If you're talking about three people who made over 1,000 phone calls each, in one day and thousands of other phone calls on the same day all by a small group of teenagers spread out in two nearby campaign offices, then you're probably talking about the Generation Joshua Student Action Team (SAT) for Andy Harris in the Maryland Congressional election of 2010. Yes, some east coast SAT records were set with that election.
(I'm saying east coast because there was also another record breaking SAT in Vancouver, Washington, bigger records, probably bigger team, more than likely faster phone systems, just-as-hard workers, and the possibility that they didn't do door-to-door campaign work, but I'm not writing about it because I wasn't there).There was a Maryland SAT record set on the day before the election with over 700 phone calls for one particular person, non-constant phone calling; and, on election day, all or most personal records were broken by most-or-all-of-the-day-calling by each volunteer. Three people even broke one thousand phone calls on election day (now, if you live in Maryland congressional district one you know who to blame for the pestering, but effective, phone calls).
Oh, did I mention that on most or all of the days we did door-to-door campaign work, and on some of the days sign waving? Now, keep in mind that the oldest regular student and record holder for a one-phone-at-a-time basis of calling for the Maryland SAT is 19; the others are younger, and many of them had no prior experience with phone banking. Besides, the team had only thirty-some people on it, and the team had many first-time-members on the SAT.
Nevertheless, with the phone banking, door-to-door (people are the most polite there), and sign waving, Harris won the election. That's the important thing. As for me, I didn't break any records except my own, but I was the youngest on the SAT (it was my first SAT) and got some pretty strange (and very long) phone calls, as did several others.
We were trying to get people who normally didn't vote or had forgotten the election to vote for Harris. The volunteer work is important and must be done, no matter how pestering it may seem. We made sure people didn't forget the election.
Anyway, I noticed that in spite of the not-so-friendly people that we would get over the phone, or yelling out of their cars at sign wavers, everyone seemed to be having fun. The Fire Pelosi rally was one of the best parts of the SAT, despite the angry people who were driving past.
Also, I noticed that many of the people I was in contact with over the phone seemed to think that I am an adult, and asked me who I was voting for. They were surprised that I was too young to vote and one was shocked at my age. That means that not enough people know about Generation Joshua. But that will change.
Anyway, it's amazing what a group of kids can do, and have fun doing, isn't it?
