Molly Ball, journalist at The Atlantic, has written a fantastic piece comparing the excellent Obama ground game with Romney's lack thereof.
Ms. Ball compares the two campaigns' ground games in three main ways:
1. Numerical amount of offices
2. Intensity of support
3. Function of offices
First off, as Ms. Ball points out, Obama has way more campaign offices in "The Big Three" states of Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. (Btw, I think it's awesome that Pennsylvania is now blue and no longer one of the Big Three).
Florida Campaign Offices
Obama 106
Romney 47
Ohio Campaign Offices
Obama 131
Romney 40
Virginia Campaign Offices
Obama 61
Romney 30
She also points out how different the intensity of support is in the different offices. For instance, Obama campaign offices are filled with Obama bumper stickers, signs, and campaign literature, whereas the so-called Romney offices are more devoted toward local RNC candidates.
But the difference isn't just quantitative, it's qualitative. I visited Obama and Romney field offices in three swing states -- Ohio, Colorado and Virginia -- dropping in unannounced at random times to see what I could see. There were some consistent, and telling, differences.
Obama's office suite in Sterling was in an office park next to a dentist's office. The front window was plastered with Obama-Biden signs, the door was propped open, and the stink bugs that plague Virginia in the fall crawled over stacks of literature -- fliers for Senate candidate Tim Kaine, Obama bumper stickers -- piled on a table near the front reception desk. In rooms in front and back, volunteers made calls on cell phones, while in the interior, field staffers hunched over computers. One wall was covered with a sheet of paper where people had scrawled responses to the prompt, "I Support the President Because...", while another wall held a precinct-by-precinct list of neighborhood team leaders' email addresses.
Only about a mile down the road was the Republican office, a cavernous, unfinished space on the back side of a strip mall next to a Sleepy's mattress outlet. On one side of the room, under a Gadsden flag ("Don't tread on me") and a poster of Sarah Palin on a horse, two long tables of land-line telephones were arrayed. Most of the signs, literature, and buttons on display were for the local Republican congressman, Frank Wolf. A volunteer in a Wolf for Congress T-shirt was directing traffic, sort of -- no one really seemed to be in charge and there were no paid staff present, though there were several elderly volunteers wandering in and out. The man in the T-shirt allowed me to survey the room but not walk around, and was unable to refer me to anyone from the Romney campaign or coordinated party effort.
This, to me, is stunning. The Romney campaign and the RNC have stated for months that they were going to run a better campaign and ground game than McCain, but I'm not convinced that they have. True, Republican enthusiasm is higher than it was four years ago, and certainly these Romney offices are working to elect Romney through a certain level of voter outreach. But, this article leaves me with the impression I have had of the Romney campaign in general since the beginning: There is no plan.
Ms. Ball goes on to discuss how the different campaigns' offices actually function and how the Romney campaign has handed over the entire ground operation to the RNC.
These basic characteristics were repeated in all the offices I visited: The Obama offices were devoted almost entirely to the president's reelection; the Republican offices were devoted almost entirely to local candidates, with little presence for Romney. In Greenwood Village, Colorado, I walked in past a handwritten sign reading "WE ARE OUT OF ROMNEY YARD SIGNS," then had a nice chat with a staffer for Rep. Mike Coffman. In Canton, Ohio, the small GOP storefront was dominated by "Win With Jim!" signs for Rep. Jim Renacci. Obama's nearest offices in both places were all Obama. In Canton, a clutch of yard signs for Sen. Sherrod Brown leaned against a wall, but table after table was filled with Obama lit -- Veterans for Obama, Women for Obama, Latinos for Obama, and so on. The Obama campaign uses cell phones exclusively, while the Republicans use Internet-based land line phones programmed to make voter calls. Every Obama office has an "I Support the President Because..." wall, covered with earnest paeans to Obamacare and the like.
In a technical sense, the Romney campaign actually does not have a ground game at all. It has handed over that responsibility to the Republican National Committee, which leads a coordinated effort intended to boost candidates from the top of the ticket on down. The RNC says this is an advantage: The presidential campaign and the local campaigns aren't duplicating efforts, and the RNC was able to start building its ground operation to take on Obama in March, before Romney had secured the GOP nomination.
"The Romney campaign doesn't do the ground game," Rick Wiley, the RNC's political director, told me. "They have essentially ceded that responsibility to the RNC. They understand this is our role." The disadvantage of this is that the RNC is composed of its state Republican Parties, which vary dramatically in quality. States like Florida and Virginia have strong Republican operations, while those in Iowa and Nevada haven't recovered from attempted takeovers by Ron Paul partisans, and the Ohio GOP still bears the scars of a protracted leadership fight earlier in the year.
To cede the ground game entirely to the RNC is a horrible decision. That is why the Obama campaign wanted to have its own decentralized ground game from the very beginning of Obama's candidacy several years ago. It's all about voter to voter contact and the different nuances of the localities in which each campaign office operates.
Here is a choice revelation from an anonymous Republican operative about Colorado:
Some Republicans admit that the ground game is a weakness for the party. In Colorado, one top GOP consultant who has worked on presidential campaigns told me he mentally added 2 to 4 points to Obama's polls in the state based on superior organization. In Florida, GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart said Republicans would win in other ways: "They're very organized. They're very, very organized, and you have to admit they're very organized," Diaz-Balart said of the Democrats. "However, I think Republicans are very motivated."
Our superior ground game, I believe, more than anything else will carry us to victory on election day.
Here is a link to this must read article: http://www.theatlantic.com/...