On the Ground in Colorado, Campaigns Move at Different Paces

PUEBLO, Colo. -- Silver Salazar is a Democrat and onetime backer of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who ambles through this working-class city in a T-shirt that says "McCain for Our Future." He is eager to build support among "veterans, Hispanics and the Democrats who were for Hillary," but he finds himself waiting for reinforcements from the campaign of Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party.

"Right now in Pueblo, I'm the only one. I'm working out of my house. I'm waiting for Victory to come in," said Salazar, a retired steel company manager, referring to the coordinated GOP campaign operation.

Dave Dill, Pueblo County Republican Party chairman, said that "in Colorado, McCain's guys got a late start." He added that he is getting little help from the campaign headquarters in Denver. "Right now, there are three McCain yard signs that aren't spoken for, and they can't tell me when I can get more."

There is more to a presidential field operation than yard signs, but Dill's frustrations echo the experiences of other GOP officials in Colorado, who say the McCain campaign has been slow to muster the foot soldiers often considered essential to vote-getting operations. The effort reflects a very different approach to campaigning than the vast grass-roots push by McCain's rival, Sen. Barack Obama.

While McCain's smaller operation is relying on county chairmen and about a dozen field operatives paid for by the Republican National Committee, Obama is building an independent operation with scores of staff members. Obama opened an office here in May, a month before he locked up the Democratic nomination.

Republican staffers say they are not worried. "We're running a much more efficient campaign," said Michael Britt, executive director of the Colorado Republican Party. Noting the microtargeting that helped the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004, when it appeared a GOP victory could have been in jeopardy here, he said: "We've done it before. We're a couple of cycles ahead of them on the ground game. That's why they're spending so much money."

Preparing for the general election, which neither candidate can win without scoring well among independents, the Obama campaign moved in early. On a single day in early June, volunteers registered 975 new voters. Two weeks later, 140 supporters scattered across the state to begin six weeks of unpaid duty.

Victory lies in the details, Obama staffer Jenn Watts told three dozen supporters who attended an organizing meeting in Aurora soon after Obama clinched the nomination -- a full five months before Election Day. She spoke of the handwritten thank-you note, the ear for a fresh idea, "the tiny touches that you wouldn't think matter."

"Sir, can I help you update your voter registration or sign up for a mail-in ballot?" campaign worker Galen Thompson asked a shopper the next day outside a Jefferson County supermarket.

The man barely broke stride. Thompson explained that four signed cards in a three-hour stretch is a success. "There is no real trick to this," he said. "It's just putting in hours."

That is the strategy that Obama field organizer Keagan Buchanan and his colleagues carried to Pueblo, a historically Democratic town where the steel industry was once dominant. To build support, the campaign has had the luxury of dangling tickets to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Under a model that was effective last year in Iowa, when the prize was a ticket to see Oprah Winfrey, volunteers can score better seats to Obama's Thursday speech by working two three-hour shifts for the campaign.

Buchanan says he works 15-hour days. On a recent weekday afternoon, half a dozen Obama workers were on telephones, contacting potential supporters, while over at Pueblo County Republican headquarters, someone had to unlock the door so Salazar could do an interview with a reporter.