By Al Giordano

 

ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA; OCTOBER 5, 2008: You watch a presidential candidate on TV or on the Internet in front of cheering crowds, reported by national and international media.

You see him frame the day's message through his words.

You read the headlines...

Obama: McCain "Running Out of Time"

And...

Obama in Asheville to Hit McCain for Adviser's "Turning a Page on This Financial Crisis" Remark

And...

Obama accuses McCain of sordid attacks amid economic peril

If you think such messages seep into the political datasphere simply because a candidate announces he'll be at a place at a specific time, and invites ten or twenty thousand supporters show up to cheer, and he just talks and the media dutifully writes it all down and films it, think again.

Today's Obama appearance - like all the others with big crowds that have taken place during this campaign - involved hundreds of trained volunteers and dozens of intensely prepared staff members.

When you gather tens of thousands of people together, so many things can go wrong that can either trip a candidate off his message of the day, or leave local supporters disheartened or feeling abused as props, or miss opportunities to organize all the people who show up to expand and get out the vote on and before Election Day.

Like any presidential campaign, Obama's has an advance team: staffers that go from town to town ahead of the candidate to make sure these events go as planned, without distracting or harmful incidence and for maximum organizing impact.

They build a stage, erect risers for the TV cameras, pitch a tent for the traveling press, wire a mega sound system and, in case of a cloudy day or a nighttime event, put up lights so that thousands can hear and see the candidate in the flesh, and millions more through the media.

They strategically locate placards with slogans - "CHANGE THAT WE NEED" - and "visuals" - in today's case, as in other places, some bleachers erected behind the podium so that cheering supporters can be seen behind the candidate, and a four-story American flag draped down a school building to which allegiance would be pledged - in order to reinforce the message that will be spoken.

Before the candidate arrives, the microphones and teleprompter are tested, the campaign posters are fixed in position... and those are just the easy parts of the set-up.

The harder part could be called "herding cats."

You've got thousands of supporters, but many of them haven't thought a whit about how to package a message through the media for mass public consumption. And all of them have their own human needs when they wait and stand for hours under a hot sun. They include children and elders and everybody in between. Most of them want to get as close as possible to the candidate, touch him, speak with him, take his photo up close.

Today, The Field attended its umpteenth appearance by a presidential candidate this year, this time paying special attention to how these massive events are put together. For that, too, will soon become part of the ground-level history of the 2008 campaign: The Organizing of The President ^TM.

On the Saturday night before the event, the Obama staff convened more than 200 volunteers for a t raining session at the Asheville High School basketball arena, next door to the huge football stadium where the candidate and his supporters would convene on Sunday.

Two national staffers - a young woman (her name, either Polly or Paulie) and a young man named Frankie - trained the volunteers for the various jobs that would need to be done to pull the event off effectively.

One team would work the parking lots: they would instruct those arriving that they couldn't bring in pets, chairs, umbrellas, signs or banners. They would direct the disabled and the press toward their separate entrances. They would inform the smokers of the school's anti-tobacco policy ("buy Nicorette," yours truly took a mental note). And direct them toward the entrance, where twelve Homeland Security airport-style "MAG" machines (you know them as metal detectors) would check each and every attendee's belongings under the watchful eyes of law enforcement agents.

The Secret Service would, of course, be on hand. Its job is to protect the candidate. But there were many other public safety and security tasks that federal, state and local police agencies would be present to handle. Members of the school's ROTC corps would also be helping out at the entrances.

Other teams would work the lines of people waiting to get in, making sure that each attendee filled out a ticket with his and her name, address, and contact info, to be used in the get-out-the-vote drive ahead. Each ticket would come with a stub that the supporter would be able to take home as a souvenir.

They instructed the volunteers that as members of the campaign team they must decline press interviews during the event, wear "official" campaign tee-shirts if they had them, and that "playground rules" applied: "No running, no shouting," since either activity is the sort that can spread panic in a crowd.

Members of the public would be allowed to bring cameras or video equipment and, as they entered the stadium, would be asked to turn the devices on to prove that's what they are. No tripods would be allowed outside of the cordoned-off press area.

Another team would be assigned to "ADAs" (acronym-speak for the Americans with Disabilities Act): to escort and aide people in wheelchairs, on canes, or with other needs, guide and bring them along the school running track to a special seating area by the side of the stage. They were to treat these rally-goers as "the most important attendees" and show them every courtesy.

Another team would be assigned to the press, to guide us toward a specific area, and keep us out of the general population (the press area abutted various sectors of of civilians and there turned out to be plenty of access to interview the folks). "We like the press," explained the national staffer. "We just want to like them in one place."

Two teams of "ushers" would be stationed throughout the stadium and at each entrance and exit point between sections. They were given smart instructions on how to direct people into the 7,000 bleacher seats on each side of the field; one row at a time, and by section (and at today's rally, that's exactly how it happened).

Another team would be responsible for staffing and refilling "water stations" throughout the stadium, to keep the crowd hydrated as it waited three hours under a the beating sun. All volunteers were asked to keep an eye out for anybody that might be looking feint, to get water to them, and, if need be, escort such a person to a seated area.

There were instructions on how to deal with protestors (it turned out there were none inside the stadium, just a few McCainiacs that never made it inside the gates) and coaching on how to get an enthusiastic Obama supporter to give up his homemade sign (this, they said, would be a tougher task than dissuading protestors).

The advance team from the national staff had arrived the day before the event to build the stage, bring in 500 chairs, the sound system, hundreds of yards worth of temporary barriers, and other such tasks. Volunteers were recruited to help unload the chairs and barriers into the night. All volunteers were to report at 9 a.m. to their posts for an event that would open its gates at or shortly before noon.

At almost two hours into the Saturday night training session, the 200 volunteers broke into those groups, each with designated team captains, to begin a walk-through of their tasks.

On Sunday morning and afternoon, every single team complied with its task flawlessly, with the exception of whatever police agency decided to put only a dozen metal detectors at the entrances. Only about 10,000 of the people made into the stadium before Obama began his speech shortly after two p.m.. The Asheville police estimate 28,000 people inside or trying to get into the venue today.

Many who stood on line for hours and didn't get in were at least able able to see and hear the event, as the line formed from up a big hill overlooking the field.

An additional group of volunteers - that did not attend Saturday night's training session - walked up and down the long lines of people heading into the stadium. They brandi shed clipboards and asked everyone if they were registered to vote or needed to update their voting addresses. And they registered hundreds of new voters.

You see these events on TV, or in the next day's newspaper, or maybe on YouTube, and it's a sound bite or two about Obama clocking McCain over wanting to tax people's health care benefits and shift the subject from the economy.

But a mass event - if it goes well, as it did today - is much less simple than it appears.

If good organization wins elections (and it most certainly does), I'd say that the Obama campaign in Western North Carolina is poised to turn at least two "red" counties "blue" on Election Day, and perhaps a few more.

When we get done investigating and crunching the numbers, you'll be among the first to know.

Update: We saw today, again, the intense investment of the Obama campaign in a "red" state that until a week or two ago, the hotshot political reporters thought wasn't even a battleground state, much less capable of turning "blue."

Well, well, well: Guess where Obama is headed, first thing, after Tuesday night's debate?

The Indiana State Fair Grounds in Indianapolis.

All this playing of offense has got to be driving the McCain camp bat crazy. While they pull back to defend a shrinking list of swing states, Obama's advancing into enemy territory, where he'll force his rival to spend resources he doesn't have to defend "red" states that are no longer in the bag for the Republican.

Update II: Jonathan Martin, meanwhile, is doing an excellent job of reporting the denouement of McCain in Michigan and Virginia. Such is the epidemic of Chicken Little-ism. Many Republicans, never inoculated, are succumbing. (And none of their bloggers have figured out the coveted recipe in the cure!)

"How on earth are we to get people to work for McCain here, when he has already, publicly, in the media, given up on Michigan?" says one GOP leader up there.

“He didn't take threat seriously soon enough,” said a GOP leader in Virginia.

Tomorrow is the last day for new voter registration in both states. It will be interesting to see how the final results might bring more panic.

By Al Giordano

Last night I left from East Lansing, Michigan (we'll update you soon on the fascinating story of how a firewall was constructed from below up there) and have now landed in Asheville, North Carolina (through Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee without a single speeding ticket!), where Senator Obama will make an appearance on Sunday.

Before heading out on the prowl to case the joint, I checked the piggy bank and you folks - the best readers in the world - have already kicked in $772.16 since last night toward our $1,500 goal (we hope to meet it by tomorrow at noon) to keep this reporting on the road in North Carolina over the next week, where voter registration doesn't end until October 10. Thanks! Let's get the rest in: The kitty is here.

And, wow, these Great Smoky Mountains are breathtakingly beautiful.

If you've got info from the ground in North Carolina - with its 15 potentially game-ending Electoral Votes, email me: narconews@gmail.com

To be continued...

Update: Obama, in a "surprise" visit to Asheville tonight: "People said, 'What's he doin' comin' so often to North Carolina?" More interesting than his talk is the emotion in the crowd. This is what it feels and sounds like all over town so far...

Commentary from one who was there:

We went to a similar dinner of the party faithful (the Ramsey dinner) a few weeks before the NC primary, and the atmosphere tonight could not have been more different. Back then, we literally felt like pariahs in the room - there were maybe 20 of us with Obama buttons on in a room with 500 people Tonite - everyone was on a major high when Obama strolled in - it was like a rock concert.

I got some interesting info tonight, which will have to wait for posting tomorrow. Nothing urgent, but from the standpoint of community organizing, I know you 'll enjoy it.

Update II: Check out today's Citizen Times, the local daily newspaper here in Asheville, for live updates on today's Obama rally and how it's such a big deal locally.

By Al Giordano

 

"I have a vested interest; children and grandchildren," explained Michael Reese, driving the Obama shuttle in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday morning. His poster-festooned SUV had already transported 25 Ohio State University students other Obama supporters to cast early ballots at the Veterans Memorial Park Amphitheater downtown on Tuesday morning, and returned them to the corner of 17 Street and North High, where volunteers in an Obama campaign office queued up the next group.

It was only the First of October - five weeks before "election day" - but in Ohio, the voting had begun.

"I think the Obama campaign has successfully sold the idea that this is the most important election of our lifetime," Reese - former political action director for the Ohio NAACP - told The Field, after letting your reporter ride shotgun along the way. We pulled up to the pick-up site where two youths - one, an OSU student and part-time campus policeman, the other a neighborhood kid - are waiting to be taken to vote, along with a Japanese film crew who also hop aboard to film the ride.

At the early voting site - there's one in each of Ohio's 88 counties - a steady trickle of voters arrived, mostly without assistance from any campaign, to cast early votes now allowed under Ohio law. An unregistered voter could sign up right there; with an address in the county (which will be verified by mail), a form of ID, or simply by writing the last four digits of her Social Security number on the application. In the two-step process, once registered, the voter fills out an application for an "absentee ballot" - no reason needs to be given - and is handed a long two-page ballot for national and local officers and state ballot questions. It all goes quickly and efficiently: there are 58 booths waiting for the voters to fill out their paper ballots.

The crowd here in Columbus is - according to an unscientific survey taken by The Field as they exit from voting - overwhelmingly Obama country; nineteen voters told me they had voted for Obama, and just one - a middle aged white man in a tie - wouldn't say ("I voted for the one who will win," is all he said). There were various Obama vans coming in and out of the parking lot, dropping off voters, and none visible for McCain on this second day of early voting.

Ben Piscitelli, public information officer for the county Board of Elections, told The Field that on September 30, the first day of early voting, 808 Franklin County residents had voted in Columbus, 72 of those which registered to vote on the same day.

Since Franklin County represents roughly ten percent of the population in Ohio, let's multiply those numbers by ten: that could mean more than 8,000 early ballots cast on the first day out of 36 Election Days between now and November 4: and about 720 of them could be newly registered voters. The door slams on new voters next Monday, October 6, and the race is on to find them, scoop them up, and get them registered and voting in these final days before the deadline.

The contest in Ohio, according to polls, is extremely close. Survey USA (one of the pollsters we find most accurate) polled on September 28 and 29, and found McCain ahead by one point: 49 percent to Obama's 48.

The two candidates are in a virtual tie among Independent voters (Obama 48 percent, McCain 46), efforts to persuade voters are mostly over: very few haven't already decided. And so it is a turnout war, plain and simple, in this swingest of swing states with a whopping 20 Electoral Votes.

Republicans had sued to stop the one-step register-and-vote process that is new to Ohio elections, but were rebuked by the courts last week.

And so in Ohio, it's game on. It's already Election Day. And every day is Election Day through November 4.

From the ground here in Ohio, it feels like winter in New Hampshire or Iowa every four years. A volunteer, hearing me introduced as "a reporter from New York" comes up to introduce himself as a fellow New Yorker that came to Columbus to help get out the vote. Bruce Springsteen will come to OSU and give a free acoustic concert on campus for Obama on Sunday. TV personalities Seth McFarlane (creator of "Family Guy") and Adrianne Palacki (star of "Friday Night Lights") return to their birthplace of Toledo today to campaign as hometown kids made good for Obama. DNC chairman Howard Dean's mother is up in Youngstown with a team of out of state volunteers, while Teamsters Union president Jim Hoffa led a truck caravan through the state - yesterday they were in Cincinnati and Dayton - to fire up the members (see video of Hoffa's pitch at one workplace, here). It's a full court press to register every last eligible voter by Monday and get them to vote early.

A group called the Vote Today Ohio PAC is rounding up the homeless at shelters and soup kitchens and bringing them to register and vote. Right-wing toadies like John Fund of the Wall Street Journal are feigning outrage over the idea that homeless folks can vote, transparently queuing up false charges of "fraud" in case Ohio rejects McCain and to blunt outrage over GOP voter suppression tactics in Florida and elsewhere. (To argue that a homeless person shouldn't be able to vote seems, to this writer, the ultimate in cretinism; especially given that current economic policies have led to tens of thousands of home mortgage foreclosures here in Ohio.)

Despite the frenzy of activity and the Obama campaign's visible advantage in the early voting lines, there are some causes for pause, too.

The in-person early voting is going to be dwarfed by absentee voting by mail: Hamilton county had received 55,320 mail-in absentee voter requests as of Thursday. Fourteen thousand had come into Fairfield County, and twenty thousand into Butler County (which in all of 2004 had only 16,000 absentee ballots). Those are Republican counties won by Bush in 2004.

And while the steady stream of early voters is clearly - at least in Columbus and Dayton, where The Field inspected the early voting sites - pro-Obama, it can seem a little underwhelming, like "ant's work," as they come to the polls one and two at a time.

Yet in a contest as close as that in Ohio, "ant's work" is what gets the job done. It's hand-to-hand combat out there for every last vote. And it's going to be that way for the next exhausting four-and-a-half weeks. This week - what has been proclaimed as "Golden Week" by the Obama campaign, in which people can register and vote on the same day - appears like it will bring up to 50,000 voters, maybe 5,000 of them new ones, to the polls. (Bush defeated Kerry in Ohio in 2004 by 118,599 votes.)

It's that tight in Ohio.

It will not shock your correspondent at all if those 20 Electoral Votes come down to just one person's vote.

Update: Don't miss Katie Halper's hilarious review of last night's VP debate, below this post!

I'm sitting in Michigan State University's Union Hall eavesdropping on a training for students who will be fanning out to register voters at the annual Homecoming Parade (and subsequent bar crawl) tonight, the latter of which I'll be especially sorry to miss because...

Tonight I'll get back on the highway and get as far south as I can en route to North Carolina, where I'll be reporting from Obama's newly announced appearance in the mountains of Asheville on Sunday afternoon. I'll be mainly on the road all day Saturday to be able to get there on time. From somewhere in Carolina I'll file my Michigan report (impressive stuff in a state that remains fired up and ready to go).

Meanwhile, the addition of North Carolina onto our reporting itinerary is definitely busting the budget we had raised for Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, so please, if you can, drop a coin or two into the cup, and let's see if by the time I trek these 700 miles and get there on Sunday we raise another $1,500. I'll let you know (so far you always have). Thanks (and later I'll report to you, also, on the great Field Hands we've met along the road).

Update II: The Fox News interview with Palin - in which she's asked about the McCain campaign's pulling out of Michigan - is a doggone hoot (wink, wink). She says:

"I read that this mornin' also, I fired off a quick email and said, ‘oh, come on. Do we have to? Do we have to call it there?' Todd and I, we'd be happy to get to Michigan and walk through those plants of the car manufacturers. We'd be so happy to get to speak with the people there in Michigan who are hurtin' because the economy is hurtin'. Whatever we can do, and whatever Todd and I can do in realizing what their challenges in that state are, as we can relate to them and connect with them and promise them that we won't let them down in the administration. I wanna get back to Michigan and I wanna try."

Okay, I'll bite: Since McCain himself famously doesn't know how to use email, just to whom exactly is she sending the email? Or does part of her job as running mate include receiving her own email on McCain's behalf? Does she then tell him, "John, you got an email this morning! It was from me! Here's what it said!"

And I love the suggestion that if only "Todd and I" could sit around the kitchen table with the entire population of Michigan she could somehow accomplish what McCain and she, together, didn't accomplish in Grand Rapids when they visited there early last month. Read between the lines, and she's kind of backhand slapping McCain as out of touch with the workin' folk (wink), ya know?

By Katie Halper

And I thought last week's debate was laden with homo-eroticism. Well, the sexual tension at the VP debate last night was so thick, you could drill it with a drill. Could Palin and Biden share a sordid side-- and a sexual history? Who could blame Sarah for falling for Biden's charms? He is, after all, the real VPILF. (See the Biden Bonability story I broke.) It may be an Obama/Biden versus McCain/Palin race. But last night we got served a steaming hot Biden/Palin sandwich, on the side.  Here are the best sexually charged inappropriate moments of the debate.

By Al Giordano

Or will it be the Palin v. Palin debate?

And does Patty Solis Doyle have the remote control electro-shock collar tested and working around Biden's neck?

Two of the people on stage - moderator Gwen Ifill and Governor Palin - will be in casts! (Psssst: Hey, Gwen, Break a leg! See ya at the cast party afterwards!)

All kidding aside, tonight is all about whether Governor Palin can convince 51 percent of Americans that she's capable of being commander in chief.

Biden - whether they like him or agree with him or not - has nothing he has to prove on that point. Even if Jumpin' Joe makes one or more of his famous gaffes, he's always been kind of adorable when that happens; his errors don't tend to be hateful or malicious. People forgive him, sometimes even identify with him, for them.

But one serious misstep by Palin, and it will lead to widespread questioning of McCain's judgment.

He's the one on trial tonight, not his trainee.

Make your predictions and place your bets! The freak show starts in ten minutes!

Update 9:04 p.m.: Mic caught "Hey, can I call you Joe?" as the nominees shook hands. Biden opening statement goes first: "Governor, it's a pleasure to meet you and a pleasure to be with you at this debate."

9:23 p.m.: I'm noticing a trend on the CNN focus group opinion dial-o-meter: When Biden speaks about economic policy, women lo ve what he's saying, whereas men go flat. Interesting how a gender gap forms, early in the debate, in response to this debate opposite the gender of the person speaking.

9:44 p.m.: The CNN focus group meter (of "undecided" voters in Ohio) shows a vast opposition to the war in Iraq. It's the first issue that shows a clear divergence in the responses to each candidate. Interesting...

10:03 p.m.: "Bosniacs!" (Joe's first adorable gaffe of the debate!)

10:18 p.m.: Oops. "Bosniaks" isn't a gaffe (except that calling it a gaffe now is my gaffe - I hope I have Biden adorability while saying it!)

10:22 p.m.: Biden just did an anti-gaffe! He teared up worrying about his kid in the war, talking about being a single dad. The meters - male and female - went to maximum. That's the part of the debate that the media will play over and over again.

Post Debate Update: The first hard data is in:

CBS NEWS/KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS POLL
(Uncommitted Voters who watched the debate)

46% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Joe Biden was the winner. 21% thought Sarah Palin won, 33% thought it was a draw... 98% after the debate saw [Biden] as knowledgeable (79% before the debate). 

Now, don't the media talking heads look (again) like the morons they are?

Update II: More hard data:

CNN/OPINION RESEARCH CORPORATION POLL

DEBATE WATCHERS

Who Did the Best Job In the Debate?

Biden      51%

Palin      36%

QUESTION Regardless of which candidate you happen to support, who do you think did the best job in the debate - Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?

Interesting, no?

Update III: Here's where he earned his nomination...

 

 

By Al Giordano

Wow. I was literally pulling into Ann Arbor, my first stop in the state, when it came over CNN on the XM car radio: McCain giving up on Michig an.

The Republican nominee has cancelled all visits, gone dark on the airwaves, and is reportedly running for the hills pulling his staff out of the state.

Remember that this was one of the first places McCain visited with his running mate after the Republican National Convention.

Once again, it shows what field organization can do (and bodes very well for Obama in Florida, the other state where he didn't get a primary so had to play catch up on voter registration and the ground game this summer and fall; now, that's a state that McCain can't afford to abandon).

I'm going to stick around for a spell - with stops in East Lansing and Detroit, too - make sure it's for real, and, if so, report the story of how it happened that one month before election day a firewall got built from the ground up (and maybe take a nap, and get my Ohio report and assessment to you while I'm here).

Psssst, Senator: Did you hear we're heading to North Carolina next? 

Also: We will, of course, be live-blogging the Biden-Palin debate from here tonight. 

Update: We have to remain somewhat suspicious about this. Just because McCain leads the press to believe he's pulling his campaign out of Michigan, doesn't mean that he is. I mean, it was just last week that he said he was "suspending" his entire campaign and pulling ads off the air and stopping all fundraising activities, and it turns out he did none of those things. Just sayin'.