On The Campaign Trail In The Final Hours Of The Better Together Campaign
BuzzFeed - Latest 2014-09-17
Summary:
Anti-independence campaigners are quietly confident about their chances in the referendum. Tomorrow they’ll find out.
Siraj Datoo / BuzzFeed News
EDINBURGH -- In the final hours of campaigning before Thursday's independence referendum approaches there's a quietly confident mood in Better Together's colourful Edinburgh-based headquarters. One volunteer even whispers to a colleague, "You know, I sometimes think it could be a right romp."
That's a dramatic shift from the one only two weeks ago, when a poll showed No to have surrender an incredible lead to be only two percentage points ahead of the Yes campaign.
"I think we all know now that we got complacent," said Daniel, a 15-year-old that's been campaigning with Better Together since the start of the year. "Three months ago there would have been only three of us canvassing in Edinburgh. Last week there were 70," he continued.
And on this trip there were eight more who had volunteered to go out in another last-ditch attempt to secure voters as the day's rain refused to budge. By the end of the night each campaigner was entirely soaked, their trousers stuck to their legs and their shoes leaking water.
But what makes a person exchange the comfort of their home to instead face an unrelenting downpour? 64-year-old Elspeth McClean was the only woman in the group. She pointed to her family: "My father was in the army. I'm very Scottish but I'm pro-Union. It's not just the negative stuff, I think we're better as part of the UK."
Elspeth McClean
Siraj Datoo / BuzzFeed News
As Elsbeth walked towards the next house she was set to target, Oliver, who was leading the group for the evening, looked into his binder as rain continued to drip down his round, Harry Potter-like, glasses onto his cheeks. Oliver's role for the evening was to motivate, organise and then thank those who had turned up.
But his real task was to note down the data he was fed back from the volunteers: Was this family still voting No? What time will they be voting (so volunteers could go and remind them on the day if they forget)? And do they maybe have a car they would mind using on the day to help ferry others around to polling booths? The data from all those canvassing in the day is then collated by volunteers back at HQ between 9 and 1030PM.