Cory Booker (completely unsurprisingly) won the special Democratic Senate primary election today.
(Really, why were three people running against him?)
Even though I knew this race was a total lock, I made phone calls for him yesterday – just in case.
I expected everyone I called to have at least some sort of opinion. People would either tell me they couldn’t wait to vote Booker, or that they thought he was too much of a celebrity and not enough of a politician. But one way or another, they’d have a definite opinion on Cory Booker. (Or so I thought.)
I’d been hearing people on twitter complaining that they can’t go five minutes in New Jersey without seeing Cory’s face somewhere – “we get it man, you want to be our next Senator. And you will. So, leave us alone please?”
I thought we were well into the point of saturation – possibly even over-saturation.
So, I was shocked when I called people who didn’t know who he was – or even that there was a primary.
I called one person who didn’t even know what a primary was. She was a lovely sounding woman who was very nice to me. But when I asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing with me for whom she was leaning toward voting, she said, “I’m gonna vote democratic all the way, honey!”
At that point, I had to, as nicely and politely as I could, explain, “Well, everyone on the ticket will be a democrat. So you have to choose which democrat you’d most like to see go up against the republican candidate for the empty senate seat.”
But I think my explanation went in one ear and out the other, because again she reiterated she’d be voting democrat. So, I (I’m hoping) sweetly explained the idea of a primary again, at which point she asked me who was running.
Thankfully, I’d watched the live-streaming debate a few days earlier. So, I had a pretty good idea of the people in the race and how they were trying to differentiate themselves.
In the end, she said I sounded nice so she’d go ahead and vote for that Booker fellow.
Now, even though I had some surprising households, I did have some who said they had a voting plan in place and couldn’t wait to vote. So, there were certainly people who knew.
But the idea that I had to explain to multiple people who Cory Booker was blew my mind a little.
So, how do you know when you’ve reached the saturation point? How, when it seems you’ve reached everyone, do you reach the last corners of people who have no idea who you are? And how do you do that without alienating the people who are more and more bombarded with your messages everyday?