Chris Suellentrop has an interesting look inside the ground game for the Democrats and the Republican in Ohio. The Democrats have traditionally been better at on-the-ground politics than the Republicans, but since 2000 and 2002 the Republicans have steadily improved their ground game, culminating in the 72 Hour program to make sure that all Republicans get to the polls.
Both parties are at the top of their game, but demographically the Republicans have an advantage as Republican constituencies (married couples, evangelicals, etc) are more likely to vote than the Democratic bloc of singles and minority voters. The massive amount of voter fraud is another concern that may cause problems on Election Day and after.
As Suellentrop notes, Dean’s Iowa campaign collapsed long before the “I Have A Scream” speech. It will be interesting to see how much the Democrats have learned from Dean’s mistakes and if the Kerry ground game will be much more effective in getting voters to the polls than Dean was.
Republican voters are almost always more likely to show up at the polls than Democrats, so in the event that both parties have an equally adept GOTV operation, it would seem to favor Kerry. I don’t buy Rove’s speculation that millions of evangelicals didn’t bother to show up to vote four years ago. Even if it is true, one would have to surmise they’re “cafeteria evangelicals” who, because they were too lazy to vote, cannot be counted on for Bush in 2004 any more than they could in 2000. Comparing the meltdown of Howard Dean’s GOTV efforts in the primaries to those of John Kerry in the general election is apples and oranges. Dean voters simply had a change of heart when they determined Kerry was more electable. I wouldn’t count on these partisan Democratic primary voters having a similar change of heart in favor of George Bush.