Burnt Orange Report

The Ground Game

By Byron LaMasters

I didn't have the chance to post on the New Mexico trip yesterday, but I did want to post on my thoughts on a few things.

We arrived at the Doña Ana County Democratic Party office on Saturday morning. After a quick training, we were sent out with swing canvass lists of undecided and new voters. Most of us didn't believe that such voters existed, but sure enough there were. Most of us on the trip can point to at least a few voters where we believe that our two or three minute conversation made the difference between them remaining undecided or not voting, and voting for John Kerry. I had two specific encounters where I feel like I made a difference with an individual voter.

One young woman was concerned about health care, especially for her parents. They couldn't afford many of the prescriptions that they needed and she wanted to know what the candidates would do about that. Easy. Millions of people have lose health care under President Bush, and he has no plan. John Kerry, on the other hand, wants to give you and your family the option to buy into the same health care program that senators and congressmen give themselves. John Kerry had prostate cancer last year and he got great health care and treatment, because senators give themselves great health care. He wants your family to have the same. Young woman: "That sounds really good. I think I'll vote for change with John Kerry again". She was a little bit confused, but she told me she would vote early later in the day.

Voter #2 was a 19 year old guy concerned about Iraq. He wanted to know if Kerry would start bringing our troops home. I told him that Kerry would be able to get a fresh start with the rest of the world, and that he would do a much better job of bringing other countries into the fight to defend Iraq. Under Bush, America has paid 90% of the costs and 90% of the casualties in Iraq. John Kerry wants to bring other countries into Iraq and lessen the burden on America. Instead of giving Bush's oil buddies and Haliburton all those contracts and special deals that Bush has done, Kerry will give other nations a stake in Iraq. Voter: "Ok, I think I'll vote for Kerry on election day". He was an undecided / non-voter three minutes earlier, and today I think he's voting for John Kerry.

These were the "hard to reach" voters that we were told that in any other year they would be ignored because there simply wasn't the time, money or manpower. This year these folks were being canvassed two and three times -- and that's just by the Kerry campaign. We ran into dozens of ACT, ACORN and NAACP people while we were out canvassing. We ran into a few church groups and Bush / Cheney campaign people, but Democratic ground organizers far outnumbered Republican ground folks in Las Cruces.

On Sunday volunteers were flooding out the doors. Saturday was the last day of the swing canvass, and Sunday was the begining of the 72 hour rush to the finish. There were a couple of hundred people signed up to volunteer in their office on Sunday, and they showed up. Dozens of people were sticking precinct voting location information on generic Kerry / Edwards doorhangers that were probably put out last night. Dozens were phone banking, and several of us were sent out to election day voting locations to put up Kerry / Edwards signs everywhere we could imagine. Others in our group went out with 4"X8" Kerry / Edwards signs at busy intersections for visibility. Literally, the office was so overflowing that dozens of teams were sent out for visibility. As we left Las Cruces we probably passed at least five or six Kerry visibility teams on Main street and the road back to I-10.

Does this mean that Kerry will win New Mexico, or any other swing state for that matter? No. But it does mean that I can say from first hand experience that our ground game is absolutely phenomenal. It's by far the best I've ever seen. I know the Republicans probably have the best field organization that they've ever had, but Democrats have the best field organization ever in American history.