Like most Americans following the hype surrounding today’s election, I accepted at face value the Republican claim that they had a formidable 72-hour get out the vote machine that would turn the tables on the Democrats. I think it is bullshit and here’s why.
I’m still a registered Republican in Maryland, as is my wife. During the 2002 and the 2004 elections we were called several times by Republican volunteers asking if we were going to vote and offering to schlep us to the polls. Not this time. I sat by the phone yesterday waiting eagerly to get a GOP call (I wanted to give them a piece of my mind). Nothing. Crickets.
So, today, I call up a couple of Republican buddies who also live in Maryland and ask if they had been called. No calls other than a robo from Rudy Guiliani a couple of days ago. I reached out to an old friend across the river in Virginia. He’s a registered Republican and has given them money. No calls and no visitors. Yet, early this morning, someone knocked on his door and asked him to vote for Jim Webb.
Maryland and Virginia are critical races for the Republicans and they appear to be missing in action. And turnout is heavy in both places. While my sample is not statistically significant, I think it reflects something happening on the ground that the polls missed. The discontent among Independents, Democrats, and even some Republicans is real and intense. It also appears Karl Rove and his buddies have handled the elections like the war in Iraq and the aftermath of Katrina–they talk tough but put no muscle behind their words. Let’s hope so.
Heh. Maybe the person assigned to call you figured they shouldn’t bother…
It’s good news that they haven’t contacted your buddies though.
I always thought their so-called 72 hour plan was a bunch of hokum. The exit polls told the story. (See Ukraine).
mentioned yesterday that the GOP considered Virginia such a lock that they didn’t make any plans for the last-minute GOTV; most of those efforts take about a year of planning evidently. And remember a year ago, Allen was being touted as a potential contender for the presidential nomination in 2008.
Credit goes to Dean and his 50-state strategy for throwing in a major monkeywrench…
“It also appears Karl Rove and his buddies have handled the elections like the war in Iraq and the aftermath of Katrina–they talk tough but put no muscle behind their words. Let’s hope so.”
That would rock. Let’s hope so.
Two things:
Let’s wait until we see the count is all I’m sayin …
if the rethugs keep up these dirty tricks they’re close to being labeled a terrists organization.
KY poll worker arrested for choking a voter.
Josh Marshall’s TPM post that Bob Novak and Mehlman opted for paper ballots and in Maryland, more dirty tricks
I’d opt for paper too if I had a choice.
Silly Larry, why would the GOP choose to put $ into an active GOTV to beg people to vote stupid when it’s so much more proactive to use the same $ and just supress Dem votes? You keep assuming that there’s a few of the old time Rep in charge, they’re gone remember?
calvin agrees with several commenters that voter suppression and vote fraud via the programmable Diebold machines make the GOTV efforts redundant and more expensive.
Larry, I live in MO and have wondered about this formidable 72 hour GOTV. I live in a very Republican precinct and district. In 2004 no Republican called nor did any Republican visit or walk down my street.
Same this year. I have been a volunteer for Democrats since 2000. I have always done phone banking. Looking back, Gore’s campaign was quite organized on election day – called those who likely needed rides. My lists were elderly who depended on these rides.
For Kerry, I called, called, called starting quite early in the fall. By the time the election rolled around we had contacted thousands.
This time, I also called and canvassed for the first time. While I was canvasing Saturday, two of Talent’s young college hires were also canvassing the same precinct. While Claire had thousands of us volunteers, Talent seems to have hired some 500 college students from outstate. He also used local college students. Of course, he had millions more to be able to pay all these students.
Frankly, I think this 72 hour Republican GOTV is mostly myth – especially if they cannot draw enough volunteers from churches. The NY Times Magazine had a good article about Republican’s organization in Ohio in 2004. As I recall, they organized mostly around certain neighborhoods and churches early spring with lots of hand-outs, same messages for their volunteers. I guess they didn’t get the volunteers this time or completely missed where they needed a better ground game this past spring.
Today our precinct was quite crowded at 2:30 PM – about the time I usually vote, some 600 had voted out of about 1100. Other poll places I passed had full parking lots. I do think Claire cut into Talent’s base here in this district.
I reached out to an old friend across the river in Virginia. He’s a registered Republican and has given them money.
We don’t register by party in Virginia, but if your friend has given the GOP money in the past then he would be in their data base
Yeah, we swamped the GOP here in NoVA. That was clear as far back as June, at least in this area.
You have to understand that Allen lost Fairfax County in 2000, so he went from being merely unpopular to radioactive.
I have always suspected that the GOTV stuff was oversold, and they trot it out each election to try and get the Democrats spooked. Getting the Evangelicals hooked in by things like anti-gay or flag-burning seemed to be the greater factor, and if the GOP can get those folks all in a lather about one of those issues, then they can turn out huge numbers.
The dynamics seem completely different this year however. Then again, it could be wishful thinking on my part. We will see in a few hours…
I’ve been thinking for a while, in fact ever since Rove issued his prediction that the Republicans will maintain control, that a lot of what they are doing is just head games. I don’t have anything to back it up, that’s just the way it seems to me.
I guess we’ll find out soon enough . . .
Yep, it’s a charade alright. I’ve been working two weeks on GOTV. In my kool-aid soaked neck of the woods I have not received one single phone call, no door-knocking, flyers or mailed GOP propaganda.
In 04′ I was saturated with all those things. Not a peep today. Visited four precints today with Democratic sample ballots. Only two people declined!! :)I