Campaign '04: Fighting For Every Last Vote

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The Bush campaign this time set about to rectify that with a plan they say will actually prove more effective than the better-financed Democratic operations. "It's a bit of a culture shock," says a Republican official of the sustained and face-to-face commitment they are asking of their volunteers. "Some are used to just writing a check, and that's it." Much of the organizing is being done through churches. The campaign stirred up some controversy earlier this year when it began asking its recruits to turn over their church directories. The Bush strategy, road tested in some key congressional and gubernatorial elections in 2002 and 2003, relies far more heavily than the Kerry plan does on volunteers, who are given what amounts to sales quotas and are expected both to sell the candidate and recruit more volunteers. "Think creatively about other people who may not be registered," reads a campaign e-mail. "Do you have a Christmas card list? Or sing in a church choir? Are you a member of a veterans' group? What about the other parents on your child's soccer team? Have you touched base with your old friends from school lately?"

THERE'S NO BETTER PLACE TO SEE THE ground war in action than in central Ohio. With its 20 electoral votes, Ohio is one of three states--along with Pennsylvania (21 votes) and Florida (27)--that commanders in both campaigns believe will determine the outcome. Win two of the three, they say privately, and the race is over. Ohio has special symbolic significance for its near-perfect record for picking winners in presidential elections. The campaigns and their allies have spent $72 million bombarding Ohio voters with political ads that have been shown some 82,000 times on television since March more than in any other state, according to figures by the nonpartisan Campaign Media Analysis Group. Nowhere in Ohio is the race more hard-fought than in Democratic-tilting Columbus and the ring of six reliably Republican counties that surround it. "It could well be that whoever wins the Columbus media market wins the state," says Steve Rosenthal, the head of ACT who has spent more than a few days walking precincts there. "And whoever wins Ohio, well ..."

Which is why Monica Frost, a single mother leaning on her neighbor's beat-up Nissan in a black neighborhood north of downtown, knew exactly why Cosby Lindquist, 27, was heading up the walk one sunny afternoon last week with a Palm Pilot in his hand. It was not the first time she had talked to someone with "this little computer thing." Lindquist pressed a button and handed it to her as an image of Bush appeared on the screen and an announcer listed how many African Americans had lost their health coverage and their jobs in the past four years. "You think that will affect your vote?," Lindquist asked hopefully. "Would you be interested in being a block captain?" By the time Lindquist left, Frost said she would consider being one.