ShareThisBy LISA MASCARO
Friday, November 17, 2006
For all the talk of a wave that could sweep Democrats to power in Congress and beyond on Tuesday, there is still one major hurdle to clear: getting Democrats to vote.
Pollsters say Democrats are fired up to cast ballots, more so than in years _ even more so than the Republicans were when they took control of the House in 1994.
Democrats nationwide are nervous about the Republicans' vaunted voter turnout machine, which is credited with pushing the party to victory in the past few cycles.Republicans promised a 72-hour push straight through to Election Day.
Washington pollster Mark Mellman doubts the power of "Republican magic" to get voters to the polls. People vote for many reasons _ the war in Iraq, the mood of the country _ not just because a phone bank volunteer urged them to vote.
Still, if you haven't voted, you might expect to hear from someone because chances are, Republican and Democratic operations know it.
They also know what kind of car you drive, what magazines you read and whether you have a hunting license. The two parties have been mining political and consumer data to build vast databases in their efforts to target would-be voters.
This is an important component of the national machine Republicans perfected in 2002, when they beat the Democrats at their own game. Democrats had long ruled turnout efforts thanks to armies of union worker volunteers.
This time, the Democratic National Committee spent $8 million to match the sophisticated Republican operations.
Nationally, the Democratic Party's internal struggle between Chairman Howard Dean and House campaign boss Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., over how best to win the election can be seen in rural Southern Nevada, where the party started trolling for voters a year ago with a novel approach: birthday greetings.
Every day for the last 12 months, volunteers from a field office scrolled lists of potential voters, determined those with approaching birthdays, then called with a birthday hello. The effort stems from Dean's strategy to rebuild the base by attracting wayward Democrats in a region where Republicans rule.
Slowly but surely, Democrats have come back to the fold. Republicans, however, have hardly been idle. They have taken a more direct approach: Drop 100 outsiders into the state and put them to work making calls and walking precincts.
Edward Grefe, a national Republican strategist, said it's hard to beat the party's approach. "When you have a tug of war on the one issue that needs to be highly disciplined, I think the Republicans will have the edge."
