Planting Blue Flags on Red Soil

[n2doc]

Obama's ground game in GOP areas impressive
By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST

YAKIMA -- The measure of the 2008 presidential campaigns' on-the-ground effectiveness calls to mind the mystery in which Sherlock Holmes' key clue was the dog that didn't bark.

Hillary Clinton's top aides yowled and bared teeth at each other in leaks to the media, long before the campaign ended. Lately, John McCain aides have pummeled Gov. Sarah Palin as a "diva." Purged McCain advisers have bad-mouthed the campaign on cable TV.

The Barack Obama brass kept their secrets, sent low-profile field coordinators onto Republican turf and mobilized a volunteer army.

Its goals have been signing up new voters and getting them to cast advance ballots.

"If this guy (Obama) governs America as he has run his campaign, we will truly be a shining city on a hill," Carl Pope, head of the Sierra Club, said in a Seattle stop. He was using a favorite Ronald Reaganism.

El Paso County, Colo., gave President Bush a 35-point victory in 2004. Colorado Springs, home to Focus on Family, is one of the United States' most conservative urban areas.

As of Oct. 1, however, 16,400 new Democratic voters had been registered, to 12,000 new Republicans. Of the county's 12,000 new independent (or unaffiliated) voters, Democratic activists registered a majority.

Forty-one percent of those casting advance ballots are Democratic-registered voters, compared with 23 percent in 2004. "All that is person-to-person contact," said Bob Nemanich, a veteran Colorado Springs activist.

Unlike such past campaigns as the Kennedys -- where advance men and organizers bossed locals -- Obama has applied a two-step approach: Ambitious targets come down from the top. Local activists are given wide latitude in meeting them.

more:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/385780_Joel31.html

[jakem]

1. I wish people would stop crediting Reagan with 'city on a hill'

Kennedy quoted it first.

[Nydari]

2. Nice to hear this

I used to live in Colorado Springs and more blue there can only help that town.