Posted on 02/22/2004 9:04:41 PM PST by jwalburg
Republicans working behind the election scenes
By RON HUTCHESON
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush says he's focused on his job, not his re-election, but that's not the way it looks at his campaign headquarters in the Washington suburbs.
Working from a nondescript office building in Arlington, Va., Bush's political operatives are quietly building what they hope will be the best campaign organization in history. While Democrats focus on the high-profile task of selecting a presidential nominee, Republicans are preparing for the political equivalent of hand-to-hand combat.
Bush may be sagging in the polls, but his national network of supporters, his record-breaking campaign bankroll and his ability to leverage the power of his office for political gain make him a formidable opponent for any Democratic nominee. Nine months before the November election, Bush is well ahead of previous campaigns in money and organization.
The president has raised more than $144 million for his re-election effort, more than four times the total raised by President Clinton for his 1996 re-election and roughly five times the amount raised so far by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner in this year's Democratic nominating contest. And Kerry's spent most of his already.
Bush's campaign organization is equally impressive. More than three dozen paid campaign workers have been dispatched to 13 key battleground states, where they have lined up campaign leaders in every county and in at least 7,000 voting precincts.
The campaign also boasts 163,000 active volunteers and 6 million e-mail correspondents. About 170 full-time Bush campaign aides work at his re-election headquarters, which opened without fanfare nine months ago.
"We never had an organization in place like we have now. It's unbelievable," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., who has been involved in the state's politics for 24 years. "The Democrats are getting all the attention. But we are getting ready."
The Republican focus on campaign organization reflects concerns in the White House that Bush is headed for another agonizingly close election.
Top Bush campaign advisers believe most Americans have made up their minds about the president, with only about 10 percent of voters considered truly undecided. That means the election is likely to hinge on which candidate does the best job of getting his supporters to the polls.
In the razor-close 2000 election, the outcome in at least six states was decided by fewer than 8,000 votes. Bush won Florida, the deciding state, by 537 votes. He lost New Mexico to Al Gore by 366.
Although Bush came out on top, his advisers came away from the experience determined to improve their get-out-the-vote operation. Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, was particularly chagrined that as many as 4 million evangelical Christians, a key part of the Republican base, sat out the election, according to his estimates.
In Ohio, Bush's 9- to 12-percentage-point lead in pre-election polls shrank to 3.6 percentage points on Election Day 2000, primarily because Democrats and their labor union allies did a better job of turning out their supporters.
"We just got whupped," said Jason Mauk, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party organization. "We realized we needed to improve."
Nearly all of the efforts underway now are aimed at influencing events in the final 72 hours before Election Day. The goal is to make sure that the campaign personally contacts as many Bush supporters as possible.
"2000, if nothing else, demonstrated that organization is important. People realize that turning out 10 of their friends can make a difference," said Scott Stanzel, a Bush campaign spokesman. "You're more likely to go to the polls if your neighbor or friend or co-worker asks you to vote for President Bush than if you see a TV advertisement."
Republicans tested their get-out-the-vote techniques in the 2002 election, with notable success.
In Georgia, more than 3,000 volunteers and paid workers knocked on 150,000 doors in carefully targeted areas. After a pre-election rally with Bush, nine busloads of volunteers fanned out in the heavily Republican Atlanta suburbs to prod voters to the polls. More than 2 million GOP households received telephone reminders about the election.
The work paid off when Republican Sonny Perdue was elected governor and Republican Saxby Chambliss defeated Democratic Sen. Max Cleland.
Of course, voters are likely to see plenty of Bush on television, too. The first campaign ads are ready for broadcast next month, as soon as the Democratic race is settled. The ads portray Bush as a principled, steadfast leader, while casting Kerry as a hypocrite. In a direct shot at the Democratic front-runner, an ad titled, "Unprincipled, Chapter 1," ridicules Kerry's claim that he's an opponent of special interests.
Previews are available on Bush's campaign Web site.
Bush will also ramp up his travel schedule, especially to pivotal swing states. Most of his trips will be heavily subsidized by taxpayers. A formula devised in 1982 allocates costs for election-year travel according to how much time a president spends on official "presidential" business, as opposed to partisan politics.
For example, if Bush spends 25 percent of his day at political events, his campaign would pick up roughly 25 percent of the tab. But that doesn't include the cost of security and other expenses that are considered mandatory for a president.
"Just because it's an election year doesn't mean he stops being president," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
On the Web:
One of the easiest ways to get involved in grass-roots politics is through campaign Web sites. President Bush's Web address is www.georgewbush.com. John Kerry's is www.johnkerry.com. John Edwards is www.johnedwards.com. You can also volunteer through the state or national political parties.
Its hardly sagging...
Sagging in the polls equals tied with the Dem frontrunner.
And this is after months of wall to wall Dem primary coverage and Bush bashing in the media.
Just wait till Bush REALLY starts campaigning.
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