In 2004, Democrats watched as any chance of defeating President Bush slipped away in a wave of Republican turnout that exceeded even the goal-beating numbers that their own side had produced. Four years later, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign intends to avoid a repeat by building an organization modeled in part on what Karl Rove used to engineer Bush's victory: a heavy reliance on local volunteers to pitch to their own neighbors, micro-targeting techniques to identify persuadable independents and Republicans using consumer data, and a focus on exurban and rural areas. But in scale and ambition, the Obama organization goes beyond even what Rove built. The campaign has used its record-breaking fundraising to open more than 700 offices in more than a dozen battleground states, pay several thousand organizers and manage tens of thousands more volunteers. In many states, the Democratic candidate is hewing more closely to the Rove organizational model than is rival Sen. John McCain, whose emphasis on ground operations has been less intensive and clinical than that of his Republican predecessor. "They've invested in a civic infrastructure on a scale that has never happened," said Marshall Ganz, a labor organizer who worked with César Chávez's farmworker movement and has led training sessions for Obama staff members and volunteers. "It's been an investment in the development of thousands of young people equipped with the skills and leadership ability to mobilize people and in the development of leadership at the local level. It's profound."
In 2004, Democrats watched as any chance of defeating President Bush slipped away in a wave of Republican turnout that exceeded even the goal-beating numbers that their own side had produced.
Four years later, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign intends to avoid a repeat by building an organization modeled in part on what Karl Rove used to engineer Bush's victory: a heavy reliance on local volunteers to pitch to their own neighbors, micro-targeting techniques to identify persuadable independents and Republicans using consumer data, and a focus on exurban and rural areas.
But in scale and ambition, the Obama organization goes beyond even what Rove built. The campaign has used its record-breaking fundraising to open more than 700 offices in more than a dozen battleground states, pay several thousand organizers and manage tens of thousands more volunteers.
In many states, the Democratic candidate is hewing more closely to the Rove organizational model than is rival Sen. John McCain, whose emphasis on ground operations has been less intensive and clinical than that of his Republican predecessor.
"They've invested in a civic infrastructure on a scale that has never happened," said Marshall Ganz, a labor organizer who worked with César Chávez's farmworker movement and has led training sessions for Obama staff members and volunteers. "It's been an investment in the development of thousands of young people equipped with the skills and leadership ability to mobilize people and in the development of leadership at the local level. It's profound."
Right now, neither side seems interested. So it doesn't matter how many you turn out if the lines are longer than the time their job allows them. It doesn't matter if the repugs have changed their voting location to the other end of the state. If the repugs have challenged their vote for any reason they can think of, including a spelling mistake !!!!
Can people who have their vote removed sue the repugs for infringing their constitutional rights ? Or do rights only work for corporations ? keep to the Fen Causeway
If every citizen has the right to vote, then democrats should ensure that, in every state, mechanisms exist to ensure every citizen who wants to vote can vote. And quickly.
And quickly would be nice, since it is now approaching the 45th year since the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, when rights established by the Constitution, as corrected by rights passed during and immediately following the Civil War, finally became Rights with Tools.
A long treatise could be written on what people could have done in the states if they weren't busy fighting an undeclared war in VietNam in those years, or building the tools of that war or financing that war or paying for that war, or fighting against that war or or or. But instead, for 50 years, the world's most incredible propaganda machine spun the middle class into confused racists and involuntary fascists, while keeping their 'elitist' enemy diverted.
Perhaps after the 2010 election, when the republican/ex-southern democrat alliance is finally broken, and 2012 when the Tehran Peace Accords mark the end of the War in Iraq and 2014 during the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act...perhaps then we can declare the Inquisition dead and your dream reality. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
