The GOTV Boogeyman

12:47 pm EST October 20th, 2006 | Democrats, Republicans | Comments Off

This is one of the dragons that must be slayed. Clearly, the Republicans have a good mechanism for getting out the vote. It worked wonders for them in 2004. The lesson that should be learned from that is that we need to do a better job on the Democratic side. What shouldn’t become a deeply held belief is that Republican GOTV is some kind of magical voodoo. It ain’t.

Consider this report from Virginia on the eve of the 2005 gubernatorial election.

Like the Democrats, Republicans say their get-out-the-vote, or GOTV, plans are secret. In a race this close, they say, every little advantage helps. And there’s no advantage in telling your opponent where you plan to look for your best voters.

“Millions” is all Kilgore campaign manager Ken Hutcheson says when asked how much money his campaign is spending on turnout efforts. Overall, his campaign has raised $22 million, more than any governor’s campaign in state history.

But Kilgore and his campaign aides say their efforts are modeled on those Bush employed to drive new voters to the polls in 2004. Experts say that both parties did a good job of turnout in that election but that Republicans were better.

“We’ve ramped up our efforts in Virginia to make sure we … find all those like-minded voters who might not otherwise get out to the polls,” Kilgore said. “We know how to find our voters.”

Mehlman, who led the Bush turnout effort, is helping to coordinate a similar one for Kilgore. The Virginia campaign has had almost 10,000 volunteers working at points throughout the year, Hutcheson said. They’ve identified 2 million voters who are likely to vote for Kilgore, and they’ve touched 1.5 million of them with 1,215,137 phone calls and 277,016 doors knocked on.

The key, Republican sources said, is to target voters in places Republicans normally don’t go. Past campaigns would not have spent time trying to turn out a precinct in Alexandria where 80 percent of the households are Democrats. Now, with the new databases, they can target the 20 percent who are likely to vote Republican.

Even Democrats are impressed — and a bit worried.

“The Republicans do a good job of identifying the vote and making sure it gets delivered on Election Day,” said Rep. Rick Boucher (D). In his southwest Virginia district in 2004, Boucher said, “I think they got just about every Bush vote available.”

Two days later.

Virginians elected Democrat Timothy M. Kaine yesterday as the state’s next governor, choosing him to continue the centrist legacy of popular Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) and rejecting the Republican candidate for the state’s top job a second time in four years.

Kaine, 47, emerged ahead of his Republican rival, former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore, 44, who had worked for months to convince voters that Kaine was too liberal for the conservative state. Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. (R-Winchester), who ran as an independent, trailed far behind the major-party candidates.

Ok? Hard work, not magic.