Time to be afraid -- McCain mobilizes massive army of volunteers working around the clock

[nichomachus]

NOT

The Big Empty

Offices in Troy, Ohio were closed on Saturday October 11. With perfect coincidental timing, two elderly women dropped by to volunteer but found the office shut. At Republican state headquarters in Columbus later the same day, one lonely dialer sat in a sea of unoccupied chairs. In Des Moines on September 25, another empty office. In Santa Fe on September 17, one dialer made calls while six chatted amongst themselves about how they didn't like Obama. In Raleigh this past Saturday, ten days before the election with early voting already open, two women dialed and a male staffer watched the Georgia-LSU game. In Durango, Colorado on September 20, the Republican office was locked and closed. Indiana didn't have McCain Victory offices when we were there in early October.

When the offices are open, they have reduced hours. We can confidently plan to get evening good-light photographs of a town after we visit the local McCain office, because we know it will be closing by 5 pm, as the office in Wilmington, North Carolina was this past Sunday. The plan is, get to inevitably closed/closing McCain office, get an hour of photos near sunset, then visit the bustling local Obama office.

In Cortez, CO, we had Republican volunteers pose for action-shot photos. The same in Española, New Mexico. Posed. For some time at the outset, we were willing to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt. They convinced us they were really working, and that we had just had unfortunate timing. It wasn't until the pattern of "just missed it" started to sound like a drumbeat in our ears that we began to grow skeptical. We never "just missed" any of the Obama volunteer work, because it goes on nonstop, every day, in every office, in every corner of America.

We found scattered nuggets of activity. Colorado Springs, Colorado held eight dialers and two front office volunteers. Albemarle County, Virginia had a busy office of 15 volunteers, and we reported that. Last night in Tampa, nine phonebankers were busy dialing at the Republican Party of Florida Hillsborough County HQ when we arrived at 8:00 pm. Seven dialers sat in McCain's Hickory, North Carolina office this past Saturday afternoon.

Those offices seemed busy to us, naturally, because they were explosively full relative to other offices we've stopped in on. But even the Colorado Springs office was dwarfed by the Obama Colorado Springs operation.

These ground campaigns do not bear any relationship to one another. One side has something in the neighborhood of five million volunteers all assigned to very clear and specific pieces of the operation, and the other seems to have something like a thousand volunteers scattered throughout the country. Jon Tester's 2006 Senate race in Montana had more volunteers -- by a mile -- than John McCain's 2006 presidential campaign.

This is pathetic -- and it's why I don't believe the polls that tell us the election is within the margin of error or "tightening." McCain can't even get people to volunteer -- and those who do have to be home before the early-bird specials start.

[Two Sheds]

1. Help me out, here. What's the point of a big push in Pennsylvania...

if you're going to quit in Ohio?

[AtomicKitten]

2. Increasing McPalin is becoming all bluster and bark.

[Cha]

3. Well, you had me

going..I thought they could get massive amounts of college repukes to turn out for the warmongering liar and her sidekick.

[nichomachus]

4. There aren't as many

college repukes as you think there are. They're just vocal -- and most of them are dipshits. They have no social skills. They are the last people you want knocking on doors for you. They're assholes. (I know. My nephew is one.)

[lurky]

5. 3 obese phone bankers with a cuckoo clock on their desk?

The only explanation I can see for "massive army of volunteers working around the clock".

[MassLiberal]

6. Whomever is in charge of THIS campaign has what you might call

executive experience: "One side has something in the neighborhood of five million volunteers all assigned to very clear and specific pieces of the operation..."

[Mira]

7. I was told the Charlotte office is like a tomb, and that the smell in the

air is formaldehyde
but this is second hand information

:)

[Vanje]

8. Recc'n it. Kick'n it nt