"The largest field operation in the history of American politics"
from Obama HQ by Christopher Hass
This is what a ground game looks like:
The election site FiveThirtyEight reports today:
In Alaska, Obama has four field offices open (Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Palmer) to McCain’s none. In Montana, Obama had six offices to McCain’s none in July ...
In Virginia, Obama has a 20-6 field office edge, with as many as 60 expected to be open in the near future ... in each of Florida and Pennsylvania Obama is expected to have a minimum of 200 paid organizers.
In Wisconsin, Obama has 15 offices open now, with 24 expected to be open by mid-August. The staffers are directly paid by Obama’s “Campaign for Change” organization. By contrast, Republicans have five party offices open that handle both McCain field work as well as the state leg. races, which somewhat dilutes the effort.
Already there is staff on the ground in traditional battleground states, as well as a number of nontraditional ones. Current plans call for large-scale operations in at least 22 states, with medium operations in many, many others. But paid staff are just one small part of what campaign manager David Plouffe has described as "the persuasion army."
From the July 19th edition of the Boston Globe:
"The climate has made millions of Americans who haven't been involved in a political campaign ever in their lifetimes very active,"
said. "We estimate that 70 percent of our grass-roots volunteers haven't worked in a campaign before. . . . We're somewhere just shy of 2 million volunteers, and we think we can potentially triple that on Election Day."
That would mean 6 million volunteers. For comparison, about 116 million people voted in the 2004 presidential election.
The Obama-Clinton battle set primary turnout records in state after state, and Hildebrand expects more of the same in November: "We think the turnout will be beyond record turnout, and if we're effective, we will have done two additional things - brought in millions of new people who are registered to vote and we will increase the percentage of registered voters who will turn out."
To accomplish that, Obama's campaign is assembling what would be the largest field operation in the history of American politics. Advertising and campaign communications will be important and debate performances will be critical, but the Obama campaign is investing heavily in the importance of organizing voters and getting them to the polls on Nov. 4.
... "This allows us to increase the volume of voters we're talking to and have it be done with people who live in their community," Hildebrand said.
Veteran Democratic operative John Sasso of Massachusetts said that level of organization is "unprecedented on the Democratic side." The Obama model, particularly in its use of the Internet as an organizing tool, is a significant upgrade, he said.
"People tend to believe information delivered by people they know and who live in their neighborhood more than an ad they see on television or what some third party from out of their state is telling them," said Sasso, who supported Clinton in the primaries and has played key roles in many presidential campaigns. "It can really change the electoral map."
Throughout the day today, we'll be looking at some of the many events that have been going on across the country as we begin to build out our ground operation. In many places, there are already staff and offices that you can connect with. No matter where you live, you can sign-up for updates on campaign activities in your area and connect with grassroots supporters in your community.
There is no better way to reach to voters than through face to face contact. What began in Iowa and South Carolina is now being replicated across the country. The largest field operation in the history of American politics presents an unprecedented opportunity for ordinary people to get involved.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gG5kqg
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