Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with David, another member of the PTP Field staff who has been busy knocking on doors and speaking with voters one-on-one. Check out our conversation below to learn more about who is part of the team responsible for turning out sporadic Democratic voters this November in the newest installment of our ongoing PTP Profile series!
Q: Tell us a little about yourself.
I was born in Wauseon, Ohio, but my family moved to Wheaton, Illinois when I was still a baby, finally settling in Batavia, Illinois, where I attended K-12. After high school, I majored in Music Performance (percussion) and minored in English at Illinois Wesleyan University. After graduating, I spent some time gigging in between odd jobs, but it’s tough to make a stable living that way, so I went back to school for a degree in Biomedical Science with an emphasis in nutrition at the National University of Health Sciences in Lombard, Illinois. When I have a break from being a private music instructor during the school year, I enjoy playing tennis, reading, and writing.
Q: When did you first become interested in politics?
Growing up, I was never really that interested in politics as I understood it. It seemed like an arcane set of rules and procedures where you’d really have to delve into it in order to understand the mechanics and bureaucracy of it, none of which ever really appealed to me. My close friends all had very opinionated political beliefs though, and so I was always involved in the discussion of topics taken up by politicians, but I was more interested in the “right-brained” and “big picture” stuff like ideas, theories, and perspectives on whatever the subject was. When I went back to school for nutrition, I took a few classes with a great professor who stayed up to date with current events as they related to nutrition, making that a core part of the syllabus. I really enjoyed class discussions and debates about how nutrition intertwined with political policy and I spent all sorts of time arguing with classmates on our online message boards. There was a period before then where I was naive and figured all there was to it was just learning what foods to get people to eat and that was that. I didn’t know what food deserts were or how our schools create meal plans. I mean, nothing sounds easier than “eat your vegetables” or “eat a balanced breakfast” and other things we’ve been told 1,000 times before, but the reality is most people don’t, and the reasons why we don’t can be staggering in their complexity. There’s a huge intersection of race, class, culture, you name it, mixed in with any subject related to nutrition and health. It felt weird to me how poorly these things are honestly discussed in America, or anywhere in the world for that matter. Finding solutions to complex problems like diabetes, for instance, requires both empathy and a comprehensive way of thinking.
Q: Why did you decide to join PTP?
I would never have had the confidence to join PTP had it not been for one of my friends who has political organizing experience convinced me that I could handle it. I loved the idea of getting a chance to dig deeper and discuss with people one-on-one their beliefs in an effort to make them feel more empowered. I think showing someone that you’re listening to what they’re saying, and really taking it in and processing it, is a powerful thing to be able to do, and to do that without requiring anything in return is a special opportunity.
Q: How have your past experiences helped prepare you as a Field Rep?
Both nutrition and being a private music instructor are individualized, in that you meet with a single person who requires a personalized approach that takes into account their lifestyle, culture, and background. As a nutritionist, it’s not effective to just tell someone to stop eating certain foods, because you can be uprooting a heritage, tradition, or norms deeply tied to their identity. Instead, you have to meet with the person, really talk with them, and quickly assess who it is that they are and what’s important to them and use that when deciding how best to help them. I’m not in favor of the tough love approach – you can’t just say “be like me.” It can be really tempting to do that because you think you have the facts and education on your side, but none of that matters without empathy and understanding. You can influence actions and behavior with tough-love methods, but you won’t change belief systems – the stuff that lasts – without trust. You have to establish a personal connection in order to gain someone’s trust and effectively communicate with them.
As for music, I think it is an amazing activity where you’re constantly receiving information from your eyes and ears and you’re listening to others and responding in turn, so as a percussion teacher I have to first find out how it is that a student is taking in all that information. Everyone learns differently and I have to find out what excites my students about music in general so that they learn how to be a good listener and problem-solver when I’m no longer next to them in the cockpit, so to speak. It’s really true what they say about the teacher learning more than the student in that regard, at least early on. I guess I feel like the best lesson that I’ve learned from my past experiences is to shove my ego aside as quickly as possible and listen.
Q: What was the most memorable encounter you’ve had with someone while working as a field rep?
About a week ago, I was talking with an older woman on her porch when out of the door behind her I saw emerge a teenage girl who eventually said “don’t mind me, I’m just listening – I’m a politics geek.” It was the granddaughter of the voter I was speaking with, and after a couple of minutes, she began chiming in on some of my questions and engaging with her grandma. She described wanting to become a journalism major, which is something that I was interested in at her age, so I told her how digging for the truth is more important now than ever and I wished her luck. When I asked about the upcoming election, she told me that she missed the voting age cut-off by a month, and that a lot of her friends are old enough to vote but don’t really care enough to do it. It was nice to see someone that young so passionate about politics, so I shared with her some of the things I say at the door, in hopes that she could have some new tactics for persuading her more disaffected friends. I think one of the biggest problems with American politics is that we’re really bad at talking about important issues with other people and even with ourselves, which is why the more we practice communicating honestly with each other the better off we’ll be. That encounter made me really optimistic because if she’s already thinking that way at her age, then she’s going to be miles ahead of her peers by the time she’s my age.
Q: You’re trapped on an island with no escape, what are 3 things you want with you?
First, some music listening device, like an iPod or jukebox or something. Other than that I would just want a drum pad and drum sticks, and then I’d be happy. Was I supposed to try and survive on this island?
