After 19 years, the family has not given up on finding Boris alive.

“My mom is trying to get info. She sent a letter to Barney Frank and both Senators,” Weisfeiler said. “Kerry’s office is really good about this.”

But for most canvassers, the outing was less emotional.

Andrea Ducas, a first-year at Brown, made the trip up to Manchester with boyfriend Patrick J. Toussaint ’06, who plans to run for office someday. The couple had worked the phones for Kerry weeks ago, but said they enjoyed canvassing more.

“It’s easier to do the canvassing because people aren’t as angry,” Ducas said. “When you call it seems like it bothers them.”

Walking the neighborhood, Ducas contacted more than 80 residents and was surprised at how uninvolved many were.

“It’s amazing to see that people don’t really care about politics,” she said. “They’re registered Democrats and they’re making uninformed decisions.”

The campaign gave out lists of names and addresses to all of its volunteers, before dropping them off in pairs at various street corners. The Harvard canvassers focused on the working class neighborhoods where there are many registered Democrats.

But even in this friendly territory, there were residents like Janice A. Martineau, who appeared suspicious at the arrival of people who knew her name, address, and political affiliation.

Eating pizza in her backyard while her 14-year-old daughter braided her hair, she told canvassers that she “definitely” planned to vote for Kerry.

Martineau seemed unfazed—or unaware—that Kerry trails Dean in the most recent New Hampshire poll by approximately 10 points.

“Who is Dean?” she asked.

The question of who is Dean or Kerry or Lieberman is one that all the candidates in this crowded field are struggling to answer. Dean and Kerry lead the field in New Hampshire, and are competing fiercely throughout the state in cities like Manchester which boasts 100,000 residents. But some Kerry officials worry that they will have to concede western parts of state, which border on Dean’s stronghold of Vermont, where he was once Governor.

“People who support Kerry know why they’re supporting Kerry,” said volunteer coordinator Kate Murphy. “People supporting Dean just say they met him once and felt warm. But people learned their lesson with Bush, who didn’t know anything about foreign policy, and look at it now.”

Murphy served macaroni and cheese to volunteers as she delivered her brief pep talk. She explained that the two main points of canvassing were talking up Kerry and determining how registered Democrats are leaning.