Una forma de entender el «incomprensible» éxito de los republicanos en las últimas citas electorales es estudiar su poderosa maquinaria electoral (GOP) a las ordenes de Ken Melhman. A través de un uso intensivo de las nuevas tecnologías los republicanos han llevado la campaña «word of mouth» hasta casi la perfección, y cada año van perfeccionando el sistema. Así han logrado mantener la movilización del voto republicano en ambas citas, y esperan poder repetir el éxito una vez más en noviembre, de ahí su relativa tranquilidad.
Así lo cuenta el New York Times:
Democrats Have Intensity, but G.O.P. Has Machine
By ROBIN TONERWASHINGTON, Oct. 14 — Clif Kelley, a retired economist from Columbus, Ohio, is the walking, talking, fuming embodiment of what pollsters say is a defining feature of this election: the intensity of Democrats.
Mr. Kelley and a handful of fellow Democrats in Franklin County’s 21st Ward began meeting about two years ago, calling themselves Grassroots 21. Today they have a newsletter, a blog and on one recent Sunday a sprawling audience crammed into Mr. Kelley’s suburban backyard for a rally on a semi-rainy day.
Mr. Kelley reminded his friends that he vowed two years ago he would not die under a Bush administration. “You can see I’ve been holding on,” he said as the audience roared.
Mr. Kelley is 89. And angry. He says he simply “can’t wait” for Election Day.
Voter intensity is a critical element in politics, especially in midterm elections, when Americans’ interest and turnout are typically much lower than in a presidential election year. Pollsters say enthusiasm among Democrats is particularly high this year — significantly higher, by several important measures, than the intensity of Republicans.
Republican strategists counter that they can compensate for any gap in enthusiasm with their legendary get-out-the-vote operation. The party has built its electoral success in the last two elections on identifying and producing nearly every obtainable Republican vote at the polls; this time may be more challenging, they say, but no different.
“I do think our base is coming together and will be coming together later, but four weeks is an eternity in this business,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and longtime party strategist. Republicans will ultimately be motivated to vote, Mr. Cole said, and they will turn out on Election Day even if “this is a race where professionalism has to make up for enthusiasm.”
Even so, in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted Oct. 5-8, 46 percent of Democrats said they were more enthusiastic about voting this year than in previous Congressional elections, compared with 33 percent of Republicans.
A similar trend appears in recent polls by the Pew Research Center and Gallup, which show that Democrats’ level of engagement is higher than in the midterm elections of 2002, 1998 and especially 1994, when a Republican landslide gave the party control of the House and Senate.
Democratic strategists consider this new intensity a critical advantage throughout the ups and downs of a campaign narrative driven at various times by war, national security scares, gas prices and, most recently, the scandal surrounding former Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida.
“There’s been a consistent pattern for the better part of a year that Democrats are pretty focused on what they’re voting for and what they’re voting against,” said Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster, “while Republican voters are feeling ambivalent on both fronts.”
Voter intensity can bubble up from the grass roots, but it can also be stoked (or dampened) by the candidates’ campaigns and harnessed by a sophisticated turnout campaign.
Conservative voters have many reasons to be less enthusiastic this year, analysts say, including their party’s deficit spending and the scandal over Mr. Foley’s conduct toward Congressional pages, not to mention an array of local Republican scandals in Ohio. But if the Republican get-out-the-vote drive, known as the 72-Hour Project, lives up to its billing, said Andrew Kohut, head of the Pew center, “the turnout consequences for the G.O.P. might not be as dire as these poll numbers suggest.”
The Republican machine was on full display last weekend in Ohio, where volunteers worked phone banks in all 88 counties on what the party called Super Saturday. They contacted 100,000 carefully selected potential Republican voters and knocked on the doors of 50,000. When the day was done, Jason Mauk, the political director for the state party, said, “I think that really discredits the notion that Republican voters and volunteers are not energized.”
At one of those phone banks, in downtown Columbus, the energy level was high, fueled by endless trays of doughnuts, bagels and pizza. Shift after shift of volunteers rotated through, with a steady murmur of voices reading a script, urging a vote, offering to arrange an absentee ballot: “This is a very important election year, and your vote will help determine Ohio’s future.”
One of the volunteers, Laurie Sutton, said: “I hit the phone banks every night. I’m addicted to it.”
At midday, several of the top Republican candidates came by to rally the troops. Betty Montgomery, who is running for state attorney general, acknowledged the challenges facing Republicans this year but summoned the memory of the Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes. “We know how to win,” she said. “We know the fundamentals. He would say, ‘Execute the fundamentals!’ ”
Ms. Montgomery recalled the 2004 election, when Ohio delivered the presidency to Mr. Bush, largely on the basis of the Republican turnout operation. “We blew their socks off,” she said of the Democrats. “They didn’t know what hit them.”
But Ohio Democratic leaders say they do know what hit them two years ago and vow that it will not happen again. “The Republicans talk about that 72-hour operation as if it’s the best thing since electricity,” said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. “The fact is, I believe we will be competitive.”
Underscoring the rivalry, Ohio Democrats said they also completed 100,000 calls that Saturday. Around the country, though, some Democrats wonder whether their party can match the well-financed 72-Hour Project, created by the Republican National Committee; some of the outside groups who worked on voter turnout for the Democrats in 2004 have curtailed their efforts, although party campaign committees insist that they have stepped forward to fill the gap.
Ohio is a state where the partisan war has raged, with little interruption, since 2004. But polls suggest that around the nation, voters understand what is at stake in these midterm elections.
Two major factors drive the Democratic intensity, analysts say: anger about the war in Iraq and other Bush administration policies, and optimism about their chances this year.
“I feel like there’s some hope to get more Democrats elected this time,” said Virginia Crossett, 53, a Democrat and veterinary technician in Louisville, Ky., who was interviewed in a follow-up to the recent Times/CBS poll. Half of the Democrats who were more enthusiastic about voting said they felt that way because victory was in reach.
“I think most of the Republicans are doing a horrible job, and I don’t feel like my life is any better whatsoever in the last six years — and probably worse,” Ms. Crossett said.
The flip side to the Democrats’ optimism, of course, is that the prospect of Democratic control is a powerful motivator for many Republicans.
“A lot of issues are important to me, major issues like the war on terror, what’s going on in Iraq, North Korea and Iran, immigration and the Mexican border,” said Rick Nunley, 40, a Republican from North Canton, Ohio, who works in industrial sales. “Those issues will be affected drastically in the not-too-distant future if there are major policy changes or shifts in the government.”
Republicans say they will keep working to harness their vote. Holly Pendell, a veteran Republican volunteer who works for the United States Chamber of Commerce, was canvassing a suburban Columbus subdivision last Sunday with her “walk book” that identified which houses to visit. The advertising campaign started so early and became so intense that people “can’t even make sense of the ads,” Ms. Pendell said. “That’s why door-to-door is so important.”
Democrats say they will be doing the same, while also counting on the intensity of the Clif Kelleys of the country. When the Democrats lost the presidential race in Ohio two years ago, it was a painful defeat to many on the local level. But Grassroots 21 has made real progress in its neighborhood, Mr. Kelley said, and “it gave us confidence that we could so something.”
“What really pushes us now is the issues,” Mr. Kelley said. “We’re mad. I’m mad.”
The group, in fact, recently adopted a new logo: the Fighting 21st.