Victory HQ

Yesterday I paid a visit to the John Mc Cain campaign's New Mexican headquarters located here in Albuquerque. The reason for my visit was to somehow tip the balance of my reporting on my blog and the radio documentary I'm doing for Trinity FM. While I was expecting a bunch of bible-bashing conservative Christians, I was very pleasantly surprised.

The atmosphere in the headquarters can only be described as 'folksy', to use a very American adjective. Upon arrival, I was welcomed at the front desk by a middle-aged American mom who was extremely friendly and helpful. She introduced me to the chief organiser who again was very welcoming. He invited me to have some food which was laid out in the volunteer room where there was a modest army of volunteers making campaign calls. While I was there, the campaign staff held a raffle for the volunteers. Top prize was a Mc Cain - Palin yard sign with various other prizes such as car bumber stickers, badges etc. It was like a church fete!

News travelled fast that I was Irish and all of a sudden I had loads of people come out of the woodwork to tell me about their Irish roots. It was all very good humoured.. apart from a woman who was embittered by the Democrats' claim to represent the African American community. As she put it, Lincoln, a lifelong Republican, had freed the slaves and she was vehement that Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican, something which is strongly upheld by the National Black Republican Association. In a country where partisan divisions have been blurred throughtout its brief history, it is hard to tell who say who is telling the truth. As one Obama supporter said to me though it is without doubt that Dr. King would have supported Obama's candidacy. I tend to agree.

And while the atmosphere was certainly very folksy, the paid staffers were wary of me because they saw me as a media person. I wasn't allowed conduct any interviews with staffers or volunteers on the record nor was I allowed take any close-up photographs. They scheduled an interview for me with the Communications Director for the south west region of the Mc Cain campaign.

I interviewed the lady in question, Yvette Barajas this afternoon. A confident and well prepared young woman, Yvette was very on top of her brief. She didn't stray once from the party line and refused to divulge any sensitive camapaign strategy. When I asked her what she felt Sarah Palin added to the campaign, she told me that Palin had concrete answers to the ailing American economy. Her experience as a mayor and governor would lend her an insight into middle America, an essential for Vice Presidents and indeed Presidents. While I was obviously not swayed by Yvette's mastery of PR, I can see how other people would be.

With five days left in the campaign, the Mc Cain camp seem to have an uphill struggle on their hands. From seeing the Obama campaign from the inside, I don't see how Mc Cain has a hope of winning. This is America though where we're told anything is possible.

Michelle

Today I met Michelle Obama. As part of the final push to get people out to vote before Election Day, Barack and Michelle have been campaigning separately to cover more ground in the key swing states. New Mexico along with 33 other states allows people to vote early i.e. any day in the fortnight leading up to the general election so as to avoid long queues on Election Day. As the Obama campaign feels that it can only win on a high turnout, they have been really pushing people to vote early and that's what I have been mainly doing these past few days in my volunteering efforts.

So the official title of the event I attended was the "Early Vote for Change Rally". It took place in Las Vegas, New Mexico, a relatively poor Hispanic town of around 15,000 inhabitants in northern New Mexico. Here is an excerpt from her speech.

To compare Michelle's oratorical abilities to Barack's would be unfair but she is an extremely charismatic speaker in her own right. She is very personable and no matter how large the crowd is she makes you feel like she is speaking directly to you. Not only that, but she has an innate quality of being able to appeal to all sections of society.

After she spoke, I began analysing what she said and she managed to "tick all the boxes" to put it in crude political strategy terms. She convincingly played the part of caring mother, devoted wife, proud daughter, concerned citizen, hard-working career woman and quite frankly, future First Lady. Always a fan of Hillary Clinton, I can say with conviction that Michelle Obama came across as wholly genuine in a way that Hillary is incapable. It truly was a sight to behold. Here is a video of her close up where I got to shake her hand.

The Houdini Project

One of the things that impressed me most about the Obama campaign the last time I was here was the high level of organisation provided centrally by campaign HQ in Chicago. I was amazed at how they were able to coordinate such a disparate group of supporters to achieve very effective and tangible goals. Most analysts attribute this success to Obama’s background in community organising which he seems to have adapted to a national scale. While I’m sure he was behind the initial campaign strategy, it is without doubt that he has highly astute organisational specialists and political scientists working on his behalf to direct the organisation.

The latest manifestation of this superior organisational machine is the Houdini Project. The Houdini Project aims to track voter turnout on a real time basis over the course of Election Day. To simplify, the campaign will be able to tell if one of the people who said they’d vote for Barack has actually turned up at their local polling station to vote already.

And how do they do this? The secret is manpower and an extensive voter database. To start off with, the campaign inherited massive databases of the electorate from previous elections. Combined with voter registration records, campaign volunteers have been able to contact people on a targeted basis, already knowing their age, sex, address, telephone number and party affiliation before speaking to them. Over the past few months every time a voter has been contacted, any more information garnered has been added to their ‘profile’ to make a super-database.

Armed with this, the campaign will be sending volunteers into all strongly democratic polling stations as well as some of the marginal ones to monitor who turns up to vote. At regular intervals throughout the day, the information will be returned for data processing. On the basis of this, those that don’t turn up to vote will be called to be reminded to do so either over the phone or directly to their door by other volunteers. If they need a lift, that will be provided too.

The sheer extent of the machine is mind boggling. How it is able to extend all of its tentacles into every far flung electoral precinct in every battleground state is overwhelming. The campaign estimates that the Houdini Project alone will add 2-3% to Obama’s electoral support nationally. So paranoid are they of electoral fraud on the behalf of the Republicans that they are keeping the final details of the project top secret until election day.

The Comeback Kid

With all the excitement that the weeks running up to a US presidential election brings, I couldn't resist coming back for a piece of the action to help out with the final push to get Barack elected. Availing of the teaching mid-term and the generosity of my work and college colleagues, I'm going to be in Albuquerque again today until November 5th, the day after Election Day. I will be assisting in what's called the GOTV drive - which stands for Get Out The Vote.


Although Mc Cain is trailing Obama in the polls, nothing can be left to chance. Every vote will count especially if we are to believe the extent to which certain pundits claim the 'Bradley Effect' will be a factor. Tom Bradley was an African American Democratic candidate for the California gubernatorial race in 1982. Despite being ahead in most polls in the lead-up to the election, he lost by a narrow margin to his white Republican rival, George Deukmejian. It was thought that race played an issue in the election and people said one thing to pollsters but did another in the privacy of the polling booth.


A lot has changed since I left Albuquerque in late August. For one, most analysts now classify it as 'leaning Obama' whereas it was still seen as a battleground swing state in late August. Since then as well, both candidates have announced their vice-presidential nominees and held their conventions. Joe Biden has more or less slipped under the radar as a steady moderate with 'respectable' white working class roots. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has really ruined any chances for Mc cain to gain ground on his infinitely more calm, sophisticated and charismatic opponent. In my opinion, it is now Obama's election to lose. The next couple of days will undoubtedly be interesting.