Republicans tended to run ads on Radio and TV and hope that their voters came out to vote.
2004 was an eye opener for me. First Democrats rarely get many volunteers... Unions volunteer union staff. and they had best volunteer. However the Bush campaign in 2004 had thousands and thousands of volunteers who worked weekends canvasing for votes and working the final 72 hour get out the vote effort.
I can tell you that the Bush effort in Ohio in 2004 was based on getting out the base. The reason was for the first time in memory the so called swing voters had decided to vote and had decided for whom they were going to vote very early in the campaign. Less than 7 percent of the swing voters were still up for grabs in September of 2004.
That left the base and the Democrats who were members of the Religious right as the only potential Bush voters up for grabs. The Bush grass roots effort had people from the same precinct calling potential Bush Voters... to get them registered and get them to the polls. That was unheard of for Republicans in Ohio. It was SOP for Democrats. Except the Democrats had to hire people. Bush had true volunteers. And they were motivated volunteers. The Bush volunteeres were mostly middle class and they were skilled and motivated to get out the vote.
Rove had determined that 70 percent of church members would vote for bush. So huge efforts were made to get church members as volunteers. Those church member volunteers were used to to call all the members of their congregations and ask them to register and vote. There was no attempt to get them to vote for Bush.. Just to register and vote. Rove knew that Bush would get 7 out of every 10 of those votes.
There was a huge effort to canvas Republican precincts. This was done by local people, calling on local people and urging them to vote.
For the first time in my lifetime Republicans had a real grass roots effort. They had a very well organized and effective final 72 hour push to get out the votes for Bush. Volunteers were calling pro Bush people all election day.. to make sure they had voted.
It was an entirely new ball game. For the first time in history in ohio, at least since 1932, that the Republicans out hussled the Democrats.
Some Democrats do not yet understand what defeated them. They put out an effort that should have, in historical terms, given Kerry a nice Ohio victory. But their effort was not enough and Bush's greater effort won the election. Some Demorats are still in denial.
The numbers seem to back up your thesis. Kerry did really work Cuyahoga hard, and Kennedy seems to think Cuyahoga not replicated across the state, as to the swing (except Franklin, which was trending Dem on its own), meant stolen votes. Kennedy does not understand demographics.