For the past three days the national polls have offered discouraging news, with the McCain campaign showing a serious bounce from their convention.  Whatever your view of these polls, they are a far cry from the numbers Obama was getting in the days after his speech. Still, even when the national polls put McCain in the lead, he is missing some crucial ingredients that favor the Obama campaign, specifically his Get Out The Vote (GOTV) structure that is unprecedented in American politics.

The Obama campaign is not merely putting paid staff on the ground in almost every state, they are doing it in numbers and depth that the McCain campaign not only can’t match, but wouldn’t know how to implement. David Plouffe and David Axelrod of the Obama campaign seem to be convinced that the McCain campaign is far behind when it comes to ground operations, something that does not show up in polling.

In a series of posts, I will outline just what the polls are missing in terms of the political ground game that Obama and other groups are developing to make sure that on November 4th, many more Obama voters get to the polls than have ever voted for any presidential candidate.

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North Dakota is usually a barren land for the field operations of either Democratic or Republican campaigns at the national level, but this year the Obama campaign is competing for these three electoral votes as if the state were as critical as Ohio. Currently, the Obama team has nine field offices spread throughout the state, even in a town as small as Devil’s Lake, which has a population under 8,000 residents. Targeting North Dakota, Obama is giving the state’s voters a taste of a presidential campaign that the locals have never had.

While In Denver for the Democratic Convention, I talked with Chet Nodland of North Decoder, a North Dakota political blog. He said the Obama campaign could have as many as 12 field offices in the state by October 1st, and could open up offices in towns as small as 2,000 to 3,000 residents. Already the campaign has 40-50 people on the ground and this certainly will grow.

By having a presence in smaller towns, not only do field staff have the opportunity to contact these voters, but they are a presence in the communities — eating with residents at restaurants, talking about issues in bars, and having an economic impact on these towns. In a state where just 312,000 people voted in 2004, a close election could hinge on just a couple thousand votes. With a real GOTV operation, the Obama campaign can target voters at a personal level to affect the outcome of such a close race.

With the last North Dakota state poll giving McCain just a 3 point lead, it is clear the Obama team’s strategy has put this state in play. (Chet has a great overview of North Dakota and the current political environment HERE.) As of last check, the McCain campaign has yet to set up a field office in the state. While North Dakota has recently voted for the Republican on Presidential tickets in high percentages, it should not be dismissed. Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan are two fairly liberal Democratic Senators, so the citizens of the state are not naturally conservative.

Montana is another three electoral vote target for the Obama campaign. Joe Biden was there on Sunday, September 7th and it is expected both candidates will continue to sporadically visit the state. There are already fourteen field offices all over Montana, including towns as small as Glendive, population 4,615. Currently the McCain campaign lists no Montana offices on their web site.

Again, with Jon Tester the recently elected Senator and with a firebrand progressive Governor, Brian Schweitzer, in the state capital, Montana is a reasonable state to consider for the Democrats. And the Obama campaign has been taking the state seriously for a while.  As Jay Stevens from the Montana blog, Left in the West, remarked to me, “Obama is everywhere; McCain isn’t to be seen. Obama’s been very present for months in Montana. His volunteers are working the state pretty hard right now in registering voters. They’ve got headquarters in all the major towns across the state. I have yet to meet a McCain volunteer — and it’s not like I don’t know any conservatives. I’m in Montana.”

Jay has a good post from earlier this year comparing Obama and Clinton campaign events in Montana, with his remarking:

From choice of venue, logistics, media, volunteers to parking and bathrooms, Obama’s event was hands-down the better-run event.  And it had easily three to four times as many people to shepherd. Consider: Obama’s event was accessible by foot, bike, car, and public transportation. Clinton’s was accessible only by car… Obama’s rally-goers enjoyed the Adams Center’s facilities; Clinton supporters suffered with four port-a-potties.

These are the kinds of things that illustrate a campaign understands grassroots, on the ground voter mobilization. Such GOTV operations are not simply about having field offices and staff on the ground; it includes knowledge about how to run events, how to persuade voters, and how to actually get them to the polls on election day.  The Obama team knows how to do this.

Other bloggers in Denver expressed optimism in how the Obama campaign was going to mobilize in their states. Danny Jones from Alabama’s Doc’s Political Parlor said that the Obama team, which won the state in the primaries, is expected to have a presence in the state.  He explained that state Democrats were optimistic that while Obama almost certainly has no chance to win Alabama, they are hopeful these resources will help down-ticket Democratic candidates.

As the campaign progresses, the Obama campaign will upgrade its operations in other states as well. In West Virginia, Clem G. of West Virginia Blue explained that as Obama has been polling in the single digits in the state, the campaign is expected to move the state up in its rankings, meaning full-time staff and field offices should be opening soon. In fact, the state office opens this week in Morgantown.

This attention to the smaller, red states does not mean that the Obama campaign is depleting resources from the usual, bigger battleground states. Florida, which has Obama and McCain tied in the latest FoxNews/Rasmussen poll, has gotten a lot of attention from the Obama campaign both in terms of advertising money and volunteers. There are 42 Obama field offices in the state and over 200 paid staff. The difference between the Obama operation and McCain campaign in Florida is striking, as pointed out by Andrew Romano of Newsweek in mid-August:

Here’s the math. Since the start of the general-election season, Obama has dropped $6.51 million–a full 18 percent of his overall ad spending, and by the largest chunk of change allotted to any one state–to broadcast 10,000 commercials on Florida television. McCain’s total disbursement? $0, zero ads. Meanwhile, Chicago has sent more than 200 full-time staffers and signed up at least 150,000 online volunteers to man the state’s 35 field offices–the most of any battleground. McCain’s local staff is a quarter of the size, and much of it is shared with the state party. Obama’s goal, says deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, is to register the 630,000 eligible Hispanics, 593,000 African-Americans and 236,000 18- to 24-year-olds not yet on the rolls. With 236,000 new Democrats racked up since January–compared to 126,000 new Republicans–they’re well on their way.

That last piece, voter registration, is one of the most important factors in why the Obama campaign has a presence in many of these states early on, before the actual GOTV plans are in place.  When polling firms do “likely voter” tests, new voters usually are shifted out of the final equation. If Obama’s field team can both register new voters and get them to the polls, it could mean a real boost to the Democratic vote.

The counter to this belief that field offices and a great GOTV operation can win state-wide elections could be the example of 2004, where the Kerry campaign also had many paid staff in swing states and had extensive GOTV operations, but he still lost, albeit in a close race.  There are a few important differences between the Kerry campaign and the extensive Obama operation.  First, the Obama campaign is in more states earlier, which means that their voter registration and outreach programs could be more extensive. For example, in New Mexico in the first six months of this year, more Democrats registered than did Republicans and independents combined. With 17 field offices, the Obama campaign has almost three times as many offices as do McCain and the Republican National Committee combined.

Second, the Kerry campaign’s strategy was to focus on Democratic areas and get those targeted precincts to outperform previous elections in terms of turnout.  The Kerry strategy was successful, but they still lost the election.  The reason? They didn’t “micro-target” voters the way the Bush campaign did. The Bush strategy was to find voters in areas that were usually ignored and get them interested in the election, in the Bush campaign, and then get them to the polls. Micro-targeting included looking at factors such as church membership, magazine subscriptions and type of employment to focus on specific households no matter where they are.  This cycle, the McCain campaign specifically, and the Republicans as a whole, do not have the resources to do as much of this as they had in 2004. Furthermore, the Obama campaign has learned from 2004 and is doing its own version of micro-targeting, reaching into areas that the Kerry campaign ignored.

Third, the Obama campaign understands GOTV. The Republicans may mock the “community organizer” credentials of Obama, but his understanding of how to mobilize under-served people could be seen in the primaries, especially in his dominance when it came to the caucuses. It may be why the Obama campaign appears to be so confident even through this week of bad news polls.

The Bush campaign in 2004 had an interesting GOTV strategy for the last day before the election. Bush would fly around the country and speak to campaign volunteers in big stadiums. Once he fired up the crowd, they would leave extremely motivated, and get in buses to go to their towns to do last-minute door-knocking and leaflet-dropping. I don’t know what the Obama campaign has planned for the last few days of the campaign but I am sure they understand this energy. More importantly, however, it is unlikely that the McCain campaign will be able to match this, or other strategies.

A good description of just how seriously and extensively the Obama campaign is taking its field staff was posted by the blogger d-day:

I have seen this first-hand over the weekend, when I talked with people who attended Camp Obama, a two-day organizing seminar held throughout the country. There were over 200 volunteers at one Los Angeles location, all of who are now empowered to be organizers with defined roles to play for the rest of the campaign. Most of the more senior organizers who ran the Camp Obama meetings and are running field operations in all 50 states were volunteers on the primary campaign who were gradually given more and more responsibility. The mantra of the weekend was that “this is a numbers-driven, people-centered campaign,” and the goals of the organizers were to get more volunteers to make more contacts to reach the targets set by the campaign, which are nothing short of massive. Southern California is adopting the Las Vegas congressional district in Nevada, and the timing of calls and trips and voter contact aligns directly with deadlines on voter registration and early voting. The contacts made now are going to go into that voter file for GOTV later. The goal is nothing short of reaching every persuadable voter in all of Clark County between now and the election, and they’ve already had a heck of a head start.

Just the fact that there are these Camp Obama trainings shows the extent to which this campaign is different from all other presidential campaigns. The extensive field operations by the Obama campaign are unprecedented in scope, and in the states where the outcome will be close, it could tip the balance.  As explained by The Politico while focusing on New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado:

The scale of the Obama field operations isn’t necessarily the problem for Republicans. Rather, it’s that all three states don’t leave much margin for error to begin with, so even a marginally successful effort to turn out voters could prove decisive. In 2004, President Bush carried New Mexico by fewer than 6,000 votes — 50 percent to 49 percent — and Nevada by 50 percent to 48 percent. He won Colorado over John F. Kerry by a more comfortable 52 percent to 47 percent, but that was a marked improvement for Democrats over 2000, when Al Gore won just 42 percent.

And that may be enough. In a race where there are several swing states, the Obama field operation has expanded the battleground, and where the race will be close, the personal touch and boots on the ground could in the end add a few more critical electoral votes to the Obama column.

At this point it is not possible to know how many Obama voters will now go to the polls who otherwise would not have because of the Obama field operation. It’s those boots, those offices, those volunteers, and those massive numbers of new voters that the polls just can’t measure.

WHAT'S NEXT?

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