Obama is counting on Ground Game

[JimH52]

Obama counting on ground game | NJ.com

Obama's made a grass-roots plea a regular part of his stump speech, asking people to knock on a few more doors for him and make a few more phone calls for him because he needs their help, and that's the message that's coming from the campaign staff too.

"Polls will go up, polls will go down," David Simas, the campaign's director of opinion research, said earlier this month during a webcast for volunteers hosted on Dashboard, the online hub for Obama organizing. "At the end of the day, polls don't matter."

"Work harder than you ever have. Dig in, make the calls, knock on the doors."

The Obama campaign won't say much beyond that they're trying. Instead, they stress public data that show Democrats with an edge in voter registration, and absentee and early voting data in several key states.

"It would be one thing if this was a 7 or 8 point race either way," Trippi said. "It's going to be 1, 2, 3 points, if not tied. And there, the Obama grass-roots organizational abilities, the size of their network, is going to do it."