As a comparison between the Obama and McCain campaigns, I just signed up at JohnMcCain.com to see what opportunities there were to volunteerv. Like the Obama campaign, they’ve got a “phonebank from home” script that you can use, though their script is incredibly dull :

Election Day is Tuesday, November 4th, and John McCain is the only candidate with the experience we can trust to bring real change to Washington and get our economy back on track. Can we count on your support on November 4th? The race is shaping up to be extremely close, and your vote will make a difference. Please remember to vote on Tuesday, November 4th for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

John McCain and Sarah Palin will bring real change to Washington. They are the only ones with a plan to get our economy back on track and lower our gas prices. They’ll reform Washington and Wall Street, fix our economy and break our dependence on foreign oil, which will cut prices at the pump, help keep our families safe and move our economy forward.

When I signed up from California, they have me calling Nevada. If I’m going to be making a long-distance phone call, why not have me call Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, or North Carolina? Seems like a wasted opportunity. When I signed up at BarackObama.com, I could make calls from home to Ohio, Colorado, or Virginia, with calling campaigns aimed at an eleven additional states.

When I looked for McCain/Palin events near me, here’s the only item that appeared :

Marathon Runners for McCain

Monday, November 03, 2008
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm
PASADENA, CA

As John McCain has demonstrated to us all in his life, success is an enduring marathon of a commitment to moving forward, not a short sprint to the finish as we see with Barack Obama. Come run with pride with us and with your favorite McCain-Palin gear on as we support our candidate with the same determination he has shown us, in a five-mile run in the heart of Pasadena.

No phone banking, GOTV, canvassing, or other gatherings that might actually convince people to vote for John McCain. Just a “fun run” for the status quo. By contrast, when I signed up to volunteer for Obama, the closest gathering is a phone bank from Caltech that will be starting at 6AM and be doing two hour shifts throughout the day with the goal of reaching 20,000 voters by 5PM. Like with the phone banking, the Obama campaign has distinct targets and realistic goals and isn’t using its organizing tools simply as a way to help supporters hang out while waiting to lose.

My favorite thing about “volunteering” through John McCain’s site is when I initially sign up and click the link to “Deploy as a McCain Volunteer”, the link leads to an application. That’s right, you need to apply to help the campaign. And even before you fill out the form, you’re told :

If selected, you will be volunteering on behalf of McCain-Palin 2008.
. . .
If accepted, you will be required to arrange your own transportation to the deployment city. You will not be reimbursed for your transportation, but may spend no more than $1,000 of your personal funds due to federal campaign finance regulations.

Given this lack of local campaign opportunities and a screening process to even volunteer, is it any wonder that McCain/Palin campaign offices around the country are empty?

Offices in Troy, Ohio were closed on Saturday October 11. With perfect coincidental timing, two elderly women dropped by to volunteer but found the office shut. At Republican state headquarters in Columbus later the same day, one lonely dialer sat in a sea of unoccupied chairs. In Des Moines on September 25, another empty office. In Santa Fe on September 17, one dialer made calls while six chatted amongst themselves about how they didn’t like Obama. In Raleigh this past Saturday, ten days before the election with early voting already open, two women dialed and a male staffer watched the Georgia-LSU game. In Durango, Colorado on September 20, the Republican office was locked and closed. Indiana didn’t have McCain Victory offices when we were there in early October.

When the offices are open, they have reduced hours. We can confidently plan to get evening good-light photographs of a town after we visit the local McCain office, because we know it will be closing by 5 pm, as the office in Wilmington, North Carolina was this past Sunday. The plan is, get to inevitably closed/closing McCain office, get an hour of photos near sunset, then visit the bustling local Obama office.

When you’re doing as poorly as McCain is in the polls, the only thing that can save you is a massive GOTV effort. Thankfully, I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about that.

In these last few hours before the election, one thing that’s really been nagging at me has been Obama’s “Appalachia problem” from the primaries. As Josh Marshall described it in May :

There’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama’s problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama’s problem isn’t with white working class voters or rural voters. It’s Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he’s getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.

My memory of those primaries, particularly Ohio and Pennsylvania, was that in the polls leading up to the primaries, Obama was running behind, but was still competitive. When the voting happened, however, Obama was trounced at the polls, giving us the closest look at a “Bradley effect”. This also corresponded with viral videos and news reports from these states of ignorant voters being quite candid about how they could never vote for an African-American. If I have one thing keeping me up at night, it’s the fear that some hidden pocket of racism in these two swing states will swing the election to John McCain.

But before we freak out, let’s take another look at the polling that led up to the OH and PA primaries :

Yes, Obama ended up losing both states, but the final results for Penn. and Ohio were 55% – 45% and 53% – 45% respectively. If you compare the final tallies to the polling, the conclusion isn’t that Clinton peeled away support from Obama, but that the undecided voters overwhelmingly sided with Clinton. Considering that these primaries coincided with the nadir of Obama’s popularity (Rev. Wright, the 3AM ad, etc.), the final result wasn’t too shocking.

Fast forward to today, and we’re in a much better position. The McCain campaign has been trying one sleazy trick after another without any of the success that Clinton had in the spring. Obama has consolidated his base and (so far) successfully executed an electoral strategy beyond the simple-minded “blue states + Florida or Ohio” that those living in the DC bubble would have waged. And the polling? Well, if we use the primaries as a guide and assume that Obama’s stated support is solid and it’s just a matter of where the undecideds land, then we’re golden :

Clinton’s luck of having the undecideds break away from Obama at a 2-to-1 margin won’t be enough to save McCain. Even if McCain wins ALL of the undecideds from these polls, he still loses. For McCain to win these states (which are his only realistic chance to win the presidency) the polls either need to be completely wrong or Obama’s support needs to collapse.

Needless to say, I’ll be doing everything I can to make sure the latter doesn’t happen. I’ll be waking up early tomorrow to spend a couple of hours phonebanking before going to work. Are you planning to volunteer? It’s not too late to sign up.

Help make the final push over the finish line by donating and/or volunteering for the Obama campaign.