This is from US News and World Report (so take it with a grain of salt), but it was way back in early September....it does not mesh with recent articles about the GOTV being roughly even or a slight GOP advantage:
"Republican Worry About Kerry GOTV Efforts.
Republicans today expressed concerns that the Bush-Cheney team hasn't matched the Kerry-Edwards get-out-the-vote efforts for the fall election. Citing reports of hundreds of thousands of Democrats comprising Kerry's GOTV team, a senior Republican official told US News Bulletin, "If that's true I hope we're as good, but I've heard nothing about our effort." GOP officials, however, said that the Republican National Committee has established precinct captains and special GOTV teams that are being regularly briefed on how to get voters to the polls. "We'll be ready when it counts," said a GOP official."
From Milwaukee paper from yesterday:
"The Bush campaign disputes that analysis and, just like the Democrats, is trying to boost turnout among its own identified supporters so much that it alters the composition of the electorate. Wisconsin had a high turnout in 2000, and Bush almost won a state that had voted Democratic in 1988, 1992 and 1996.
"I'm hoping for a big turnout. I don't think a big turnout necessarily helps the Democrats," says Matthew Dowd, the Bush campaign's chief strategist.
Dowd says he expects the national vote to set records for raw numbers (although not for turnout percentage), rising from 105 million in 2000 to 115 million or even 118 million on Nov. 2...
Based on high voter interest, huge mobilization programs and his view that "George Bush's presidency is a lightning rod," Gans expects the national turnout rate to match or exceed 1992, when it was 55% of voting-age adults.
In Wisconsin, both sides are doing far more organizationally than they did in 2000. Kennedy says there's plenty of anecdotal evidence already for a rise in turnout, from trends in early voting to new registrations - even overseas voting.
"We've got people who left Wisconsin to live overseas. They never bothered to vote in the last 20 years, and now they want to vote," says Kennedy...
Gans believes that a higher turnout favors Democrats, based on the notion that "there's a limited number of incremental voters that the Republicans can get."
Many Democrats agree. The theory: Because some Democratic-leaning groups (African-Americans, Hispanics, low-income voters, single people) tend to vote at lower rates, the Democratic vote has more potential to grow in a high-interest election. Party strategists are touting the possibility of a surge in young voters on and off campus Nov. 2, a development they think would boost Kerry.
"It's always been true and continues to be true. The fact to look for is the size of the turnout," says Gov. Doyle. "The bigger the turnout, the better it is for Democrats."
But the Bush campaign believes its own vote is expandable - that in 2000, turnout among some conservative segments, including evangelical Christians, was not as high as it could have been.
Darrin Schmitz, executive director of the state GOP, says Republicans believe that as many as "200,000 social conservatives" in Wisconsin stayed away from the polls four years ago. He says the Bush campaign's intense outreach to conservative churchgoers, hunters and other targeted groups means "we can certainly compete in the turnout game with the Democrats."
"We haven't seen a 70 percent-plus turnout since 1960," Schmitz says. "If turnout is as high as some people predict, conventional wisdom gets tossed out the window."
Mostly negative, but some hope from Republicans and Dems hinging their hopes on a high turnout only.
Keep in mind Kerry is losing a good portion of support from African-Americans to Bush.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/oct04/269190.asp