I am sad to report to this community the reality of the ground situation in a northwestern bellwether county, Wood County Ohio. Despite our enthusiasm for recent polls and excitement in general it appears the republican early voting effort is far superior to ours.
Absentee Ballots have been going out for one week, and the Republican early voting turnout machine has proven superior to our best efforts. To date nearly 3,500 absentee ballots have been mailed out. 40% of which have been mailed to Republicans, 40% to undeclared and only 20% to Democrats.
Republicans have mailed multiple absentee registrations to all of their registered voters and have followed up with multiple robo-calls and human calls to ensure that their voters have turned in their early voting applications. Additionally there is evidence that they have reached beyond their republican base, and have targeted independents in a number of important swing precincts in Wood County.
Wood County has gone twice for Clinton and twice for Bush. Bush won Wood County by 3% points over Kerry. Wood County is a suburban to rural county south of Toledo Ohio and is an indicator of how well candidates will perform in very close races. Obviously Sherrod Brown is in a very tight race.
I'm a little worried. Okay a lot worried.