Obama Camp Relying Heavily on Ground Effort

Technology plays a major role. Supporters receive campaign updates via text message and e-mail, and can easily sign up online for Obama groups or any of the dozens of daily volunteer events on each state's campaign Web site. With the organization's "Neighbor to Neighbor" computer program, volunteers can pull up an online list of neighbors to call from home, a particularly useful option for rural supporters.

But the campaign's technological prowess has obscured somewhat the old-fashioned element that lies at its heart: the power of volunteers working together. That is one reason the organization invested so heavily in field offices -- spending $4.3 million on rent and utilities through August -- so backers could have a real entry to the campaign. Some volunteers say it's because of the way that television and the Internet have fragmented daily life that they have taken such satisfaction in the campaign, and gotten such good results from their face-to-face outreach.

Candice Reed sees it in her section of Jefferson County, a former GOP stronghold outside Denver. "Just to say, 'I'm your neighbor, and I live down the hill on Bucks Hill Lane,' right away they have to be nicer to you," said Reed, 37, who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary but decided to volunteer for Obama after a women's event at the party's national convention. "It's easier when you look someone in the eye, when you get in front of people, and they see you're smiling and are super-excited and are spending Sunday afternoon for the campaign with a friend with you."

The McCain campaign said that in many states, it has exceeded the number of calls the Bush campaign made in 2004, and that it saw a surge in volunteers after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became the Republican vice presidential pick. But with many fewer offices, it has a lower profile, and experienced workers say the activity is more muted than in other campaigns. Mary Buestrin, who was the Bush campaign's statewide volunteer coordinator in Wisconsin in 2004, said the McCain campaign has adopted a less formal volunteer structure.

"We're not really doing all those kind of things this time around," she said. "We're all just . . . chipping in where we can."

Yale political scientist Donald Green, who co-wrote the book "Get Out the Vote," says research has shown that face-to-face talk increases a voter's chances of turning out by 7 to 10 percent. If a campaign talks to a third of its hoped-for voters, it can expect to see a 3 percent boost at the polls, he said.

In many states, a final statewide training session was held last week for Obama field organizers, to be followed by get-out-the-vote training for team leaders. In Missouri, about 400 neighborhood teams are set up around the state, each with a goal of getting about 4,000 votes in their area. The hope, said Missouri director Buffy Wicks, is as get-out-the-vote efforts intensify in the campaign's final weeks, the teams will have established themselves enough to deliver the backing that Obama will need.

"If those relationships are strong and those conversations are strong, then we'll weather any negative campaigning that's happening," she said. "That's why this part of the campaign is our strength."

At a training session in Ohio that Obama attended Friday night, the candidate wondered just how much of a strength all the campaign's efforts would prove to be.

"We've been designing and we've been engineering and we've been at the drawing board and we've been tinkering," he said. "Now it's time to just take it for a drive. Let's see how this baby runs."