Advantage Obama: Young, trained political organizers are blanketing the state

Steven Elbow  —  7/30/2008 4:52 pm

For their all their political differences, Vicki Pietrus and Allison Nelson have a lot in common. Both are smart, engaged University of Wisconsin-Madison seniors from suburban Chicago. Pietrus is majoring in political science and English, Nelson in political science and film production.

But while Nelson, a Republican, is trying to get her Students for John McCain effort off the ground, Pietrus, a volunteer for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, is trained and field-tested.

On a recent sunny day she was at Madison Metro's South Transfer Point on Park Street registering voters. Snubbed by one rider, she moves on to another, then another, until she finds someone who wants to vote.

She signs up David Hendrick, who, alas, is going to vote for candidate Ron Paul.

After approaching several others, most who say they don't want to vote, Pietrus helps register Audrey Johnson, who is undecided.

She keeps at it as the transfer point fills for the noon traffic, confident that her efforts eventually are going to pay off for her candidate.

For the past six weeks, Pietrus has been knocking on doors, making phone calls, hustling at parking lots to register voters and organizing house parties.

She and more than a dozen other campaign "fellows" in Dane County, part of an army of about 100 across the state, are the foot soldiers of the Obama presidential campaign. They are college students or recent graduates trained in political organizing who give 30 hours a week to what they see as a potential turning point in America: the election of a president who shares their values and can inspire.

College students have always filled an important niche in presidential campaigns. These energetic workers are critical to the get-out-the-vote effort, which includes registering voters, dropping literature on people's doorsteps and driving elderly voters to the polls. Students were largely credited with helping deliver narrow victories in Wisconsin to Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore. Their efforts two years ago to defeat a state constitutional amendment barring gay marriage, while unsuccessful, turned out voters who helped Democrats win the majority in the state Senate and come within three seats of controlling the Assembly.

Many of this year's crop of political activists were not even 10 years old in 2000 when George W. Bush won his controversial victory over Gore, and their political awareness dates to the post-9/11 era of wars and political scandal. Obama's eloquence and his promise to take the country on a new path has resonated with young people like no other presidential campaign message in recent memory, prompting a youth turnout in the spring primary in numbers not seen in decades.

In Wisconsin -- expected to be a battleground state -- the latest Quinnipiac University poll gives Obama an 11-point advantage. The efforts of college activists could potentially tip the scales. And with less than 100 days to go before the fall presidential election, the McCain campaign is not yet even a presence on the UW System's biggest campus.

But Nelson said the GOP is not writing off the student vote.

"We just are kind of out there ready to compete with the big students for Obama group in the fall, and we want to make sure we're seen just as much as they are," she said.

Nelson, who has spent the summer in Madison trying to mobilize the McCain effort, knows she's playing catch-up.

"I've been working with my co-chairs when I can to put things together to try to hit the ground running in the fall when people come to campus and start looking to get involved," she said.

The difference between the two campaigns is stark.

Young Republican activists like Nelson have struggled to put together an effective campaign team for their candidate. Those who stayed in Madison over the summer months are working phones for the Republican Party of Wisconsin at the "Victory Center" in Fitchburg.

The Obama campaign, working independently of the state Democratic Party, enlisted young people from around the state and trained them in June at the campaign's "fellowship" programs: three-day training courses in political organizing in Milwaukee. The program gave them the nuts and bolts of campaign work, inspired them to be a part of what they see as an historic campaign, then dispatched them to spread Obama's message of change.

"All my friends have volunteered in some way," Pietrus said last week at a temporary Obama campaign office on East Main Street downtown. "One of my best friends is an intern here, and a few others have been deputized to register voters. People are getting really excited -- people my age. Everybody's been asking me 'How do I get involved?' They're just all pumped up."

Nelson, on the other hand, started the Students for McCain group on her own initiative, and she's had little help from McCain staffers.

"It's definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be," she said.

Students working for the McCain campaign are just beginning to learn the ropes from party operatives.

"We're just really closely tied to the Wisconsin Republican Party, helping them out," Nelson said.

As the McCain campaign works to overcome its underdog status in the state, the Obama campaign continues to expand its grassroots efforts.

According to Matt Lehrich, assistant communications director for the Wisconsin Obama organization, the focus on old-fashioned political organizing comes from Obama himself.

"The notion that this campaign would be a grassroots campaign and one that is very much owned by the people who are involved in it comes from the very top," he said.

The Obama campaign's fellowship program is a way to make use of the energy that has mobilized grassroots efforts since early in the campaign, often even before Obama campaign officials stepped onto the stage.

"In a lot of these states, when you get on the ground as an official campaign staffer, you'll find that there are already people who have been doing this grassroots stuff on their own," Lehrich said.

Some fellows came to Wisconsin from states as far away as Texas, housed by families who support the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The Republicans have nothing like it.

Asked about efforts to enlist youth activists, McCain staffers have been unresponsive. Indeed, unsuccessful efforts to get comment from campaign media spokespeople reveal an organizational deficit that extends well beyond grassroots organizing.

McCain's campaign employs a system of regional communications directors that sometimes results in delayed and confused responses to media inquiries. During a recent call to McCain's national press office seeking comment, a reporter was directed to call Tom Steward, the regional communications director in Minnesota. Steward directed the call to Leah Yoon, the regional director in Michigan.

A Yoon aide returned the call and took notes on specific questions. But he never called back.

In contrast, the Obama campaign is organized, disciplined and media savvy. It has a dedicated Wisconsin field director for the state and has named an organizational staff that includes an executive director, political director and two public relations specialists who take every opportunity to speak to the press.

And in contrast to the failed John Kerry campaign four years ago, the Obama camp has mobilized quick responses to attack ads by organizing media conference calls with high-level state officials and Democratic members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation, including Gov. Jim Doyle, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, that get wide coverage.

In addition, the Obama campaign has opened 15 offices in the state, funded by the campaign and run by paid staff, and plans to have two dozen operating by mid-August. They are central points of operations for interns and volunteers to work phones, organize volunteers and orchestrate events like house parties and rallies.

Republicans, in contrast, are operating five "victory offices" in the state, which are handling the McCain campaign in addition to legislative races.

Charles Franklin, a UW political science professor, said McCain's field organization suffers in other states as well.

For example, Obama has opened 20 field offices in Virginia, a battleground state where a Democratic nominee hasn't won since 1964; McCain has six.

While the McCain campaign might be slow on the ground, it has taken aggressively to the airwaves, running attack ads blaming high gas prices on Obama and accusing him of not caring about U.S. troops.

Franklin said that with his substantial fundraising advantage -- at the end of June Obama reported $72 million cash on hand compared with $26.7 million for McCain -- Obama could meet those ads tit for tat. But he's putting his resources into organizing.

"Field operations really could be more important for Obama, I think, than the massive amounts of TV ads he could do," Franklin said. "McCain, on the other hand, could buy the TV, but he couldn't both buy the TV and the ground game."

Lehrich of the Obama campaign said the six-week fellowship program ended last week, but the campaign will continue to reap the benefits.

"Certainly a lot of the same people will stay with the campaign," he said.

Pietrus, who plans on a career in public service, is one of those who will continue on.

"I figure 20 years from now, I would never forgive myself for not being part of this movement, because I think it's really unique, exciting and pretty much a momentous change for our country," she said. "He's the first politician in my lifetime that has ever really inspired people like this, so I just really knew I had to contribute."

She may be an idealist, but she also understands the Obama campaign's political strategy behind mobilizing young people like herself.

"It's a brilliant move, I think, on the part of the campaign, to get people to commit to the campaign," she said. "I mean, we've worked really hard. We've put in a lot of hours. We've been talking to a lot of people. We've really been putting ourselves out there and I think it's really paid off. I think a lot of people are getting excited. A lot of people are getting involved."

Steven Elbow  —  7/30/2008 4:52 pm