Today's front page piece from Politico is a classic shell game for moral from the GOP. McCain's campaign is widely considered a media creation with little or no actually ground game, such as Rove's vaunted 72-hour project. Enter today's campaign sourced article on the McCain field operation with its exact figures trying to show some level of competence and growth. This is lipstick on a pig...
A month ago, McCain’s campaign made a combined 20,000 phone calls and door-knocks. Last week, they made 324,000 — a sixteen-fold increase.
McCain’s political operation is also now building at the precinct-level. DuHaime said they have “a few thousand” precinct captains and would have “thousands more” soon.
DuHaime said that, along with the RNC’s Victory operation, they had 130 offices in their targeted states and 300 paid staffers in the field between the campaign and party committee.
What is the best part of this article is the coy response provided by the Obama campaign after Martin's inquiry... that below the fold.
“We just don’t put those numbers out,” said Steve Hildebrand, the Democrat’s deputy campaign manager. “Frankly, we don’t need to. They’re the ones that have to prove themselves.”
Hildebrand wouldn’t quantify how many they have in place, but said it was “already tens of thousands.” A primary focus of their summer organizational efforts, he said, is putting more of these volunteers in place.
And instead of weekly reports, Hildebrand gets a spreadsheet at 7:30 each morning from his state directors, tallying the previous day’s results on the number of voters registered and contacted.
Told of the combined 130 offices between McCain and the RNC, Hildebrand declined to share how many they had but allowed it was at least “three times” that.
This is the "force multiplier" situation that Sean @ 538 wrote so well about last night...
Here are Virginia's numbers: the addition of 151,000 new voters by the registration deadline of October 6. Based on experience, the campaign believes about 75% of these new voters will show up on Election Day, and 80% of those newly registered will likely be Obama voters. (Mostly this is because the people out there registering voters are wearing Obama T-shirts and stickers, or sitting behind tables with Obama banners taped to their front that naturally attract undecideds and those inclined to support Obama.)
In Virginia’s case, that translates to nearly 68,000 extra votes for Obama uncaptured by pollsters in current polling. Given that Virginia’s general election turnout was 3.2M in 2004 and projecting turnout of 3.5M in 2008, banking 68,000 new votes means Obama would start out with a 1.9%-to-0 structural advantage.
It’s important to stress that this is not a hypothetical advantage. If the organizers and their recruited volunteers can hit their daily quotas (perhaps something like 20 per organizing pyramid per day as a broad guesstimation) in each state, this new voter edge will happen, and so will the 1.9%-ish bumps. It’s not an accident that tickets to the Invesco Field nomination acceptance speech are predicated on showing up to field offices and registering new voters.
And by the way, the field sold out already... twice over.
Colorado's tickets to see Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High were more than spoken for within about 24 hours, officials said, and the application process closed Thursday for all but those willing to be put on a waiting list.
Obama's campaign set aside for Colorado half of the more than 60,000 seats available to the public for the final night of the Democratic National Convention. It turns out the battleground state could have filled the stadium, as the campaign ended applications after collecting more than 60,000 Thursday afternoon.
The demand for the credentials was so great that phone lines were jammed much of the day.
Keep in mind, not just anyone could get credentials.
"Every single person is going to be a level of seriousness," Hildebrand said. "You know, 'Tell us how you're going to get there from Maine. Tell us how you're going to get there from Florida. Give us a sense of whether or not you're really serious about this. If you're not, we're going to provide someone else with this.' "
Those who want a seat will begin the process at their local Democratic Party office. While demonstrating their ability to attend, they also will be encouraged to sign on to the campaign as volunteers.
"They fill out a form; there's a conversation," Hildebrand said. "We ask them and encourage them to register voters and to get out the vote and those activities that are important to us. It's not a requirement, but it's going to be an encouragement."
So while McCain's campaign pimps their "thousands" of volunteers, 300 staff, and 130 offices, the Obama campaign is having to actually screen volunteer recruits for the Convention speech, names and addresses of people who can turn the state blue.
Interesting that the Obama camp tries to keep things quiet as to the size and scope of the groundgame while the McCain campaign is essentially trying its best to actually give the impression of having one... Which one would you rather have come November?
PS: I'm still in awe of this cover
Barack + Michelle + Apple Pie + Lower fuel costs = WINNER