GOP's GOTV Machine

You can understand the optimism among Florida Democrats heading into election day. They see an unpopular president and war, three highly vulnerable Republican congressional seats, and the strongest ticket of Democratic statewide candidates in years.

But wait.

What most Florida Democrats don’t see is the mighty Florida GOP machine revving its turbines. Nowhere in the country are Republicans better at the nuts and bolts of winning elections than click here.

Florida, a state where the GOP will spend at least five times as much as Democrats on voter turnout. To read full story,

Comments

Im resting my hopes for the national republicans keeping the congress on this, which i still doubt they will. As for the state, the GOTV effort will probably get Crist and the GOP cabinet members into office.

It may help Buchanan in district 13 win, and Shaw in district 22, but i place no faith on district 16 staying GOP.

[Gene Smith]

The GOP GOTV machine needs its volunteers to get it into high gear. They get a huge number of volunteers from the so called "values voters". Those are the exactly the voters who are turned off by the Foley scandal and the subsequent coverup. These same voters are disillusioned by the prospects for Katherine Harris in the US Senate race. They are likely to decide that they would be better served being somewhere else this 72 hours.

You can have the best machine in the world, but if it has no fuel, it might as well be just a piece of junk.

[Imadashell]

THE PRECINCTS IN BROWARD ARE VERY BUSY.We went to vote yesterday and the line was out the door.The south florida voters just got a flyer from the gop.THEIR INSURANCE BILLS !!! Thats the kind of flyer that will kill the GOP efforts to heard its brain dead drooling neocon supporter to the poll.DUH.pull R stay the course"Next year we will jack the premiums higher"With flyers from state farm..nothing else matters .Are the flyers PINK!

[zenator]

Gene:

Except for a couple of Congressional races, the Florida election seems petty much over.

Nelson wins big and the Dem's also probably pick up the Foley seat. The picture at the ste level also looks fairly clear.

As you presumably are aware, Davis and the FDP are prety much broke. As evidenced by the mostly non-existent TV campaign. As your lowly zenator predicted, Crist is now using his huge monetary advantage to go negative in order to suppress Davis' soft Dem supporters. And, it is working. The polls are consistently showing that Crist's lead is once again into the double digits and trending upward.

Down ticket, Campbell and Sink, are reportedly unhappy b/c they know they cannot win unless Davis holds the Crist victory margin to 6% or less.

Zenator,

Are those internal polls? Im waiting for Survey USA latest poll, it should be due out 2 days ago, but havent seen anything. Do you really have internal access to that information? I seriously am asking, not joking.

[Gene Smith]

Zenator,

As one of our friends on the blog is so fond of doing, here is the RCP average and the polls that make them up.

RCP Average 10/16 - 10/22 - 47.3 41.3 10.0 Crist +6.0
Quinnipiac 10/18 - 10/22 816 LV 46 44 8 Crist +2.0
Rasmussen 10/17 - 10/17 500 LV 46 41 13 Crist +5.0
Mason-Dixon 10/16 - 10/17 625 LV 50 39 9 Crist +11.0

As I have stated before, I place more signifigance on the polls field dates than a moving average of polls. As the field dates move from latest to newest, the trend is clearly in favor of Davis.

So, I don't buy into your poll analysis, and neither does RCP. I don't know where you are, but I am seeing plenty of issue comparison ads from Davis on TV in the Tampa Bay market. We have not yeet seen a post-debate poll. Should be very interesting.

Gene, RCP still ignores other polls they dont like, Cromer, Strat vision, AIF. When you figure those in, Crist is up 9% average. You have to include them all, unless they are proven to be false.

Quinnipiac is far more out of line than cromer or strat vision with the consensus. I had talked about this before, they clearly had a bad sample favoring democrats, as the senate race has Harris down 35%, when NO other poll has her down more than 26%.

[Gene Smith]

RCP ignores thos polls for a reason. They are not "independent" polls.

Gene,

I agree they arent independent, but Cromer is actually a democrat pollster, hence the same polls showed Sink and Campbell up that showed Crist up 11%. (which is the same as mason dixon)

Strategic vision, though partisan, if you research their history, they are very accurate, and I have democrat bloggers who continuously analyze polling and internals, and he agrees that in Florida and Michigan strat vision pollsters are VERY accurate.

He questions the pollsters doing their polls in the states of NJ and WA, but agrees they have been smack on in FLorida and Michigan.

You weak-ass Dems are about to get a lesson on organization. The machine is warming up and directions are in hand. It’s been a fun ride for you guys, but your stop is coming up. Prepare to get off.

You’ll pick up two seats at best. Reality is about to smack you dead in the face.

Gene, you couldnt be more wrong.

The Rep volunteers are NOT put off by the foley scandal. We are smart enough to realize these situations can happen to either party and HAVE (Dems with stubbs). To me its the way a party handles a situation like this that is important. When Reps realized we have a problem we get rid of it. You Dems on the other hand re-elect it and then are subsequently outraged, as if this had never happened to you before, when Reps have a similar problem.

2 things drive us even harder at times like this. We believe our party does the RIGHT thing and handles situations like this correctly and your HYPOCRISY that is in evidence every day. You are our fuel and lets face it, we'll never run out of that. We dont want you to govern us and that is a very powerful force for us who work all day and volunteer Every Night and Weekends.

If i were a Dem Volunteer and saw your hypocrisy during the Foley coverage, thats when I'd STOP VOLUNTEERING and believe me the American people see it too.

10:11 - YOU ARE WRONG. REPUBLICANS ARE DISGUSTED BY FOLEY. IT IS DEPRESSING TO SEE AND KNOW OUR LEADERS KNEW ABOUT THIS. IF YOU'RE NOT UPSET NOW YOU WILL BE SHOULD HE BE CONNECTED TO CRIST AND FASANO.

10:45 ALL CAPS

Of course we are disgusted by Foley. Foley, not anyone else. Foley has nothing to do with other republicans, including Crist. Even the pollsters including liberal Zogby showed that voters dont care about the Foley thing pertaining to voting. So leave your BS comments at home. We are discussing FACTS on this site.

Gene:

Your lowly zenator's poll numbers are current and correct.

As for money, why don't you call your contacts over at Davis HQ and ask them how much they are spending statewide for TV buys thru the week end. As you and I both know, b/c TV buys are pretty much booked in advance, both sides know exactly what is being spent.

Ten days out. The national money flow now goes to the candidates that have a real chance to win.

BTW, Gene, I suspect that you and your fellow the Dems will have a lot to crow about on November 8 regarding Congress, possibly the senate, certainly a few Governorships, such as NY, Mass etc.

Hey Dems, George Soros called.
He isnt coming to fund your efforts this year.
Every offyear your FDP says they are "really going to upgrade technology" and "we are light years ahead of last cycle" and every election RPOF kicks your ass.

Just received this.

October 27, 2006

Dear Chairmen, Committee Men and Committee Women:

With just 10 days until the November 7th election, we must remain focused on Victory.

Republicans face great challenges this year and we must remain committed to electing those who will keep our taxes low, continue accountability and measurement in the classroom, and provide for the safety and security of our families. If we do not do this, Floridians will suffer at the hands of those who wish to turn back the clock to the days of failed policies.

This is a close race and Attorney General Charlie Crist is counting on you for your support, for your commitment and for your heart. Our opponents are fighting hard and we have to fight harder.

We are Republicans and we are at our best when we stand together to spread our message. As a former REC Chairman, I know that you are "where the rubber meets the road". I am asking today for your help to energize your members and volunteers to make the final push to get the job done. Everyday we must ask ourselves, “Have I done all I can do today to ensure Victory on November 7th?” Have I made certain that every door has been knocked on, that every call has been made, every absentee ballot been returned, and every yard sign distributed?

If we can all honestly answer yes to these questions at 7:00 p.m. on election day, then Charlie Crist will be the next great Governor of the state of Florida, and we will have elected a Republican Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer and Agricultural Commissioner that we can all be proud of!

Thank you for all that you have done, and all that you will do in the coming days,

George LeMieux

"George LeMieux"?

Isn't he a hockey player? What is he doing involved in the Republican party?

Oh yeah, the Republicans have "pucked" everything up, and Foley is in the penalty box because he was high-sticking a page.

billions are spent on political campaigns. all the while, so much of our infrastucture is rotting. keeping power seems to be so much more important than improving the quality of life.

[Carol]

Anyone who makes any decision based on the ads you see on TV, is nuts to begin with. One is more disgusting than the next when they are trying to demean the other party.
How nice it would be to use that money for good!?! Ha, like any GOP member would even consider it!!! What a shame this is what our country has become!!!!

Hey Carol, try about 85% of voters base their decision on TV ad, mailers, newspaper endorsements. Why do you think that although every politician talks about how bad they are and how they wish we could just focus on the issues… every stinking one of them does it? Why?… because they work. As sad as it is to say, they work.

Until we take the corporations out of it, it will continue.

Republicans do have a great system for getting out the vote. They will get out the vote of registered Republicans, but they will not see the marked ballots that are mailed in. A lot of those ballots are going to include votes for Democrats in certain key races. A lot of Republicans are getting tired of what they've been seeing in Tallahassee and in Washington (not to mention Bagdad).

Yes 929, you are the same poster who was emailing in 2002 about how the revenge factor was going to take out Jeb, the evil brother of the election stealer, and everyone was coming out to vote against Jeb.

yes, RPOF $15.00 an hour