RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The dog days of summer are at their most dogged as an army of clipboard-toting men and women fans out across Richmond’s upscale West End.

Rookie Anne Walpole has had little success on this 90-plus-degree Saturday, and her nerve is wilting. Still, she pads across an emerald lawn to a man trimming hedges and offers her pitch with surety:

“I’m with Equality Virginia. What do you know about the gay marriage amendment?”

Grassroots action is considered the meat of any campaign. But where it concerns the same-sex marriage debate, a topic that can expose raw emotions and volatile opinions, activists say one-to-one contact with voters is indispensable.

They’re depending on volunteers – retirees, secretaries, college students – to knock on doors, ring phones and personalize an issue that for many voters remains an unfamiliar one.

It’s a delicate balance for Walpole, who must weigh a yearning to get involved against fears of homophobic barbs or worse.

But in the fight against a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman in Virginia, Walpole and volunteers like her are the face of the campaign.

“Most people will actually vote based on their interaction with a person,” said Dyana Mason, head of Equality Virginia, the state’s largest gay rights organization. “Our goal is to have literally tens of thousands of those one-to-one contacts before Nov. 7.”

With that in mind, about 150 volunteers gathered for how-to’s on voter outreach at the group’s annual meeting in July.

Volunteers got pointers on canvassing techniques, like telling a personal story to win over voters and picking which on a list of arguments against the amendment will speak loudest to that voter.

Sara Fleming wanted to know how to ease the issue into everyday conversations. The Richmond woman worried bringing same-sex marriage up at work would touch off tense debates.

“I want to inform my co-workers,” she said. “But I’m also aware this is a workplace and I’d resent them telling me to vote a certain way.”

Organizers say it’s a valid concern.

Approach the wrong person and a volunteer may be yelled at. Limit the campaign to flyers and commercials, and you lose a potentially influential interaction between voters and a gay or gay-friendly person – possibly the only one they’ll ever have, Mason said.

Volunteers are trained to handle the risks by avoiding long debates over homosexuality and responding frankly when confronted with anti-gay rhetoric.

Mason said Equality Virginia’s 2,000 volunteers canvass neighborhoods once a week. That will triple this fall as they push to reach 1 million voters, she said. Their target is the “moveable middle” – voters whose opinions on same-sex marriage are largely unformed and flexible.

Frank Hill III is one of them. He paused in the stifling heat as Walpole went over the potential effects of the amendment and, within a few minutes, agreed to vote against it.

Until then, he said, he didn’t even realize it was on the ballot.

“A lot of people don’t know,” said Mason, who estimated as much as 40 percent of voters fall into that category. “We’re really looking to educate and persuade the large number of Virginians who don’t have an opinion.”

It’s a segment the Family Foundation, the amendment’s chief supporter, has left untouched.

“There are not, I don’t think, enough of them to base a campaign on,” said spokesperson Chris Freund. “The vast majority of people have already decided what their definition of marriage is.”

A July telephone poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. found that 56 percent of registered voters said they supported limiting marriages to the union of one man and one woman, while 38 percent were opposed. Six percent were undecided.

Freund said the group will focus on getting supporters of the amendment to the polls through outreach to churches and conservative groups. No door-to-door action is planned, he said.

It’s a coin toss which group’s strategy will be most effective, said Ohio political strategist Greg Haas. He said the political climate in that state, where voters heartily passed an amendment in 2004, closely resembles Virginia’s.

“While you’ve got this far right, social conservative crowd, you still have a lot of moderate, more tolerant voters who are capable of being persuaded,” said Haas, who nonetheless thought anti-gay fears could help the amendment. “You’ve got a bloc of people that are initially on an emotional level going to be supportive” of the amendment.