RNC memo claims 2012 ground game has already surpassed 2008

Washington Examiner ^ | 09/24/2012 | Conn Carroll

[Stonewall Jackson]

Here's what I was able to find.

[Thunder90]

If you include the Recall election in Wisconsin, we are at 15x more calls and 10x more doors than 2008.

[Zhang Fei]

McCain took the public matching, so he COULDN’T afford that kind of ground game.

I've come to think of McCain as a not-very-intelligent person who has very strong convictions. It's not that he's ignorant - it's that he's incapable of learning. That lack of ground game gave us big Democratic majorities in Congress and Obamacare.

[UltraV]

Well,it’s not 2008.

[UltraV]

Hey, they have cocktail parties to be invited to! Don’t you care about their social lives inside the beltway? What do you want, for them to stay home alone? There’s nothing more important than being considered cool by the In People. Not even the state of the country is more important!

[SaxxonWoods]

So, the point, if I just have to spell it out, is, “why is it so thrilling that our ground game is better than it was last time we lost”?

Nobody said it was thrilling, but it’s good. Mormons are the masters at door knocking, chill out.

They got this. Stop being a media victim.

[nathanbedford]

Thanks, Old Blue Light,

These data are fascinating. Although on the table you presented the Democrat advantage in November, 2008 was 7.6 and evidently on its way to 8.8 in December, nhwingut has the 2008 figure at 5.7 but perhaps he has a different source, although Rasmussen must be consistent one would think.

It is clear that the trend in party affiliation as polled by Rasmussen is unquestionably on the up swell for Republicans. The last headline from Rasmussen that I saw said that the Republicans were edging the Democrats in voter preference for Congress by one percentage point which seems to somehow confirm the trend.

Do we know what percentage Rasmussen is polling Republicans as distinguished from Democrats and independents? I thought I had heard that he was favoring Democrats by 2%? By his own numbers he should be favoring Republicans as at August (the last month on the chart) by 4.3% and, according to nhwingut 4.6% this month (October?).

I wish I knew how Rasmussen was adjusting his polling among Republicans, Democrats and independents? Failing that, we can take 4.6% away from most of the push-poll polling results to get close to a more accurate figure. My fear is that Rasmussen is already taking 4.6% away from Democrats and still coming up a point or two short for Romney.

The problem for me is that Rasmussen who is certainly aware of the 4.5% bulge for Republicans still does not record Romney ahead nor does he have Romney performing well in the electoral college which this bulge would almost certainly produce.

Notwithstanding this confusion, we can also be reassured that this trend is supported by the trends showing decreasing Democrat registration and increasing Republican registration in all of the swing states that register by party affiliation. Although the absolute numbers, except in Colorado, count against the Republicans the trend is toward Republicans which is indicative of intensity as well as party affiliation.

[RKBA Democrat]

There was zero ground game in 2008. Or 2004. So by definition having any ground game this year greatly exceeds what happened in those years.

Credit where credit is due: willard does have a ground game. And it’s reasonably well organized and efficient.

[tanknetter]

There was zero ground game in 2008. Or 2004.

2004 had a very good ground game by the Bush/Cheney Campaign.

I remember in the afternoon some of the presstitutes started claiming that Ohio was going for Kerry and one of the Bush Campaign GOTV leaders (I think it was Ralph Reed) was on the radio saying the clams were BS because the Bush Campaign had met/exceeded their GOTV numbers there.

2008 did indeed suck, but there was a lot of talk that McCain, ever the "independent/maverick" decided not to reuse the Bush operation. Romney has been criticized for being the "Bush's candidate" this cycle, but right now that's a good thing if he's got and is using the 2004 playbook.

[LS]

In 08, the McCain team took the Rove/Bush 2004 ground game and cut it in half. Obama doubled it. As best I can tell locally here in OH, we have doubled Obama's effort. It's extremely impressive, and In contrast I'm seeing no Obama ground game. Now maybe I'm looking in the wrong places---I haven't looked under rocks yet.

But there is no lack of organization or effort here.

[LS]

Not to beat my drum---because a number of Freepers remember how off I was in 2008---but here on FR in 2008 I had just come back from poll flushing at 10 a.m. and knew we were reaching our targets, only to find Drudge and the drive-bys citing "exit polls" saying Kerry won. I had to calm people down. When I went for the second poll flushing at 4, we knew the red turnout meant Bush had already won--- but the drive-bys continued.

so what happened in 08? We hit our turnout numbers and 20% voted for Obama. Don't think that will happen this time around.

[rwfromkansas]

“go back and deliver an advocacy message to those we have already located, tailored for specific issues and demographics. This is a process that continues through Election Day.”

This targeting/niche campaigning is one thing that did Obama much good in 2008.

Nice to see the GOP/Romney campaign picking up on what worked for him and also doing their own thing as well. Nice memo.

[rwfromkansas]

Is the tea party still a big factor in this election? I haven’t really heard much about them. (referencing Kolath’s post about their ground game.

I pretty much expected the tea party has vanished as a major force, at least compared to 2010. But, I would hope that’s not true.

[Kolath]

yes....no longer having rallies but now hitting the streets and the phone banks (GOTV).

Not just them but AFP, FW and AM.

[rwfromkansas]

I believe new numbers will be out at the end of the month for partisan ID. Hopefully will trend more GOP or stay even. If trend more Dem, will be a bit concerned but we’ll see. Other data out looks very good.

[BeauBo]

I have lived in Northern Virginia (the battleground part of this battleground state, due largely to immigration) for about fifteen years. This year was the first time a Republican has ever come by to knock on my door, Democrats are here every cycle.

I went to a Romney rally in Fairfax a couple of weeks ago, and stood in line for a half hour to get in. Other folks were saying that it was an unusually big turnout for the area.

I have volunteered as a poll watcher. At a recent training, I heard that the Republicans are exceeding their recruiting goals.

Game on you commie @$#*@&^#^$&*@*ers!(Continued on back)

Obama Must BE Defeated!

[nathanbedford]

I am standing on shifting Sands and it is maddening:

1) according to the chart kindly cited by Stonewall Jackson, Rasmussen is talking about, "Summary of Party Affiliation" and this chart tells us that as at the last month, August, Rasmussen has party affiliation for Republicans as at August 31, 2012 at 4.3%.

Interestingly, Rasmussen has party affiliation as at August 2010 at – 1.2% and as at November, 2010, at 1.3%.

[Obviously if party affiliation is now running at three times the advantage we had in 2010, we would expect to perform even better than in 2010, all things being equal. But of course, all things are never equal for example this is a presidential election year and that was a midterm cycle. Nevertheless, are we not entitled to say that turnout for Republicans will be robust because if people are polling as "affiliated" with Republicans they are more likely to come out and vote for Republicans?]

If we attempt to compare election cycle apples to election cycle apples we see that in August 2008 Rasmussen has party affiliation polling at – 5.7% for Republicans and 7.6% in November on its way to 8.8% in December.

[So we do have a flip of over 10% in Republicans favor since 2008; Are we not entitled to simply strip away from any polls those points which do not reflect Republicans up 7.6%?]

2) Dick Morris in a column which appeared on these threads yesterday said that Rasmussen was the most accurate because he takes a rolling average of party affiliation in weighting Republicans vs. Democrats vs. independents among those whom he questions. Frustratingly, Morris does not tell us what these data are or have been. Nor does he explicitly state that Rasmussen is actually polling according to these numbers. Implicitly, Morris seems to except Rasmussen's numbers which show Romney either tied or slightly behind in the critical swing states.

3) I am not sure when we attempt to adjust these polls from various polling organizations if we are mixing party "affiliation" with party "identification" (whatever that difference might be) and party "registration" (which presumably means actual official data concerning people who have publicly identified themselves for the government).

4) finally we have Rasmussen providing polling data on congressional preference which the last I saw showed Republicans up 1% but they had recently lost a rather favorable lead.

The upshot of all of this is that very difficult to know what we are dealing with.