Could you imagine if your presidential candidate knocked on your door, I'm getting everybody to vote for you.
Joe Fuld (33:47):
So, so I mean, I think to me, again, candidate door knocking is key. I think volunteer door knocking takes a lot of organization, but it really also does pay off because those folks have relationships and the volunteers have those relationships, which is great. So to me, that's really good, you know, paid canvass, if you need to do it, hey, it's a way to do it. It's definitely in that order. I think of one, two, three, right? The candidate, then volunteers then paid, but there, a lot of these districts have a ton of doors and you really need to know your numbers.
Carmen Berkley (34:21):
Yup, absolutely. You definitely need to know your numbers. And there are a number of organizations and there are a number of people that can help you with this elections are math. I mean, a good portion of it is like charisma and charm. But the other part of it is saying 600 people voted in this last city council election. In order for me to win, I need to get a hundred plus people to vote for me, how, what is worth my time. And I think a lot of time people spend you know, a considerable amount of their energy, trying to be popular as opposed to trying to be deep and trying to meet the real people who are in your area that you actually need to impact. And so if you've only got a couple of thousand dollars and a dream, I would say, get your butt outside and do some door knocking.
Joe Fuld (35:15):
So quickly, like the difference you think between urban canvassing and rural canvassing and thoughts about that.
Carmen Berkley (35:23):
Yeah. I think that with rural canvassing you, well, I would recommend you having a little bit more time on your hand. And I say that because one just like the proximity of the doors might be a little bit different. So like one of the women that I work with at Dancing Hearts Consulting, she lives on a mountain range on a 16 acre ranch. So it's gonna, it's 16 acres between her and the next door. So just proximity is going to be a challenge for you. Two, if you can get onto her property without her dog trying to, you know, like tear you up. This is someone that you actually might want to spend a little bit of time with. I mean, if you, if you're able to actually get onto a property like this, I think that you know, the, the thing about people that live in city areas, and I hate to say this, but you know, we are, we're a little bit, we're fast paced people. And so if you're able to get those folks to open the door, this was the reason why I was saying you gotta have a tight script or at least know where you are going with this conversation, because sometimes in urban areas, folks are not trying to have you stand at their door for 15 minutes. I mean, maybe somebody that might have a more transient job or they might have a little bit more time, but you're going to need to get that out there. And so being really tight with how you talk is going to be important. And then I also think that, you know, you can make a judgment call when you're on the door, whether or not a conversation is going to give you what you need in order to make the change that you're trying to make, because ultimately that's what we're doing when we're door knocking. Yes. That means to an end as a candidate. Yes. The means to an end is an issue area, but ultimately we're trying to make long term change. And so if somebody is harassing you and they're not being nice to you, then it's okay for you to say, I'm going to move away from this door now.
Joe Fuld (37:19):
Yeah. So, all right, you talked about tracking and I think that's really important, right? Because not everyone that you knock on the door is going to say, Hey, I'm with you. Some are going to be undecided. Some are going to be outright against you. What are your favorite ways to track like the responses? Can you give us some, like, whether that's technology or with a clipboard, what do you recommend?
Carmen Berkley (37:42):
Well, of course using technology is my preferred method. So I think that what's kind of cool when you work with organizations that have a little bit of resource is because of how the like the voter activation network works and how like you know, just all the technology you've got these iPads that basically you can say, okay, I went to Joe's door, you know, Joe does he live here? Yes. Like, does he vote a certain way? Yes. Do we think he's going to vote? Yes. I like that because it's easy and we can get it done. The part about having the clipboard with the piece of paper that is challenging is having to go back and do a lot of the data input that still needs to happen. When I was you know, when, when I basically had to do that back in the 2000s, because that was the only way that you did the work. Cause you had an Excel, you ticked off what was happening on the Excel spreadsheet. And then you had to go back and input all that stuff. There's so much room for error when you're doing it in the paper way. And I would say, okay, so perhaps you don't have the resources to be working with some of these big data networks. You could still use Google sheets and like Google drive or like Google forms. I mean, I'm not trying to, you know, promote Google here, but there you could use Survey Monkey. There are a number of different ways to be able to collect the same data and information without writing everything down and, you know, having a lot of room for error. So that is my preferred method. I must admit if there's a, there's a data system, let me tink my things into my iPad and then be done and move on.
Joe Fuld (39:21):
Again. Like, I mean, ones that we have used and we recommend VoteBuilder, Grassroots Unwired, right? NGP VAN, Smart VAN. Like there's a lot out there. Take a look, you know, there we'll put some in the show notes, but like take a look at those. All right, Carmen. So now I want to get into like a couple recommendations from you. So first is, do you have the favorite book, podcast, TV show on politics or on, you know, on how we deal with the political system we have now, anything that if I wanted to read something that you would recommend?
Carmen Berkley (39:57):
Sure. Okay. Two things. The first is the podcast that I'm obsessed, I love NPR. Anything that NPR does. I'm a, I'm a stan. And after the last election, I kind of had a hard time watching television, like, like CNN and Fox. I can't watch them that much. So I listened to the Up First on NPR, the first 14 minutes of my day are dedicated to NPR. And I love the NPR politics podcast because I feel like it's us all sitting around talking about politics, but it's, you know, it's a little bit more informed and sophisticated there's research behind it. My fun podcast that I listened to is Don't Keep Your Day Job by Cathy Heller. And I started listening to that because as you remarked, I am on the radio, but I'm also a DJ. And so I don't want to quit my day job or anything like that. But I certainly, through this podcast, I have been able to figure out how do I mesh these two worlds together that I really care about? I feel like music and creativity, it crosses gender, it crosses race. I mean, it crosses socioeconomic status. If you love a song by Cardi B, then you just love that song by Cardi B. So how do you make your DJ life and your politics life actually come together. And for me, that podcast has been super helpful and just expanding my mind for things outside of the possibility.
Joe Fuld (41:22):
So yeah, I do stand up comedy as a hobby. And so that is like, again, I totally understand. And again, I do creative work during the day, but that creative outlet of coming up and writing comedy to me is, and, and how politics plays in that is really cathartic for me and has been a way that I've only been doing it for the last year. So doing that and thinking about how that all connects in my life has been really helpful.
Carmen Berkley (41:54):
That's so much fun. I think that a number of people that do our work they, all they do is politics and I get it and I used to be the same way, but I think that, and I'm sure it's probably the same thing in comedy. You know, those, the folks that I deal with in music they understand politics, but there's a limit because that's actually not what we're doing there. And so I've actually built some really deep relationships in that world. And I have now been able to move those music relationships over here, but also I think there's a special there's a special type of person that's willing to learn a new skill and be a little raggedy at something as an adult, because trying to be like, I have like eight year olds who were like kicking my butt at DJ-ing and I'm like, it's okay. You learned when you were seven and I'm a grown woman.
Joe Fuld (42:46):
So favorite food you have ever had or place to eat on the road?
Carmen Berkley (42:52):
Hm. On the road.
Joe Fuld (42:54):
Yeah. Like on a campaign on the road restaurant somewhere, it could be in DC. If you want to recommend a place DC, we'll take it. But if you've got a place that you were working on, on a campaign that you thought this was amazing, tell me that
Carmen Berkley (43:10):
Atlanta, Georgia has the best chicken wings hands down. And the thing about Atlanta is most of their good chicken wings are on a cart, like on a, like not a food truck, because this is like pre food truck. This is, it's like a van that's that somebody is making a hot lemon pepper chicken wing off of old national highway in Atlanta, Georgia. They've got delicious chicken wings. I highly recommend.
Joe Fuld (43:38):
All right, we will, we will put it in the show notes. We'll see if we could find it. That is fantastic. Well, Carmen, Berkley, thank you so much for your time for being on the show and for all you do, we really appreciate it.
Carmen Berkley (43:52):
No problem. Thank you. And congratulations and good luck.
Joe Fuld (43:55):
All right. Thanks.