Posted by
Dawnsblood on Tuesday, October 03, 2006 5:22:34 PM
Once again Scary old
Karl Rove finds himself in the left's nightmares:
Thanks to aggressive redistricting in the 1990s and early 2000s,
fewer than three dozen House seats are seriously in contention this
election cycle, compared with more than 100 in 1994, the year
Republicans swept to power with a 54-seat pickup in the House. Then
there's what political pros call the ground game. For most of the 20th
century, turning out voters on Election Day was the Democrats'
strength. They had labor unions to supply workers for campaigns, make
sure their voters had time off from their jobs to go to the polls and
provide rides to get them there.
Now, though, Democrats are the
ones playing catch-up when it comes to the mechanics of Election Day.
Every Monday, überstrategist Karl Rove and Republican Party officials
on Capitol Hill get spreadsheets tallying the numbers of voters
registered, volunteers recruited, doors knocked on and phone numbers
dialed for 40 House campaigns and a dozen Senate races. Over the next
few weeks, the party will begin flying experienced paid and volunteer
workers into states for the final push. The Senate Republicans'
campaign committee calls its agents special teams, led by marshals, all
in the service of the partywide effort known as the 72-Hour Task Force
because its working philosophy initially focused on the final three
days before an election.
Time does a great job (too good a job really) illustrating the GOP's formidable ground game. Hopefully it can live up to the reputation it is beginning to earn. Speaker Pelosi is a scary, scary thought.