Ground Game

Jets Get a Crack at 10-0 Titans — If a win against the banged-up New England Patriots is a statement game, what would a road victory over the undefeated Titans be for the Jets? Wouldn't they love to find out! The Jets travel to Nashville to face the team that ripped off their old nickname in a battle that could be a playoff preview. The Titans are 10-0 and do it with a ground game, a controlled Kerry Collins and a stout defense. The Jets are 7-3 and do it with some strong defensive play, a ball-control offense built around a rebuilt offensive line and an easy schedule.... [Tags: brett favre, ground game, jets, kerry collins, last thursday]

Not Just Me — A chorus of voices is demanding a new direction for national gay politics, which will require, at a minimum, the removal of the current, failed "leadership". Chris Crain calls for a federal civil unions bill, backed by even Sarah Palin in the veep debate, supported by majorities in polls - but simply unthinkable for the Human Rights Campaign, whose agenda has not changed since the late 1980s. I wonder what Steve Hildebrand is doing next year. He was the genius behind Obama's ground game, a gay guy, and crazy in the best way. We have the talent. We just don't... [Tags: 1980s, chris crain, civil unions bill, gay guy, gay politics]

GA-Sen: Al Gore to stump for Martin, AFL-CIO goes in as well — Bill Clinton was the first major Democratic figure to step into the Georgia runoff, but he won't be the last. His Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, has joined the fray on behalf of Orange to Blue Democrat Jim Martin: Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate in the contentious Georgia Senate runoff, is getting a big Democratic name coming into the state for him: Al Gore, who will be going to Georgia on Sunday, a Martin campaign source confirmed to Election Central. Martin is still the underdog against incumbent GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss, but this race remains on the... [Tags: afl cio, al gore, battleground states, campaign source, democratic candidate]

Last Night's Action: Moving Right Along — Giants 30, Ravens 10: The Giants have a great rushing attack, and they don't let anyone forget it. On Sunday, they ran for 207 yards in a one-sided affair. Ahmad Bradshaw had nine carries for 96 yards and Brandon Jacobs had 11 for 73 and two touchdowns. Eli Manning was a mediocre 13-for-23 for 153 yards, but who cares? The ground game and the defense did the rest. Each week, the Giants face a test -- this week's was the Ravens' stingy rush defense -- and they come out passing with flying colors. Mavericks 124, Knicks 114: A 19-2... [Tags: ahmad bradshaw, brandon jacobs, eli manning, flying colors, giants]

North Carolina newspapers - yesterday's front pages — NC Press Asociation's front pages from Wednesday. Due to narrow margin - about 12,000 in Obama's favor - the state has to count all the provisional ballots (which usually favor Dems) and all the mail-in ballots (mostly from the military personnel abroad - who knows who that favors any more!). There is little chance, though, officials and statisticians say, that the additional counting will reverse the order, but the official business has to be done in an orderly way. Unofficially, North Carolina went Blue this year. This will become official in a couple of days, I guess. How? Large influx... [Tags: biotech industries, carrboro, durham chapel, elizabeth dole, front pages]

Jan Herman: The Morning After — Now that America has elected a black fist bumper to the presidency, take a look at the newspaper he has in his hand. Take a close look. The photo, shot during the election campaign, shows him carrying the Wall Street Journal. As everybody knows, the Journal's editorial page falls somewhere between Barry Goldwater and Attila the Hun. It is even further to the right than Bill Kristol, the doofus whose unreadable, once-a-week column was added to the opinion pages of the New York Times to "balance" its so-called liberals. Nevertheless, it is the Journal in a column this morning by... [Tags: attila the hun, banking industry, barack obama, barry goldwater, bill kristol]

Proposition 8 — What a night of contrast, going from celebrating the first African American president and the defeat of another anti-abortion ban in South Dakota, to the narrow victory of the hateful and bigoted Proposition 8 in California. It seems that in the culture wars, we're winning on race and abortion. The new front lines are gay rights and immigration. Immigration took a back seat this cycle (thanks to McCain's wobbly status on the issue), and the one race in which it played a huge role -- PA-11 -- embattled incumbent Democrat Paul Kanjorski survived a spirited challenge from hateful anti-immigrant activist... [Tags: abortion ban in south dakota, american president, best solution, bigots, black president]

Joe Scarborough: A Republican Official Told Me Last Week It's Over, Obama Won — Florida resident Joe Scarborough talked about Barack Obama's incredible get-out-the-vote initiatives in his home state, replicated nationwide, with David Gregory on election night at 5:30 pm. Quoting a top Republican official in Florida he spoke with last Friday, Scarborough said, "Forget about it. The race is over. Barack Obama won it and he won it early." He added that Obama's 7-week campaign to get-out-the-vote buried any attempts by McCain to win with a 1976-style 72-hour effort. He called the difference between Ken Mehlman's ground game in 2004 and McCain's lackluster job this year "stunning." WATCH:... [Tags: attempts, barack obama, david gregory, election night, florida resident]

Open Thread and Diary Rescue — Tonight's Special "all fired up and ready to go" Rescue Rangers are shayera, jlms qkw, grog, dadanation, with vcmvo2 editing. ~ Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase ~ Martin Luther King, Jr ~ The diaries up for rescue this afternoon are: dday looks at The Power Of The Ground Game - The Bet Pays Off. (shayera) bearfootin reminds us why we vote as we do in this touching memoir: He Was a Progressive Republican. (vcmvo2) Troutfishing warns us of some folks who won't go away Wednesday morning in Palin Prayer Group Leader... [Tags: boji, favorite diaries, fundamental issues, ground game, group leader]

The Ground Game — From New Hampshire: This morning I awoke to find hanging on my front door an Obama-Biden-Shaheen mailer reminding me to vote, and, after voting this morning, at 2:00 PM ET, I have already been personally checked up on twice by Obama/Democratic volunteers who have knocked at my door. If this is what is happening nationally, it is very impressive.Colorado:I work from home and have just talked to the fourth Obama GOTV person in three days - this on top of a door hanger and a few phone calls.... [Tags: biden, door hanger, ground game, new hampshire, obama]

In Ohio, Obama's Ground Game Outguns McCain's — Reporting from Delaware, Ohio -- John McCain has targeted this wealthy area just north of Columbus as one of 15 counties in Ohio where he needs to drive up his vote tally if he is to beat Barack Obama on Tuesday in this must-win state. But on Friday night, only nine volunteers manned the 24 phones in the McCain campaign office. The phone bank began operating on a daily basis just two weeks ago. And since then, only five people have shown up on most weekdays to canvass local neighborhoods.... [Tags: barack obama, campaign office, counties in ohio, daily basis, delaware ohio]

GOPer: Where Is McCain's Virginia Ground Game? — A McCain-backing law student in Charlottesville emails, slightly demoralized: I've been called by the Obama Campaign 20 times in the past week, along with at least one mailer on the door every day and several personal visits. Not a single thing from the McCain campaign.... [Tags: charlottesville, ground game, mccain campaign, personal visits, single thing]

Conservative On Canvassing For Obama — There has been a lot of speculation that Barack Obama might win the election due to his better "ground game" and superior campaign organization. I had the chance to view that organization up close this month when I canvassed for him. I'm not sure I learned much about his chances, but I learned a lot about myself and about this election. ... I've learned that this election is about the heart of America. It's about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It's about those who have worked all their lives and... [Tags: barack obama, campaign organization, doorways, faces, grandchildren]

FiveThirtyEight.Com: More Than Just Numbers — From the beginning of the campaign, the people behind Barack Obama's bid for the presidency have been pretty adamant that one should expect big things from their ground game. They'd be up in all fifty states, socially networked, plugged in, and microtargeting their way to success. At about the same time, I started wondering, "Well, that's all well and good, but who's going to cover the story of the 'ground game?'" It's precisely the sort of story that flies underneath the typical campaign coverage. Besides, the press does a fine job cataloguing all manner of activity, but when it comes... [Tags: all fifty states, barack obama, campaign coverage, campaign work, colleague]

Obama Shoots for an Ohio Win with a Final Day in the State — By Shailagh Murray COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Seeking to lock down a big electoral prize, Sen. Barack Obama is spending a full day of the two that remain in Ohio, a state that has taunted Democrats for the past two election cycles. Campaign officials are confident that their ground game here is far more potent than the organization John Kerry fielded four years ago, when he lost Ohio to President Bush, 51 percent to 49 percent,...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.... [Tags: barack obama, campaign officials, columbus ohio, democrats, election cycles]

Peter J. Ognibene: The Obama Ground Game In Northern Virginia — Alexandria, Virginia--For the past week, I have been a small cog in the rather large wheel of the Obama Ground Game that is stealthily rolling across the northern stretch of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, Alexandria, with a population of 140,000, has long been a bedroom community for people who work in the nation's capital. You can get a sense of the city's political inclination by a quick glance at past elections. Though the city went for Reagan in 1980, we have gone for the Democratic nominee every time since and will no... [Tags: alexandria virginia, bedroom community, best buy, box retailers, city neighborhoods]

Obama's Secret Weapons: Internet, Databases and Psychology | Threat Level from Wired.com [del.icio.us] — The controlled chaos of Obama's ground game owes a debt to the civil rights and farmworkers' movements of the past, as well as lessons from the 2004 campaigns, and an organizational-team theory developed by Ganz and colleague Ruth Wageman, a psychology professor at Harvard, in a recent project for the Sierra Club.... [Tags: campaigns, civil rights, colleague, controlled chaos, ground game]

WY-AL: Lummis (R) pulls ahead — Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/27-29. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (10/14-16 results) Lummis (R) 49 (43) Trauner (D) 45 (44) Oof, that sucks. What's happening here? First of all, the 21 percent of Republicans who were undecided two weeks ago are making up their minds. While Lummis was at 65-14 with Republicans last poll, she's now at 72-21. That means those undecided Republicans are splitting 50-50 between the two candidates. Pretty good for a Democrat, but not good enough since Trauner's 58-33 lead among independents is now 53-41 -- a 13-point net drop. Our own fundraising efforts have allowed Trauner... [Tags: actblue, barbara cubin, daily kos, four points, fundraising efforts]

McCain Can't Afford Bush's Ground Game — Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee will unleash a barrage of spending on television advertising that will allow him to keep pace with Sen. Barack Obama's ad blitz during the campaign's final days, but the expenditures will impact McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts, according to Republican strategists. ... The vaunted, 72-hour plan that President Bush used to mobilize voters in 2000 and 2004 has been scaled back for McCain. He has spent half as much as Obama on staffing and has opened far fewer field offices. This week, a number of veteran GOP operatives who orchestrate door-to-door efforts to get... [Tags: ad blitz, barack obama, barrage, expenditures, gop]

Your Daily Polling Crack — Courtesy of Nate Silver:Number one, John McCain is NOT closing Obama's margin as quickly as he needs to (if indeed he is closing it at all). This appears to be a 6- or 7- point race right now ... that's where we have it, that's where RCP has it, that where Pollster.com has it. In order to beat Barack Obama, John McCain will need to gain at least one point per day between now and the election. Our model does think that McCain has pared about a point off Obama's margin -- but it has taken him a week to... [Tags: barack obama, budget, crack, double digits, ground game]