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Campaign Crawlers
Ground Game in the Buckeye Battleground
Will Tea Party energy help defeat Obama in Ohio?
FINDLAY, Ohio — Riding a bus south along I-75 Thursday, Jennifer Ridgely smiled as a passing truck driver honked his horn several times in greeting. “Isn’t that awesome?” said Ridgely, a press coordinator with Americans for Prosperity.
AFP’s custom bus is emblazoned with the slogan “Obama’s Failing Agenda Tour” and eye-catching graphics. Each side displays quotes from the president — “The private sector is doing fine” and “You didn’t build that” — as well as a listing: “The Failures Just Keep Piling Up — $1.7 Trillion Health Care Takeover; More Than 42 Straight Months of Unemployment Above 8%; $16 Trillion National Debt; Billions Wasted on Solyndra & Green Energy Scams.” As it travels across Ohio, this rolling billboard produces spontaneous reactions from passing motorists, and when yet another passing trucker honks his support, Ridgely smiles again. “It just never gets old for me.”
AFP is a grassroots organization that claims 3 million members and has worked to help keep the Tea Party movement thriving. The bus traveling across Ohio this week is one of three buses simultaneously crisscrossing the country, focusing on key battleground states in the upcoming election. Launched a month ago, the “Failing Agenda” tour is the largest in AFP’s history, and will have visited 380 cities in 25 states before November 6. Events range from meet-and-greets in small towns to rallies in larger cities, such as the “Hands of Our Health Care” rally yesterday on the square in downtown Findlay. One of the biggest dates on the tour will be Oct. 6 in Columbus, Ohio, with talk-radio hostess Laura Ingraham headlining an event at the Convention Center that is expected to draw at least 2,000 people.
Beyond holding rallies, AFP is working with activists to engage in door-to-door canvassing. Aboard the bus, Ridgely showed off a Samsung Galaxy computer tablet loaded with special software for their “Prosperity Knocks” program. The tablet features a canvassing questionnaire that activists use when interviewing voters, and the software immediately uploads the information to AFP’s online database. “The goal is to build a long-term grassroots network,” Ridgely explains. “It’s not just about this election.”
While AFP has its own long-term organizational goals, the intended near-term consequences of such grassroots activism are obvious enough. These efforts could have a major impact on the outcome of the election in Ohio and other key states. Several other conservative groups are making similar efforts in the weeks leading up to Election Day. On a table at Thursday’s rally in Findlay, Tea Party activists could pick up a variety of flyers and handbills, one promoting the 60 Plus Association (a conservative group for senior citizens), another advertising a Friday event featuring U.S. Rep. Bob Latta sponsored by Citizens for Community Values, and a third urging attendance at a lecture next week by constitutional scholar KrisAnne Hall at the local American Legion hall. All of this is part of a large, multi-layered effort involving numerous organizations acting independently yet sharing the same basic goal: To energize conservatives and reach out to independents, to persuade, identify, and turn out enough votes to defeat Obama this November.
This is what political strategists call the “ground game” of campaigning, as opposed to the “air war” of advertising that permeates TV and radio during election season, especially in key states like Ohio. At some point in these battlegrounds, TV commercials reach such a saturation level that they cease doing much to influence voters’ decisions. When both campaigns (as well as independent groups that now include so-called “super PACs”) are filling the airwaves with attack ads, they effectively cancel each other out. Furthermore, as more people make up their minds and the number of undecided voters shrinks, the job of swaying mass opinion eventually becomes less important than the job of getting your supporters to vote.
The increased popularity of early voting — now underway in Ohio and many other states — means that the get-out-the-vote “ground game” also begins early. And whereas Obama’s organizational effort in the 2008 campaign was a marvel of such astonishing efficiency as to overwhelm anything John McCain’s campaign could produce, there are reasons to believe that Mitt Romney this year will benefit from a ground-game effort equal or superior to the Democrats’ operation. Exhibit A in this case is the 2010 mid-term election when Republicans won a historic landslide, a result widely attributed to the energizing effects of the Tea Party movement, but also sparked by an outstanding “ground game” to push GOP turnout. Exhibit B is the Wisconsin recall election in June, when Republican Gov. Scott Walker easily survived an all-or-nothing effort by Democrats and their labor-union allies to drive him from office.
With polls currently showing Obama leading Romney by 10 points in Ohio, it is important to note that pollsters failed to predict the 7-point margin of Walker’s victory in June. Conservatives have good reason to be skeptical toward the suggestion (implicit in the samples of several recent polls) that Democrats will enjoy a substantial turnout advantage November 6. Liberal writer Jonathan Chait has derided myself and other skeptics as “poll denialists,” but the evident energy and enthusiasm of Republican voters here in Ohio cannot be safely ignored, no matter what the polls may say.
Several observers, including Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, have described Ohio as “ground zero” of this year’s election. Americans for Prosperity was one of the organizations most active in helping defend Walker in the Wisconsin election. No one should be surprised if their current effort to educate Ohio voters about “Obama’s Failing Agenda” produces similar success here.
About the Author
Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (61) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 9.28.12 @ 6:43AM
The Samuel L. Jackson "Doctor Seuss" ad with the f-bomb punch line is the very last straw when it comes to political attack ads. Who on earth told Obama that this was a good idea?
The Avenger| 9.28.12 @ 7:15AM
Obama is the smartest M-effer in the world. All his ideas are brilliant. Don't believe me, ask any nitwit liberal.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 10:25AM
The Contest is at Mr. Purple's House.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 9.29.12 @ 5:21PM
The GOP itself cannot be much enthused about conservatism if it runs a Rockefeller liberal for president.
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:33AM
If the American people are still residing inside their typical state of mental derangement, they will replecate their VOTING """""STUPIDLY""""" of 11/4/08 in November of this year, whereupon the American way of life will completely disappear within tow years of same!!!!!
Stephie| 9.28.12 @ 8:31AM
They have to sink low to appeal to the basest of their base.
scotchieguy| 9.28.12 @ 9:51AM
Free phones and F-bombs. That's how far they have sunk. And still, the media looks away.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 10:25AM
The Contest is at Mr. Purple's House.
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:35AM
If these polls are halfway accurate, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE are the ones who """"""stupidly"""""" [as you say] ......"""""looks away"""""!!!!!
aware| 9.29.12 @ 12:37PM
I agree, this ad and many others to come, are tasteless, vulgar, base, manipulative, plain false, and simplistic. But I bet they also turn out to be effective.
If a person has come to a belief without the use of reason or truth, you cannot disabuse them of that belief by using reason and truth.
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:38AM
If what you state "you cannot disabuse them of that belief by using reason and truth" is accurate, then 11/4/08 would have resulted in a current POTUS by the name of John McCain!!!!
RCV| 9.30.12 @ 6:32PM
It's evident from your comments, that you believe that the majority of American voters are just plain stupid, and fail to recognize how much smarter you conservatives are. You not only believe this, but openly express that view, as Oldfarte and even the standard-bearer of your party does (at least when he's speaking to a like-minded audience). And yet you're surprised that the majority of voters don't seem to be warming to your message!
Who's being stupid here?
The Avenger| 9.28.12 @ 7:21AM
The ground game is where elections are won and lost. I take every opportunity to inform our youth of their folly in supporting the party which will destroy their economic fortunes. I talk to fellow seniors about what will protect their healthcare, and what will destroy it. It is up to each one of us to make the case for the defeat of Obama. I am no rabid fan of Romney but the alternative is too frightful to even contemplate.
florin| 9.28.12 @ 9:25AM
Sept. 28th: Many of us never hear any of this - in fact, we weren't sure if the Tea Partiers were doing anything - we don't even hear about this on Fox News...I hope Romney's people are going to get some good ads out - showing videos of Obama on the View and with Beyonce while the Middle East is on fire and after our Embassies were attacked and our Ambassador and other Americans were brutally murdered by Islamist terrorists...why isn't Romney doing this???? Obama is such an abysmal failure it should not be so hard to beat him and yet, Obama is still leading so the Romney team needs to step things up before it's too late...
SUBVET| 9.28.12 @ 10:08AM
If you believe the polls you are part of the flock.......baaaaaa.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 10:26AM
The Contest is at Mr. Purple's House.
CrackerHound| 9.28.12 @ 11:22AM
The problem is you don't need to believe the polls for perception to become reality.
It's the liberal-marxist ground game for everything. Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth in the mind of the masses.
Example: Obama is exceedingly smart and is a great speaker. It's not true but that's how EVERYONE describes him including his conservative opponents.
Joellen| 9.28.12 @ 2:50PM
They arent "conservative". Anyone who listens to Obama and describes him "exceedingly smart and and a great speaker" is not really listening.
Occam's Tool| 9.28.12 @ 6:51PM
Obama in 2008 was a semantic null.
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:39AM
......or a domestic terrorist??????
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 9.30.12 @ 1:30AM
I don't like either one. One is a filthy rich vulture capitalist and neocon hawk and the other is an elitist liberal icon beholden to the homosexual lobby and no less a hawk on foreign policy issues. The American working class be they Republican or Democrat will be wined and dined before the election like a girl on a date then the powers that be will sneak a micky into her drink and brutally rape her after the election. That's how it always is with us working class folk and believe me the Democrats stick it to us just as bad and sometimes even worse than the Republicans. If there ever was a time when we needed solidarity amongst the working class its now. Don't be beholden to the political parties make the political parties be beholden to you. Make them fear you. That's how you achieve power.
Von Mises Jr| 9.28.12 @ 8:08AM
Americans for Prosperity is physically present in thirty-four states. If you do not receive their emails, you are missing out.
I have been to DC at least half-dozen times with AFP to see Michelle Bachmann, Jim DeMint, Louis Gohmert, Rand Paul, Mike Pence, Allen West and others speak. I have met Betsy McCaughey, David Webb and Dr. Robert Moffet at Heritage as well as heard Herman Cain speak to a small group.
They are leading both local efforts in New Jersey against Christie's Agenda21 plan, as well as manning phone banks for Romney.
Even if you don't have time to help, great events at very reasonable costs continue to occur. They are information packed and done by many of the leaders conservatives revere.
http://americansforprosperity.org/about/
Von Mises Jr| 9.28.12 @ 8:11AM
BTW, We found Perp's mother. Turns out she is also D'Red's aunt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....pAOwJvTOio
Kwan| 9.28.12 @ 8:57AM
Obama is missing a Golden Opportunity if he doesn't make this woman "Czaress" of the Food Stamp Program. Then again a trillion here a trillion there pretty soon you're talking about real money.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 1:12PM
And, vtwin's Ho.
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:42AM
Hey don't disparage MILOTUS Robinson like that!!!!!
Joellen| 9.28.12 @ 8:23AM
Oct 13, NJ at Parsipanny, Troy Hills, NJ "Defending the American Dream" with Michelle Malkin, Jonah Goldberg, James O'Keefe and DINESH DSOUZA! All day affair sponsored by AFP. All tri-state Tea Party members will be attending. Maybe we should have signs up for TAS contributers - how fun.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 10:26AM
The Contest is at Mr. Purple's House.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 3:24PM
And, my Birthday, by the way.
Occam's Tool| 9.28.12 @ 6:51PM
Happy B-day, Tim!
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 7:04PM
55.
Joellen| 9.28.12 @ 7:41PM
Good age - I am right behind you - a young 55:)
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:45AM
Happy BD and many more to you youngster [what I wouldn't do to be JUST "55"again]. Hell I'd need a GD fire hose to put out the candles on my cake!!!!
Joellen| 9.28.12 @ 7:40PM
Tim - HAPPY BIRTHDAY. What a gift you've been to us at TAS. Hope you are blessed with many years and hope you and yours live to see America restored to her glory. GOD Bless you.
Frank Drackman| 9.28.12 @ 9:21AM
Don't be hatin, my family hasn't voted for a DemoKKKrat since George Wallace ran against those 2 commies, Nixon & Hubert Humpty...
But most of those honking Truckers are from Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, i.e. Real America.
You know, where if you get pulled over for speeding, its gonna be triple digits, and when the Officer notices your 12 gauge in the window, he asks how the Ruts going(and if you don't know what the Rut is, you ain't one of us).
Where we say grace, and M'aam, and if you ain't into that, we bury you in a shallow grave,
I mean we don't give a damn.
And if my Great Great Great Grandpappy, Nathan Bedford Forest Robert E Lee Jackson Horowitz knew that one day a guy with an African Muslim name would be able to get elected with 38% of the White vote, he'd have picked his own Cotton.
Or hired some Chinamen to do it...
Frank "Forward THIS" Drackman
irish19| 9.28.12 @ 12:16PM
Little early for the rut, isn't it. Bow season hasn't even opened yet most places.
Who Knows?| 9.28.12 @ 9:30AM
Intrade is down to 20% Romney, continuing to drop.
It's not over until it's over. With 3 debates coming up, on the 3rd, 16th and 22nd of October, Mitt has a chance.
Here's why he's perceived by Intrade as a long shot IMHO---
the betters against him see a NICE GUY in Romney. And, it will take a NASTY GUY to put Obama in his correct place.
Alas, the GOP is dominated by lovers, their opponents by fighters.
You want FIGHTERS in a fight!
Vic| 9.28.12 @ 10:15AM
Romney is not MR NICE GUY, he is MR SPINELESSS. Mr. ROMNEY, it's still not too late. Get RYAN on the stump more, allow him to say what he believes, lounge around on the back seat and watch these LSM polls take off in the other direction. In the meantime develop a spine and become the fighter your well wishers want you to be in the debates, whether it be Gingrich or "Who Knows?"
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 1:14PM
Agreed.
Contest is at Mr. Purple's House.
Check it out, Vic.
cicero| 9.28.12 @ 10:12AM
We make a huge mistake spending so much time debating the polls. I do not think that they are even close to guaging the present status of the american electorate. We would do well to spend the bulk of our time putting the Obama agenda and its effects front and center before the people.
I do not think it will be close at all. Even the great American electorate can't be that idiotic twicee in a row.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 10:27AM
The Contest is at Mr. Purple's House.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 1:16PM
Matt Purple.
JP| 9.28.12 @ 10:27AM
Obama is getting credit for the job Republican Govenor Kasich has done these last 3 years. Three years ago, Ohio was swamped in debt, and shedding jobs. Kasich put the state government on a rapid diet, balanced the budgets, and made the business climate more conducive to private growth. Unlike Michigan and Illinois, Ohio's economy is actually growing.
But, voters seem to be giving the President all the credit, when in fact his administration has Ohio's coal industry (one of the largest in the nation) dead in its sites. Obama will win Ohio. Mitt will have to make up the votes elsewhere. Good luck with that.
Who Knows?| 9.28.12 @ 11:28AM
Buck up, conservatives.
With the odds of a return of the flexible Obama to the White House now 4 to 1--- and with every precious day they’re getting better--- maybe it’s time to start thinking ahead. Go ahead and enjoy the next weeks, and even do your damnedest, like Limbaugh, to expose the usurper, BHO, and beat the long odds.
Romney for president!
And, if Barrack is sworn in again, just think!
We “get to” see him and his minions unleashed. With a GOP house, and maybe a Senate as well, the fights should be awesome.
And, Obamacare will be implemented!
Perhaps the accumulated “fat” between the ears and inside the bodies of most Americans is too much, in 2012, to allow a majority of them to oust the One. Let’s go ahead and give the socialist-in-chief MORE rope to try to strangle America!
Four more years!
Yes, my mood about the dire condition of Americans is boosted on regular public wanderings. Seeing gross bodies galore---that’s the only “poll” I need.
Obama may be about to put America on a REAL diet.
JP| 9.28.12 @ 1:05PM
In a perverse way, maybe he would be re-elected with a GOP run Congress. If the American people really think he's doing a swell job despite evidence to the contrary, well they should re-elect him - by all means. You know something is wrong when most Americans throw a tantrum over NFL refs, but yawn when an American embassy is attacked and our ambassador slaughtered. The MSM, it appears, really does have most voters under its leash.
We deserve the leaders we elect or appoint. Next time this year most Americans will wonder what the hell happened.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 1:19PM
Buck Up!
None of this journOlist Bullsh*t means anything.
Stand up on your Hind Legs, like a Man, Vote, and go save the Country.
YOGI BERRA.
JP| 9.29.12 @ 10:31AM
TLP,
You either need to drink decaf, or get off the internet. Every poll in Ohio indicates either a statistical deadheat or Obama in the lead. Read my post above. Our emabssies in North Africa are attacked, and American foreign service officers slaughtered. Yet, half of Americans still believe Obama can and should be trusted as our President. Perhaps, it is you who should wake-up. It's a totally different country out there.
TLP| 9.29.12 @ 4:49PM
Have Faith.
I do not believe that GOD will allow this Country to fall by the wayside.
And, if HE does?
Who could Blame HIM?
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:52AM
I'll respectfully disagree slightly. I believe that God endowed everyone at birth with FREE WILL and COMMON SENSE, but sadly if they repeat their VOTING STUPIDLY of 11/4/08, we're all doomed to the trashbin of history thereafter!!!!
KyMouse| 9.28.12 @ 3:15PM
I've just spotted some nice lines of Romney-Ryan and anti-Obama T-shirts, buttons, signs, bumper stickers, etc. They're made by a company that produces materials for Republican candidates only.
http://www.romney2012store.com/
Nice "Gen X" line, "We DID Build This," etc.
Marco2| 9.28.12 @ 3:44PM
Jesus, if you seriously believe that Romney is 10 points behind in Ohio, or as Obammy say, "Oiho", perhaps you should move over to The Nation.
Occam's Tool| 9.28.12 @ 6:55PM
The last great Massachusetts Champion was behind on points in the 13th round against Jersey Joe Wolcott when he "Equalized." I look forward to a Right Cross to knock him out late.
TLP| 9.28.12 @ 7:09PM
This is all Bullsh*t Occam.
They're using "Data" from 2008, before The Muslim started Transforming us in to Zimbabwe.
None of these Pollsters had 1994 OR 2010 called right.
Everybody needs to Stand Up on their Hind Legs, LIKE A MAN, go to the Voting Place and Save The Country.
Period!
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:50AM
Everyone needs to read Pat Caddell's excellent editorial of the other day on Braitbart regarding the need for Romney to institute a two front attack upon Obama and the MSM [who authors these polls] etc.....good read!!!!
sickofit5| 9.29.12 @ 12:20PM
My concern and perception for where this campaign is has nothing to do with what MSM, polls and all (lib and con) pundits are saying. It has to do more with what I am not hearing and seeing from the Romney camp. Where are the ads that should be pounding home the new taxes and government control over our lives that is hidden in the ACA. Where are the ads that use Obama's own words that show what he thinks of this country and it's people, "americans are lazy, americans holding onto their guns and religion, the private sector is doing fine." Then there are his foreign policy gems and the economic numbers, his attack on religious freedom. Where are the ads that end with Obama leaning into Medvedev and whispering "tell Vladamir that I will have more flexibility after I win my second term." They could put that at the end of every ad whether economic or foreign policy and it's game set match. But that's not what is happening. Mitty has stepped into a street brawl and is using queensbury rules. Not gonna happen.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 9.29.12 @ 5:19PM
The GOP itself cannot be much enthused about conservatism if it runs a Rockefeller liberal for president.
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:56AM
See my above reply to your C&P repetition!!!!
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 9.30.12 @ 1:18AM
I seriously cannot see Romney carrying any of the Rust Belt states. Reason being is that Romney is largely viewed as someone who has shipped jobs overseas and all though Obama's record on the issue may not be stellar he talks the talk which is namely giving domestic manufacturers a level playing field on which to compete making it unprofitable to ship any more jobs to China and increasing incentives (tax breaks, subsidies, etc.) to keep those jobs here. Now I realize that Obama has done nothing to take on NAFTA, CAFTA and our membership in the WTO but in the realm of rhetoric Obama speaks the language of the blue collar Ohioan or Pennsylvanian where as Romney has the stigma of being affiliated with Bain Capital which fellow Republican contenders even dubbed a "vulture capitalist" operation.
The only Republican that I believe could give Obama a run for his money in the Rust Belt states is the economic nationalist Patrick J. Buchanan and that's about it.
Oldefarte| 9.30.12 @ 11:57AM
As that old philosopher Forrest Gump once said, STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES!!!!!!!!!!!
Basset Hound| 9.30.12 @ 3:54PM
Overheard a conversation at church where an Obama supporter was telling another "things are really going well in Ohio. Romney doesn't stand a chance now".
Please let him be wrong. I'd love to see all the coup-counting premature cockiness of the Left be the motivation to for Chick-Fil-A type turnout.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 10.2.12 @ 2:47AM
I have no problem with lowering corporate taxes for firms that keep and grow their manufacturing operations in the United States. Reward those corporations that keep America working with very low taxes and at the same time rate tax the sh#t out of corporations that refuse to stop shipping manufacturing jobs overseas.
America's workforce used to be the envy of the world with the safest working conditions and the best pay, unfortunately we've had thirty years of outsourcing jobs abroad and union busting at home.