Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (312993)	11/1/2002 1:10:27 AM
From: Mr. Palau	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

What do you think about these shady efforts to cajole voters to get to the polls? THE VOTERS Last-Minute Efforts Shift From Talking to Walking By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM ASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Democrats and Republicans are mounting what their party leaders say are their most aggressive drives ever to get voters to the polls, last-ditch efforts that could prove decisive in elections across the country on Tuesday. In Miami, Democrats put on a concert by a gospel choir that filled the Bethel A.M.E. Church the other day and then led 500 people on a short march to the Government Center. There, they cast early ballots for governor and other offices and afterward sat down on the lawn for sandwiches provided by the party. In Colorado, nearly 200 volunteers from the districts of three Republican congressmen with safe seats — Scott McInnis, Joel Hefley and Tom Tancredo — went to the Denver suburbs last weekend to canvass door-to-door for Bob Beauprez, the Republican in a toss-up race in a new district. They plan to go back this weekend and again on Election Day to make sure the supporters they have identified actually vote. "The key to the Democratic Party winning is to get our people to participate," Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the House Democratic leader, said today. Blaise Hazelwood, political director of the Republican National Committee, said the same was true of her party's candidates. "Everything could turn on the last 72 hours," Ms. Hazelwood said. The drives are especially important in an election year with no national theme and many close contests. They are even more crucial because turnout is generally low in years when no presidential race is on the ballot. In 1998, only 35 percent of the voting-age population voted in the general election. In the primaries this year, according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, only 17 percent cast ballots. In recent elections, Democrats have outhustled Republicans in the stretch run. By the Republicans' reckoning, the final opinion polls in Michigan before the 2000 election showed George W. Bush up by one percentage point; he lost to Al Gore by four points. In Delaware, Mr. Bush was up by 4 points in the weekend polls and lost by 13. In Washington State, he went from one point ahead to five points behind. Democrats had last-minute gains in many other states, not just in the presidential race but also in other contests, and not just in 2000 but also in the Congressional races in 1998. "In both 1998 and 2000, the Democrats did a better job of motivating and turning out their voters," the Republican National Committee said last year after a study of what went wrong. "We underperformed in the final stages of the last two elections." Republicans "have relied on fund-raising," said Stuart Roy, an adviser to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the Republican whip. "So we buy our phone banks, direct mail and ads and sit back the week or two before the election and wait for the votes to come in." Meanwhile, Democrats and their labor union allies, Mr. Roy said, "walk the precincts, and we've lost elections because of that." Republicans have vowed they will not be outdone this year. The busloads of volunteers for Mr. Beauprez in Colorado were organized under a program started by Mr. DeLay called Stomp, for Strategic Task Force for Organizing and Mobilizing People. Republican lawmakers with safe seats in many other states are also sending their volunteers to help candidates in tough races in neighboring districts. The Republican National Committee has been working all year on what it calls the 72-Hour Program, a concentrated, state-by-state, district-by-district drive to identify potential voters so they can be contacted over the last weekend and shepherded to the polls on Election Day. Ms. Hazelwood said Republicans tested a three-step plan in the governors' elections in New Jersey and Virginia last year. Though the Republican candidates lost, the plan was considered so successful the party is using it in about 30 states this year. It involves canvassers' knocking on doors early in the election year to find out what issues voters care about. In the weeks before the election, party workers, some of them college students paid $50 a day, return to the same doors to advocate the position they know the voters favor. On Election Day, these people will be visited again or called to make sure they vote. nytimes.com