Long-time readers might remember my political story, which included a little bit about my old man. He's 77 and a lifelong Democrat, and he's been working for the Obama campaign. Today I talked to him about the Obama get-out-the-vote effort, since my home state (South Dakota) has its primary today. It's impressive.
Current turnout in Dad's county looks to be about 400, with about 250 in my hometown. Dad was assigned 1/4 of the approximately 500 potential voters in our home town, under the guidance of a paid Obama staffer in a nearby town who had updated voter lists. For the last two weekends, he walked the neighborhoods and knocked on doors. Every Obama-preferring or undecided voter was contacted at least twice, hopefully three times. Two unpaid volunteers from a nearby state arrived on Tuesday to help with the effort.
When he got home tonight, he had three GOTV calls on his answering machine. Two were robo-calls, and one was a call from a live Obama volunteer.
Obama lost, but the larger story is that the money that's being poured into the Obama campaign is being spent on a quality effort to turn out Democrats. Whether this will translate into a similar, well-financed effort in the 29th district is not clear, especially since New York probably won't be a battleground state. Nevertheless, Obama's campaign has the ability to do first-rate GOTV, unlike anything I've ever seen in Monroe County.