E-Mail This Article to a Friend Armies of virtue For years, MASSPIRG has sent phalanxes of fresh-faced, well-intentioned young men and women to raise money from city pedestrians. The technique worked for a while, but now people are starting to resent the overload. BY JOE KEOHANE

Hi, do you have a minute for MASSPIRG?"

"Sorry."

"Thirty seconds?"

There they are. Arms flapping hello at the passing throngs like leaves on still boughs in a windstorm; broad, aggressive, kill-’em-with-kindness smiles on their fresh faces; and red T-shirts with their organization’s name emblazoned in big white letters.

"Hey dude, do you have a minute for MASSPIRG? Just one minute?"

"I’m already a member."

On this, a hot overcast Tuesday, Leigh Anne Cole and Noah McIntyre canvass Brattle Street in Cambridge, raising funds and awareness for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group — MASSPIRG — an organization that in the space of 30 years has battled for causes ranging from consumer advocacy, public health, and green-space preservation to transportation and tobacco control. Over the years it has grown from a small grassroots organization in Amherst to a well-funded player with considerable influence in Massachusetts politics.

McIntyre is one of the most successful canvassers in the Cambridge office — the headquarters of street-canvassing activity, the most successful such office in the country. He is a tall, somewhat gangly young man with a thatch of red hair, wearing clogs and gray sports socks that reach halfway up his calves. This is his second summer with MASSPIRG.

His partner for the shift is Cole, a petite, frizzy-haired Fordham graduate who’s assistant director of the Cambridge office. She is quite clearly running the show, balancing the flustered enthusiasm of a cheerleader with the peremptory manner of a field marshal barking out commands to her charges, which include two other young men positioned across the street. When the volume gets higher, she calls them over, and the four slide into formation, much like a zone defense in basketball. If one canvasser is occupied, another slides over and plugs the gap. Cole makes a "V" with her thumb and forefinger and mouths the word "vote," reminding the others to try to register voters.

"Hi, do you have a minute for ..."

"Not at all, no."

"How about 30 seconds?"

They are every bit the consummate canvassers: total enthusiasm, high-fives, perpetual motion, and an outwardly easy manner. All that is somewhat belied, however, by the aggressiveness with which they go about their business, as well as the flicker of annoyance that sometimes passes over the faces of their fellow pedestrians. Cole takes one step toward each passerby, and McIntyre, to establish a friendly familiarity, adopts the collegiate patois and addresses men as "dude." "It takes a lot of effort," he explains between waves, clutching his informational folder, "but it’s fun." Lest it appear excessively fun, however, he adds, "But you’ve got to produce. You’ve got to raise money."

Every summer a growing, dedicated team of young men and women — mainly college students and recent graduates — hits the streets for MASSPIRG. They function not only as fundraisers and recruiters, but as the face of an organization often derided as perhaps a little too earnest. That perception was evident in a March 2 Boston Herald piece that declared, "[Governor Romney’s] budget rollout was perhaps the most wonky, uninspiring event the State House press corps has seen since accidentally walking into a MASSPIRG briefing for a few minutes."

For an organization growing increasingly streamlined and adept at exerting influence in the public sector, wonkiness is not an option. As executive director Janet Domenitz noted in MASSPIRG’s 2000 annual report, "Over the years [we] have been told that we’re too serious. Of course we don’t take this work or the job of improving the quality of life in Massachusetts lightly. But laughing, dancing, smelling the flowers, there has been time for that too."

Reconciling joviality with the seriousness of their work is no mean feat, but it is a task the canvassers tackle with relish. Tackling season, as it were, runs from late May to late August, when the MASSPIRG ranks swell with college students and the organization escalates its street campaign.

This summer, the top priority has been to encourage Massachusetts residents to exert pressure on Governor Romney to crack down on the "Filthy Five," the state’s worst industrial polluters (there are actually six). Through a loophole, these plants have avoided meeting the standards dictated by the Clean Air Act of 1970, and since then–acting governor Swift sealed the loophole in 2001, they’ve been fighting tooth and nail to avoid making the costly updates to their facilities.

As MASSPIRG has grown over the years, of course, so has its agenda. In addition to leaning on industrial polluters and protecting the state’s Superfund (money allocated to clean up some of the most contaminated toxic-waste sites in Massachusetts), the organization has taken on a number of health and consumer causes: the Safe Foods Project, fighting the profusion of untested genetically modified foods; an initiative to resist unfair ATM surcharges and misleading credit-card solicitations; a campaign for fair prescription-drug prices; and a push to loosen Big Tobacco’s grip. Indeed, MASSPIRG’s tobacco initiatives capture something of the subtle alarmism that is fast becoming the organization’s trademark style. As Brad Didake, who spearheaded its "Tobacco at the Movies" campaign, casually observes, "More smoking in movies means more children will eventually puff away their health and their lives." And although the group would like to think it works on the public's behalf, its righteous advocacy of workplace smoking bans left it tone-deaf to public complaints that such bans are unnecessary and invasive.

One wonders, then, if this self-appointed public watchdog isn’t getting just a little yappy. Still, its resolve is firm — and increasingly on display — with its deluge of reports, media appearances, college chapters, and, of course, canvassers: the street-level tendrils of a large, benevolent apparatus.

Comprehensively instructed in the issues at hand, the canvassers set out in two tactical groups. The street canvassers, donning bright-red T-shirts, cover high-traffic areas in groups of four, forming a snare from which few pedestrians can emerge unscathed. Yet in spite of their high visibility, the street canvassers constitute only a fifth of the organization’s canvassing effort. The balance is made up of door-to-door crews, clad in blue shirts, who travel through neighborhoods in small packs in numbers that can top 120 during peak periods. Between those greeting passersby on the streets and those ringing doorbells, MASSPIRG casts an extremely wide net over each neighborhood it descends upon.

Although it’s headquartered in Boston, MASSPIRG’s canvassing operation extends well beyond the city. Hathaway Fiocchi, an assistant director of the door-to-door canvassing effort, is finishing up her third summer with the organization. Her canvassers go "all along the North and South Shore and west of Boston. Marshfield, Scituate, Newbury, Winchester, Concord, Cambridge," she says. "When you have that many people, you can send out a lot of crews."

Fiocchi says that canvassers usually get a positive reaction from residents. "People in Massachusetts are aware of the health problems that come from these plants. The opportunity to do something — besides taking your kid to the hospital — is pretty great."

Perhaps that’s partly why MASSPIRG canvassers are so extraordinarily — almost preternaturally — patient. One wonders how they can go out and work from a script five hours a day, five days a week, without sustaining some manner of brain injury. But most workers don’t see it that way. "As far as summer jobs, what could be better than being outside, trying to get people involved and educated?" says David Krieger, a bearded Wesleyan grad joining Cole and McIntyre in Harvard Square. "It’s an extension of college activism."

Not all canvassers, particularly those deployed in the suburbs, would agree. Jeff Lawrence, a former summertime MASSPIRG canvasser, describes his experience this way: "They’d drive us out to rich towns and leave us there for five hours. All I had to do was stick out my hand like a ragamuffin panhandler. You’ll be hard-pressed to find MASSPIRG asking for spare change and a signature in Dudley Square." He concludes, "It was an experience in patience, to say the least."

It was also, he implies, a bit monotonous. Less so in the city. Says assistant director Jenny Lee, canvassing in Porter Square, "Tedious wouldn’t be the word I’d use. Every interaction is different."

"When you guys gonna clean up the air?" a passing man barks at her.

PEOPLE’S REACTIONS to the canvassers are instructive; perhaps they reflect the public’s view of MASSPIRG in general. Maybe one in 20 stops to talk. While most others politely decline to hear out the canvassers, some do so brusquely; still others start back in revulsion as if handed some manner of drowned rodent. A few responses border on hostile. "Fucking nuisance," one man says, having passed through the snare.

But Cole says that such extreme responses are rare. "No big deal. Most people just say they don’t have time." Other MASSPIRG staffers concur. Complaints are noted, but the band of hearty canvassers seems protected by a veil of righteousness — a conviction that they are irritating the public for its own good.

The evangelical undertones are unmistakable. The cynic might here be reminded of Mencken’s Law: "If A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel." The idealist might answer back with a quote by Nigerian activist Owens Wiwa that’s taped to the wall of the Cambridge MASSPIRG office: "They are dedicated, evangelical in approach ... the canvassers are my unsung heroes." Or Margaret Meade’s "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world," also found in the office.

In any event, if this approach is a gamble, it is an ingenious one. Canvassing in the simplest sense trades on the idea that its benefits, in terms of fundraising, public relations, and education, are so great as to offset the inevitable annoyance shown by some. Canvassers are audacious but effective (if one agrees with the cause espoused), and make no bones about it. Though unapologetic in its approach, MASSPIRG goes to great lengths to minimize the annoyance factor by tightly choreographing canvassers’ spiels and training them to speak with rigor and repetition, which reduces their chances of making unwittingly offensive or overly impassioned remarks. Combine this with the inherent difficulty of getting angry at a group of young men and women so pleasantly engaged by a cause, and the pill is pretty well sugared.

There are exceptions. Those who work in areas most frequently targeted by MASSPIRG are sometimes approached several times a day, both at home and on the street. One finds in these people a measure of guilty exasperation: guilty because quite often they agree with the cause, exasperation because they’ve grown to resent the organization’s saturation method.

Sadie Dudley, a long-time Cambridge resident who works in Central Square, attests to this vexation. "Lately every time my doorbell rings it’s them, so I don’t bother answering it anymore," she says. "They came by my house last night around 9 p.m. It was dark. I yelled at them out the window like an old hag. I felt bad because the kid was really nice. I’m not usually rude to people, either; I’m just a little overwhelmed. They’re everywhere. They’ve come by like three times in the last two weeks."

Another man who works in the Cambridge area and spends a good deal of time on Newbury Street — another MASSPIRG focal point — agrees. "They get me like four times a day now," he says. "They’re driving me nuts. It’s ridiculous." He asks not to be identified out of concern that "they’ll start coming to my house."

"You know, I don’t know what they’re complaining about," argues Nicole Jabaily, an assistant director at the Cambridge office. "[The spiel] takes about five seconds. Some people complain about anything. The bottom line is we’re doing something worth it."

Whether or not the complaints have any real merit, what cannot be disputed is the efficacy of canvassing. Much of the organization’s success over the past 23 years is owed to the canvassers, says executive director Domenitz. "It’s been absolutely key to our effectiveness as an advocate for the public interest," she writes in an e-mail. "Some things we can measure — the money, the members, the signatures on petitions and postcards. Some things — just as important — cannot be measured, like the idealism a canvasser conveys, the faith in democracy that canvassing instills, the civic culture canvassing reinforces."

Although purists may bridle at the notion that canvassers are paid for every donation they take in, it bears mentioning that while they’re paid enough to live, they’re not paid enough to be considered mercenary. Provided each worker meets a daily quota, he or she receives a $35-a-day base salary and a commission on revenues beyond the quota. It may seem innocuous enough, but working on commission in service of the public good means striking a tough ethical balance: too much one way and you’re a failure, too much the other way and you’re a fraud. Seeking a little gray in what appears to be a strikingly black-and-white operation, a woman asks McIntyre if she can become a member online. "No, you can’t sign up online," he replies. "This is a grassroots campaign."

That turns out to be untrue. Donations can be made, and prospective members can join, on MASSPIRG’s Web site.

It’s late in the afternoon, and the Cambridge office — in accordance with the rule that if one wishes to rouse the enthusiasm of an adult, one must apply to that person’s inner seven-year-old — is done up like a kindergarten classroom. Construction-paper cut-outs of stars and trees share wall space with inspirational quotes and figures on levels of fundraising, member recruitment, and voter registration. A poster depicts people with "a lot of power and a questionable agenda," which unsurprisingly includes John Ashcroft. A helix of stars climbs one wall, illustrating the summer’s top fundraisers. Noah McIntyre is second only to Jenny Lee. On the door adjacent to the helix hangs a list asking canvassers to name their "favorite thing about being a member of MASSPIRG." The list includes "It helps me live a clean life," "Nature is #1 and we need to take care of it," and "It makes me feel virtuous."

The air-conditioning is broken, and the place is stifling. Rob Thompson, who is training to be an organizer at the Center for Campus Free Speech, is sweating in front of a computer, drafting a letter to the local papers about the dangers of mercury pollution caused by the Filthy Five. "It’s making the fish inedible for women and children," he says.

Late summer is a period of upheaval for MASSPIRG. Each year at this time, the organization sheds its college staff and refocuses its efforts. Many of the older staff members shift from overseeing the canvassing effort to organizing the two dozen or so campus chapters, or tackling a particular issue intensively. As MASSPIRG grows, it extends its reach, creating more opportunities to contribute to debates, to mold public opinion, and, of course, to enlist more canvassers.

After the summer push, assistant director Jabaily will return to her specialty: transportation issues. Last year, as part of a campaign to promote cleaner transportation alternatives, she compiled a report linking diesel fuel to cancer. The report claimed that Suffolk County faces the seventh-greatest cancer risk among all US counties, due to diesel emissions — this on top of Massachusetts’s already dreadful asthma rates. "‘You can’t get there from here’ has been the punch line to more than one joke about getting around in Massachusetts," noted MASSPIRG’s 2002 annual report. "But it’s not so funny when you can’t get there without being stuck in traffic, driving through smoggy skies."

But today her job is to inspire canvassers. "Welcome to Tuesday," Jabaily calls out. "Tuesday is two-dollar bump-up Tuesday." The invocation thus delivered, she lays out the day’s goals, which include getting at least two people to register to vote. There are only two canvassers present, but they’re enthusiastic: they’ll be working the night shift on Newbury Street. "Newbury Street is an awesome site," one of them says.

"Every site is an awesome site," Jabaily replies, correcting her with what may well be the organization’s trademark chipper sternness. The debriefing session lasts another few minutes, and it is full of encouragement and the sort of tempered praise that implies there’s always room for improvement. Thus fortified, the young women hold out their fists, count to three, and say, "Win!"

Joe Keohane can be reached at joe_keohane@yahoo.com