If youre registered to vote and havent mailed in your ballot yet, someone wants to talk to you.
Campaigns have shifted into ballot chase mode, a voter-by-voter effort to win the election for their candidates for everything from county commissioner up to the president.
Both major parties headquarters in Denver get fresh reports before dawn each day about who has turned in ballots and who is still waiting. Registered Republicans and Democrats can expect to be hounded by their parties until they vote.
And unaffiliated voters can expect their phone to ring more often than the head cheerleaders the month before senior prom.
Politicos call this the ground game. Its where campaigns put to use the databases of supporters they have built up over the last several months, making sure volunteers connect with every potential voter and, whenever possible, get their votes locked up early.
Campaigns expect three quarters of Coloradans to vote before Election Day.
A winning ground game can boost its candidates share of the vote by 3 or 4 percentage points enough to make the difference between victory and defeat in a close election, said Mike Stratton, the get-out-the-vote coordinator for Democrats in the 3rd Congressional District.
Activity will build to a frenzy the weekend before Election Day.
The universe of people who havent voted, well know, and well be at those doors Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, Stratton said.
Stratton and Colorado Republican Chairman Ryan Call both visited campaign offices in the Four Corners on Wednesday, like generals inspecting the front lines on the eve of battle.
Call urged 13 retirement-age Republican volunteers to put in as much time as they could the next three weeks.
Keep our eye on the ball. Make phone calls. Knock on doors, he said during a visit to Durangos GOP Victory office, one of several state Republican campaign offices on the Western Slope.
Republican volunteers did not watch the presidential debate Tuesday because they were making phone calls for Mitt Romney, said Velbeth Jones, the partys La Plata County chairwoman. They did another shift of phone calls and door-knocking Thursday.
A generation gap or two separates the Republican and Democratic offices.
Young people buzz around in perpetual motion at the Obama for America office in Durango. Time cant be wasted with a little more than 400 hours until the polls close.
A sign on the refrigerator urges volunteers to make more calls faster: Some is not a number. Soon is not a time, it says.
Its all aimed at getting more volunteers in touch with more voters.
Theres no more important person in a campaign than a volunteer, said Stratton, a Durango native who managed presidential campaigns for Gary Hart and Bill Richardson.
Its emotion and passion that brings volunteers in. Its emotion and passion that gets people instead of knocking on one precinct of doors, two precincts of doors, Stratton said.
He thinks Democrats are well positioned for the election.
Ive been in 20 headquarters the last three days, and the kind of activity youre seeing here is going on all over, he said.
Obama has more than 50 campaign offices in Colorado, while Romney has 14. But Romney also relies on state party-funded Victory offices.
Call said Republicans wont be beat at the ground game.
Democrats like to brag about the number of offices, but I think the proof will come on Election Day when weve motivated our base and persuaded unaffiliated voters to come over to our side, he said.
joeh@cortezjournal.com
